Dr. Seuss Week!

Cat in the Hat Photo Credit: www.classroomjr.com

Last week was a whirlwind week.  But we had a lot of fun at Seward Elementary celebrating Dr. Seuss!  You would've thought I'd take pictures from each day to create a collage of the week...but I didn't!

Read Around the World with the Omaha Zoo

In December my principal, Mrs. Dominy, got a letter in the mail from the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo's Education Department about an upcoming reading contest to win a free trip to the zoo for the whole school. How fun would that be, right?!  Right away Mrs. Dominy and I were on board!  We asked the students at Seward Elementary to keep track of every book they read and to bring their reading sheet to the library.  The contest started on December 16, 2013 and ended February 28, 2014.  That is a long time to keep track of reading!  And our students did an amazing job!

In the cafeteria we have a huge brick wall that rarely is used for displays.  I took this as an opportunity to display our reading achievements.  Each class chose a country and I printed off the country's flag with the teacher's name on the side, then the student paw prints would line underneath it.  For every twenty books the student read, they got to write their name on a paw print. Just look at all those paw prints!

Every couple weeks we tried to have incentives for the class that had the most sheets turned in or the class that improved the most since the start of the competition.  The incentives included cupcakes made by our amazing library para (and also cupcake baker), an extra recess, participation in a library display, and finally a dance party.

This is what 15 pounds of reading sheets looks like!

Unfortunately, we didn't win the competition.  Congratulations goes to Randolph Elementary in Randolph, Nebraska for winning the free trip. They read an average of 99 books per students.  But, we did rank fourth place out of fifty schools!!  Our school read a total of 27,371 books, that is an average of 55 books per student.  I think that is pretty impressive.  Even though we didn't win, the Omaha Zoo did remind us of some free resources that they offer, that you may find useful, too.  Here is more information about their Distance Learning.

Mrs. Dominy and I couldn't resist the urge to do something to celebrate.  After we exchanged many ideas we decided to end of our crazy Dr. Seuss celebration week with a dance party.  Who doesn't like to move it, move it?  Or...how can you NOT feel HAPPY about reading so many good books!!??

Biography Bottles

This month I asked the five sections of fourth grade to participate in our Biography Bottle project.  There are so many fabulous examples out there on Pinterest, where the idea came from.  We had already done a biography research project and thought it would be a fun extension of that project.  The four fourth graders that chose to participate on this project enjoyed it and were very proud of their work!  One student did his project on Alton Brown, the Food Network star.  We added Alton Brown's Twitter handle to his picture on our @SESBluejays Twitter feed and Alton Brown retweeted it!  I haven't see a fourth grader beam the way Jack did in a long time! It was a pretty fun experience for him!  

Balloons Over Broadway

Photo Credit: http://melissasweet.net/ 

Every year growing up at home my family had a tradition.  We would wake up, help mom get the food started for our meal, then we would curl up in front of the TV to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  I think as soon as the parade started mom enjoyed the peace, quiet, and solitude she had when she was in the kitchen without us in her way!  My dad is a huge Broadway and marching band fanatic and his enthusiasm has oozed onto me!  I love being able to get a glimpse of "city life" and dreaming of traveling to the amazing NYC to see the parade in person some day.  So, you can imagine my excitement when I stumbled across the book Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet.  It is a beautifully written book written about Tony Sarg, the puppeteer of Macy's parade.  The week before Thanksgiving I got the idea to have the fourth graders create SES' own Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in our cafeteria.  I asked them to think of book characters that kids would recognize and create that for the parade. Next year, I will allow more time for them to study the history and to also have more creative time to create their masterpieces.  Here is how this year's turned out...the kids were stoked about it.  And they got a ton of compliments!

Rock Out with Dewey!

I'm working on a Dewey Decimal Classification System unit for my 4th graders.  One of my favorite things to help introduce the DDCS is this song that I found online.  Some people are SOOOOO creative, wouldn't you agree?  This is song is dedicated to all my librarian friends out there:

http://www.lemonswedge.com/dewey-decimal-rock-song

Storybook Pumpkin Patch

When I saw this idea on Pinterest I fell in LOVE!!  The Pumpkin Book Project was our library display for the month of October.  I invited all of our 2nd graders to participate.  They wrote a description of their book including character traits and decorated a pumpkin to leave on display in the library.  This year was exceptional!  We had some amazingly creative kiddos create AWESOME pumpkins! Fifty-six to be exact! How awesome is that?! I created a Certificate of Participation for each student, as well.  Our library is eerily empty now!  I can't wait for the next library display for November! Stay tuned!

What is a blog?!?

This is the second year I have taught technology at the Middle School.  I enjoy it!  A lot! It is fun to rebuild those relationships with the kiddos that I had when they were cute little third graders.  They haven't changed too much so it feels like we just pick up where we left off and enjoy each other.  At least I like to think so.

My seventh grade class is basically an introduction to technology tools while the eighth grade class is a multimedia class.  It is a fast paced time together.  We only get something like thirty days together!  Crazy, right?! Right now the eighth graders are creating some pretty amazing iMovies based on their life so far.  It is fun to watch their creations come to life.  We also have a lot of fun using Photoshop for picture editing.  Its been a fun learning experience for us all.  Of course the seventh graders come in after the eighth graders and drool over what they're working on and keep thinking about how the grass is greener on the other side.

Today the seventh graders came in and I start our conversation off by talking about the Blogger's Code of Ethics.  I asked them if they knew what a "code of ethics" was.  They didn't know.  I asked if they knew what "ethics" were. They didn't.  So we back tracked a little bit.  I brought up examples of code of ethics other professions use: nurses, psychologists, doctors, teachers, writers, etc.   Just as I was about to move on I was interrupted by our awesome school counselor to talk about a student.  I asked the kiddos to talk to each other about if there is a middle school code of ethics they follow without even realizing that they do, while I speak with our school counselor just aside of the class. While I'm talking with our school counselor I hear an uproar of voices talking.  Score! Conversation! On topic? Who knows!  When I opened the door back up they were all sitting quiet as mice, all with their hands raised and waiting for me.  So you can imagine my surprise when I walk in to see SEVENTH graders, sitting, and QUIET!  I just kind of slowly walked in, waiting for doom to hit, and just kind of weasel out, "Sooo? What's up?"  They all say at the same time, "What is a blog?!!?"  My head was spinning.  How could they not know what a blog was?!  We pulled up the definition of a blog and then I showed them some examples of a blog.  We talked about how a blog has a purpose and mine for example, has a purpose to communicate about teaching at the elementary and middle schools in library and technology.  So for me to add a post about eating some amazing tasting mac-n-cheese really wouldn't be appropriate.  Guess what they will be starting on Monday?!  BLOGS, you betcha! Why didn't I think to do this sooner with the other rotations?!  Live and learn!