A DINO Mite Month!

The theme of the spring Scholastic Book Fair is DINO-Mite. Dinosaurs are such a fun theme, and so many students are already interested in the topic. In the library, we planned dinosaur themed activities and read dinosaur books this whole month in order to get pumped up for the book fair.

Some of the books we read:

We also made a display of picture books and dinosaur fact books that students were able to check out.

The Kindergartners and 1st graders went on a Dinosaur Hunt in the library. It was alot of work to set it up for each class, but they all enjoyed it. We turned the lights off and made the library as dark as we could. I put a YouTube clip of Jurassic Jungle sounds on the smartboard, which gave us some light (so the kids wouldn't be scared) and added to the atmosphere:

We cut out dinosaur footprints and made a path through the shelves, which the students had to follow. Along the way, they were looking for dinosaur eggs. We used plastic Easter eggs (on clearance at Hobby Lobby after the holiday), and inside each each was a tiny glowstick, which made them glow in the dark. They had to crawl through a cave at the end (really, the tables all lined up) and then they got to meet Bob the Dinosaur (graciously loaned by my son), who had some eggs, too, in case a student didn't find one along the way:

We let them open their eggs once they were seated on the carpet together, and they got to adopt the baby dinosaurs inside the eggs. For the Read Together, we chose Can I Have a Stegosaurus, Mom? by  Lois Grambling.

The 2nd graders did an entry in their art journals, making little dinosaur skeletons out of cotton swabs on dinosaur silhouettes that I printed out:

And the 3rd graders made dinosaur skeletons on the ground, using paper towel tubes, following our reading of Barnum's Bones by Tracey Fern, which recounts the discovery of the T-rex by Barnum Brown.

Even though each class did the same activity, all the dinosaur skeletons turned out different, and I enjoyed  seeing the students have so much fun with something as simple as cardboard tubes.

 

We have a few other things up our sleeves for the DINO-Mite book fair, so you haven't heard the last of this!

Good Old Days poem

My school was fortunate today to host author Ralph Fletcher. He did several presentations for the students, and our faculty meeting was a workshop on teaching writing.

One technique he spoke about was introducing students to a poem, and letting them use the opening and closing lines as a guide, and then creating the middle content themselves.

He read us his own poem "The Good Old Days" and projected it on the screen, and invited us to try doing this at some point ourselves.

Well, I couldn't wait. I found a piece of paper and a pencil right away, and tried to match the mood of his poem with my own nostalgic memories of cozy, quiet childhood moments.

This is what I came up with:



Sometimes I remember the good old days.  .  .

The soft darkness in my room on winter mornings-

The clunk of the furnace kicking on and
the smell of my flannel pillow case,
fabric softener and familiarity

Car headlights dancing on my walls as mom's car pulls out of the driveway

The low steady breathing of my faithful mutt,
lying on the floor next to my bed.

I let my arm fall over the side of my bed,
to find her shape and feel the fur,
and we share the quietness a moment longer.

I still can't imagine anything better than that.


If you're interested in reading his original poem, you can read it here.

I'm hoping to plan some poetry units for next April using this technique.

Subject Dividers

I can't take credit for this idea; I read about it on one of my librarian Facebook group pages. But it was a very good thing I happened to see that post, because upcycling and repurposing materials is something that I believe very strongly in.

I have been on a mission to make the library more easily navigable by the students; even the Kindergarteners should be able to find some books on their own. One way of helping students know the library collection better is to have everything as clearly labeled as possible. Many times, students will come up to me or my co-workers, in the midst of a busy checkout time, and say "Can you show me where the books on mummies/the Titanic/lions/dinosaurs are?" It's not a big deal when it's one student, but when you have an entire class of students wanting personalized tours of the collection, and there's only 10 minutes left in their class time, it's not feasible.

So, when I saw this idea on making for subject dividers for books shelves, practically for free, I knew what my next project would be.

I have an excess of outdated encyclopedias, thesauruses and other reference books right now. The information is outdated, and thrift stores don't want them so it becomes a nuisance trying to figure out what to do with them. 

So, I figured I would put them to work. I covered the spines  in bright blue duct tape. Then I used a sharpie marker to write the names of some of our most popular topics on them.

Then, the subject dividers just sit on the shelves ahead of the Dewey classification they represent.

Now, if a student asks for books about mummies, instead of saying "Go to section 393.3 in the non-fiction collection, I can show them the section, next to the bright blue duct tape, and they'll know where to go next time they want to read about that good ol' King Tut.

Speaking of whom, I recently with draw a book titled "How to Make a Mummy Talk" so I decided to take a selfie with everyone's favorite pharaoh:

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