Learning is fun!
Posted in augmented reality, reading skills, technology, and third grade
Before the book fair, third graders explored Google’s Toontastic app to retell the story Oh No Astro! from the asteroid’s point of view. We used context clues when we read this story to determine the meaning of: rambunctious, loitering, humiliated, clarity, and confrontation. After the kids created their videos, they used NASA’s augmented reality app to look at spacecraft models in 3D!
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Stop by the Jackson Library to get your Thanksgiving Holiday books! They are on top of the shelves in the Holiday section.
Posted in assessment, book clubs, and fifth grade
Last week in the Jackson Library, the 5th grade book club reading Refugee tried out a quiz on the new platform, Gimkit. This Kahoot-like game was invented by high schoolers to up the stakes of traditional games. In this game, you can ‘bet on yourself’ and buy higher values per question if you get answers correct. But these higher values also apply to your deficit if you get answers wrong. It’s an interesting strategy-based game but the elementary set found it difficult. We had fun trying it out, though!
Posted in apps, first grade, holiday, and picture book lesson
Monster trucks, no literally, monsters driving trucks, invaded the library last week! We read Joy Keller’s fun book, Monster Trucks, and matched the specific monster with its truck: the ogre was in charge of the wrecking ball, the werewolf used the digging machine to dig up prehistoric bones, and the yeti ran the snowplow. The kids love this book! At the tables, they controlled their own trucks to build a house of their choosing with Sago Mini Trucks and Diggers. During check out, we watched Jon Scieszka’s Smash! Crash!
Posted in apps, fifth grade, holiday, picture book lesson, and TTESS 1819
Fifth graders “gathered around the fire, where embers of a dying flame glowed upon the hearth” (to quote from our story) in the Jackson Library this week. They huddled around the imaginary fire to hear a spooky story that is also a mystery to solve, The Widow’s Broom by Chris van Allsburg. We tacked STAAR strategies like using context clues, making inferences, and mapping the broom’s character traits. At the tables, the kids had a choice to use Texting Story to re-create a text message ‘conversation’ between two of the characters or to use Toontastic to animate one section of the story. They had fun and were so creative!
Teacher’s Guide for The Widow’s Broom
Widows Broom II questions
TEK 6: Reading Comprehension of Literary Text/Fiction: Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about the structure and elements of fiction and provide evidence from text to support their understanding. Students are expected to:
A) describe the incidents that advance the story or novel, explaining how each incident gives rise to foreshadow future events
B) explain the roles and functions of characters in various plots, including their relationships and conflicts
