Idiom Activities

The new Commom core standards indicate that students should know about figurative language, including idioms.  Luckily for me, I've always loved word play, and already had a few activities under my belt (more figurative language)!

I also like to have the kids use technology to create their own illustrated idiom show.  I use PowerPoint, it's an important program for kids to be comfortable with.  Students LOVE the clip art, and I like not having to worry about citing sources for images from the web.

Our library has some great books about idioms, and the web has a plethora of games for kids to challenge themselves with. 

http://www.literacysites.com/idiomactivities-online.htm

Balancing Butterflies

In addition to all the fabulous nonfiction butterfly books in the 595 section of the library, I have some favorite works of fiction as well, some fanciful, some realistic.  After the story, students enjoy coloring and cutting out magical balancing butterflies to rest on their fingers.  These butterflies enchant my 1st & 2nd graders.  Kinders are a little too young to make these without help. download the template HERE

Bunny Stories

Oh my goodness, there are so many wonderful bunny stories to tell. Obviously, the rabbit books are popular with little ones at Easter, but how about reading Guess How Much I Love You for Mother's Day, or Muncha Muncha Muncha in late spring when the garden starts to sprout?  Finish up the story hour with a cute wiggle-ear toy paper rabbit.

Owl Babies

I've tried checking books out to students for the summer, and with my school population, it didn't work out too well. Too many of my kiddos move unexpectedly, or travel long distances between family members. As a result, I must find interesting and meaningful activities for the kids to complete during the times when they would ordinarily be browsing. One such project is making these cute Owl Baby puppets out of envelopes. The kids love puppets of any kind, and these are fun to color and personify. I use them with the following books:

And here's how to make the owl handpuppets:

You can download the envelope file for printing HERE (microsoft Publisher) or HERE (PDF)

15 seconds of fame

Hawthorne Elementary upgrades library with digital activities



Lucky Me!

The Missoulian came and did a piece on me this week.  the reporter did a wonderful job distilling our hour-long interview into a readable and interesting piece.  The photographer came the following day.  Although he spent an hour and took hundreds of photographs, he managed to choose some pretty cranky-looking images.  Ah well.

It's always nice to advocate for my field as best as I can.  I feel that some of my colleagues are probably more articulate than I am, but none of them are more enthusiastic!  I truly love my job, and feel pretty passionately about how important libraries can be in schools.

Voice Thread for the Treasure State Book Award

I used to love Voice Thread.  I always used it for the students to comment on the titles nominated for the annual Treasure State Award.  Now, I am unable to log in on more than one device, so it has turned into an activity that we all do as a class, instead of letting the students work independently.

So, really, the advantages of using Voice Thread are diminished.  If I want to use it with more than one person at a time, I have to pay $80 a year.  I may as well use ThingLink, LinoIt or Padlet- at least I can embed those tools!

Just for this year, I decided to go ahead and use VoiceThread for this year's project.  The students get to record their thoughts on each of the 4 titles we read, then we vote for the book we love most. This year, the overwhelming favorite was Jangles by David Shannon

QR Code Poetry Readings

The 4th and 5th graders have been working with our poet in residence, and have built up nice portfolios.  After spring break, I will have the kids make audio recordings of their poems on the ipods and email them to my Dropbox account.  From there I will get a public link and paste the link into a Google doc.  The Google doc has a bit of script that automatically generates a QR code for each URL.  I print the codes and pass them out.

The kids glue them onto posters advertising their poetry.  The reading community scans the code to hear the poem.  I loaned out devices, but borrowers had to leave their shoes as collateral!

Kids also made cards for National Poetry Week to leave for random people at local restaurants. Each card had a code for people to scan, as well as a greeting from the reader.  I hope they brightened someone's day!

Abc Order

I have so many favorite Alphabet books! At this point in the year, I like to think that most of my kindergartners have mastered the letter names and sounds, and are ready to master other skills related to the alphabet, namely putting the letters in alphabetical order.

 To this end, today we will play an active little whole-brain game that I call Too far, not far enough...
The Rules:
 Post an alphabet strip on both sides of the room. (Older kids won't need this)
 Choose one child to be "it". They turn their back to the whiteboard(to start, choose one who is pretty confident with ABC order)
 I write a letter on the whiteboard (eg; "F")
 "it" guesses a letter. (eg; "S") Class jumps up. (S is "too far")
 "it" guesses again. (eg; D) Class squats down (the guess is "not far enough" or occurs too early in the alphabet.
Play continues until "it" guesses the correct letter.


I also use an ipod app that has draw-by-number AND draw-by-ABC order connect-the dot puzzles.
 It's called Kids Connect.  The kids love a chance to play with the ipods.  The letters and numbers are teensy weensy, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for anyone but me!

Yearbook

Each year I have the kids put together a 5th grade class yearbook.  I am hoping that I can get these together and ordered before the end of next week so that the print copies will arrive before school lets out.
This is the rubric I use to assess their biographical sketches, and a link to last year's yearbook:

2013 Hawthorne School Yearbook

By michele nokleby in Student Publications

54 pages, published 6/5/2013

The 5th graders from Hawthorne Elementary put together a yearbook every spring. This the 2013 iteration.