Summer Activities in the Library: Racing Around the World

So this week was my 2nd Wednesday of my "Summer in the Library" activities.  This is my 2nd year doing this program.  Last year, I skipped around days, not sure what day would be popular (and trying to fit everyone's schedule).  This year, I decided on Wednesdays, came up with some new themes, repeated a favorite (Minecraft), and voila!  here I am!

Because my summer life isn't as relaxing and time free as I wished, (massive house cleaning and ridding out things going on at home!), I'm blogging about my first two Wednesdays that already passed.  But, to give you a peek at what I'm talking about, this is the schedule I sent home with parents, advertise on Facebook, have on the school calendar, and when I can, the school Facebook page.  Note that I invite all - all ages, not necessarily have to be a student and, because where I live/work, we are surrounded by different counties, not necessarily a student in our district!  That way, it's also open to homeschooling families, cousins, family, neighbors, etc.  I've gotten a pretty good response so far, despite vacations, swim lessons, Vacation Bible School, Summer School, etc.

I saw the idea of an Amazing Race:  Library Edition from a public library and ran with it!  Because of size limitations, abilities, resources, etc, I adapted it to my school library.  I decided to go with continents, rather than countries/cities.  I also wasn't sure how long it would take each person to complete each task (it took about an hour for everyone to go "around the world" except for a few who wanted to go around and do it again).  Like the TV reality show, there were "Roadblocks" where you had to do the task and "Detours" where you had a choice.  I got very favorable feedback from kids (I even had some high school kids come!) and parents.  

Here are a few pictures from the day:

Africa:  Roadblock!  Students learned how to play Mancala and then created their own from egg cartons to take home and play!

North America:  Detour:  Match pictures of landmarks to their names OR create a family/personal totem (the papers explain what each animal represents), and they cut those out and glued to wood paint sticks

Asia:  Detour:  Create an origami butterfly OR using instruction sheets, learn to write in Chinese characters

Antarctica:  Detour:  Learn about penguins from a short video and then put them in order from smallest to largest OR migrate with the arctic tern (draw the migration route and then "fly" around the room/route)

South America:  Roadblock:  Students created a Mayan temple using wooden blocks (the Jenga pieces were perfect for this!) 

Creating totems

Chinese Writing (papers from Education.com)

Creating Mancala games

Mayan temple

Migrating with the Arctic Tern

Playing and creating Mancala in Africa

Mayan temple:

2 more Mayan temples (they loved I kept taking pictures!)

If you're interested in seeing more, click {here} for TPT and {here} for Teachers Notebook.

Children's Book Week

Children's Book Week is May 2-6 this year, but unfortunately, that's when our state testing starts for our 3-5 grades.  So, we're going to celebrate a week early!  I thought I'd share some of the activities I have planned for the week of April 25.

First, you gotta have dress up days, right?  We've been talking genres in our library this Spring with 2-5, so I thought it would be fun to keep up with that theme!

Also, each day on the announcements, we went along with the same theme and, although some are a little lengthy, I think they're good, if I do say so myself! :)

Also, you gotta have a photo booth, right?  It was so popular during Read Across America Week, I brought it back!  I have a few quotes students can hold up, as well as favorite books from the library and/or stuffed animals based on books!  They'll do this after our lesson during our activity/Makerspace/check out time.

Also, of course, the official ALA poster as well as the bookmarks, both past and present, available.

Then, on Friday, help!  Some of the shadows (ala Peter Pan) got loose from the book characters, and students need to find them!  A fun little scavenger hunt throughout the school.

Also, each day outside the library, I'm having different activities available that students can take as they go by hanging from a hook in a dry erase pocket (I love those things!).

I wanted to not only share the ideas, but also the resources I have gathered and because I don't want to infringe on any copyright issues, just click {here} to take you to my Google Drive folder with all the activities and downloads (not available in any stores!  Hah!).  Have a great week!

April Means Poetry Month for Fifth Graders!

It's hard to get fifth graders motivated for many things, especially in the Spring AND the fact that their resource time is at the end of the day.  So, in essence, they've already "clocked out" for the day.  It does mean they're more than a handful some days!  Thank goodness for our Makerspace - they LOVE that!  So, when I have to do other activities with them that supersede the Makerspace, well, they're not happy.  (Gosh, it's like they have to WORK in school!).

Traditionally, the librarian at our school has always helped the fifth grade teachers by doing a poetry/figurative language unit in April.  Last year, I was so excited and found my favorite all time poem - Jabberwocky - on video and showed it to them.  Then, we looked at copies of the poem and circled figurative language/nonsense words.  Yeah, I think I was the only one excited about it except for maybe 5 total students. :(  I did the best I could with the rest of the unit but there was a lot of grumbling and protests about doing this during resource.

So, this year, I wanted to make sure I was more on top of things as well as making it more fun and active for the students.  Yes, I'll still have those grumblers, but maybe not as many!

First, I asked the writing teacher which figurative language concepts were most important to focus on (similes/metaphors, personification, idioms, and hyperbole).  Then, I created a pretest/survey for students using Google Docs.  You can access it {here} if you'd like to look at it.  I'm planning on asking students to complete it during this week before Spring Break so we can start rolling after break!

This weekend, I've tried to get a head start on planning the unit.  The responses from the survey will give me an idea of how much time to spend on each concept and, frankly, which classes need help where.  Although I'm already planning activities for each concept, I figure even if I don't use them, I can save them for next year's group.  Now in my second year of the Library, I feel I have a better feel for lessons and have even reorganized my filing cabinet and hopefully spend less time "planning" next year and be able to pull files and teach!

Using Pinterest as an inspiration, I looked first at Idioms.  We have this great book called Even More Parts by Tedd Arnold I'll read to students.  Then, we'll watch the video I found {here} about idioms and complete an activity where students use pictures to figure out the idioms.  Since I'm not sure if these are copyright friendly, I'll share it {here} but won't on my teacher stores.  Then, using a sheet I found on another site, students have to pick and draw an idiom to define its real meaning and use it in a sentence.  I figure I can give this to the teacher for a grade!

With similes and metaphors, I figured I'd best not push my luck with the worksheet.  So, after reading Skin Like Milk, Hair of Silk by Brian P Cleary, we'll make it a little more "real life" by looking at quotes from some of my students' favorite books and authors.  To make it a bit more interactive, I have QR codes on each quote so students can scan to see if they guessed simile or metaphor correctly.  I'm not sure if I"ll do it like a Scoot, where students move to each table and work in a group or not.  Either way, I've uploaded the activity on TPT and TN if you'd like to see it closer.

So, I'm left with Personification and Hyperbole.  These should be fun, but I'll save them for another post (and maybe get home by dinnertime so my husband doesn't complain!).

Women's History Month

I had the great idea to do a scavenger hunt with my students for women's history month - so great of an idea, apparently I did it last year as well!  So, I made sure NOT to duplicate the women chosen from last year and instead, highlighted 20 new women!  It really helped that Educlips offered a women's history bundle in her store which I grabbed!  I have a small women's history book display in the library, but I'm determined to not let it slide by like last year!

I'm so excited by my selections this year!  I love teaching students about REAL people - between Black History Month in February and Women's History Month in March!  I'm excited that I am not just sticking with American women.  I really have stressed diversity this year and honestly, looking at some of our Presidential candidates, it scares me diversity is not a big issue with them!  Sooo....it's up to the educators to teach our young ones that diversity is AWESOME!

Here are some of the women I'm highlighting this month, and the books I'm using:

Brad Meltzer's series:  " Ordinary People Change the World", we're highlighting Lucille Ball and Amelia Earhart. (I LOVE this series and can't wait for more!!!!!)
  

I fear his Jane Goodall book won't come out in time, so I'm also using:  Me....Jane by Patrick McDonnell


Dear Malala, We Stand with You by Rosemary McCarney with Plan International


Irena Sendler and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto by Susan Goldman Rubin

and Queen of the Falls by Chris Van Allsburg


I love highlighting these different women - some known, others not so known, and introducing them to students!  Then, add on a scavenger hunt with other women and students are really into the biographies and reading more!

Last year, I created "Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice" which highlighted 16 women

This year, I have a second scavenger hunt I'll put out for the third week of March (because that last week is spring break!) that features 20 NEW women to learn about!

If you're interested in either, you can click on the pictures for TPT and {here} for Teacher's Notebook.