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Author: Amy Kincaid

Monster Trucks!

Posted in apps, 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! 

review

author page

illustrator page

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monster trucks

 

comment from author

Texting Story with The Widow’s Broom

Posted in apps, 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!

texting story wb

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

WB

 

 

Creepy Carrots!

Posted in holiday, picture book lesson, and TTESS 1819

Second graders came to the Jackson Library today and had fun with an October classic, Creepy Carrots! We discussed cause and effect, read the story, and they identified causes and effects involving Jasper the rabbit. Sometimes they had to identify the cause and sometimes the effect.

CAUSE                                                         EFFECT

Jasper started taking carrots                   The carrots began to follow him

Jasper had nightmares.                            He called his dad in his bedroom.

Jasper was worried.                                  He devised a plan/idea.

Jasper built a fence.                                  The carrots were happy.

At the computer station, the kids played Carrot Crave on the Cool Math website. 

creepy carrots cause/effect

Creepy Carrots

carrot crave
Carrot Crave

Safeshare videoSafeshare

 

Be sure to get the sequel to Creepy Carrots, Creepy Pair of Underwear! Out now! 

 

Can You Stack the Cats?

Posted in apps

Can you stack the cats? Pre-K can! Both classes had fun with this Susie Ghahremani (@boygirlparty) book in the Jackson Library! I like how the cats want to be stacked in small groups so they don’t tumble- then the kids are adding 3 cats + 3 cats instead of 6 because what happens with 6 every time…? The story is perfect for Pre-K and the illustrations are delightful!  Fun!

stack the cats
Abrams reviews

Stack the Cats

stack up app
Step by Step stack up app

Monster Trouble

Posted in apps, and reading skills

Second graders enjoyed a fun read aloud in the Jackson Library last week titled Monster Trouble by Lane Fredrickson and illustrated by Michael Robertson. We follow Winifred Schnitzel, a little girl who is not easily frightened but is annoyed by monsters interrupting her sleep. She devises several plans to deter them with one finally succeeding in the end. Great opportunities abound for students to use context and picture clues to determine the meaning of unknown words in this story. I like how the author created Winifred full of gumption and innovation and I like how the illustrator gives each monster personality and conveys a myriad of emotions Winifred has when dealing with her annoying visitors. 

Here Wee Read Review
Click for Here Wee Read Review

m trouble pics

At the tables during check out, the kids enjoyed the interactive read aloud app, Even Monsters Get Sick.

Even Monsters Get Sick app

 

Michael Robertson illustration
Michael Robertson RT

There Was an Old Monster

Posted in apps, and holiday

Pre-K had fun today with the Emberley family story, There Was an Old Monster. First we read the story. Then the kids came and put the animals in the monster’s stomach in the order that he ate them. They were surprised at the end when a big neon lion came and ate the monster! We listened to Rebecca Emberley sing the fun song and we did the If You’re a Monster and You Know It dance. At the tables, the kids played with Sago Mini Monsters and Ed Emberley’s Go Away Big Green Monster apps. I am disappointed that the GABGM app is no longer available in the US – I still had it on my iPads from last year. It looks like now it is only available in the Romania iTunes store. Maybe they’ll add it back soon! Before we left, we sang Ms. Patterson’s class version of If You’re a Monster and You Know It. (video below)

pk monster fun

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Go Formative

Posted in apps, holiday, technology, and TTESS 1819

Fourth graders came to the library this week to explore different formative assessments. Yesterday we tried Pear Deck but it isn’t ideal for the library in that each student has to log in to his/her Google account and we have to share iPads (work in pairs). So today we tried GoFormative and loved it! I gave each pair of students a Pokemon character’s name on a card and that was their login. Then I gave them all the same password. I set up the class in advance on the site and I took screenshots of a Google Slides presentation I had ready about spooky poems. Then I entered the questions in GoFormative. I like all of the media possibilities- you can import a pdf, video, ask them to draw something on the screen, use multiple choice, audio, etc. I also like how the students can answer at their own pace. In the settings, I marked the choice for ‘after student submits.’ It will be interesting to see how this lesson goes the rest of this week!

go formative

 

Reading Comprehension of Literary Text/Poetry:  Students make inferences and draw conclusions about the structure and elements of poetry and provide evidence from text to support their understanding. Students are expected to explain how the structural elements of poetry (e.g., rhyme, meter, stanzas, line breaks) relate to form) (e.g. lyrical poetry, free verse).

 

assign share

Choose the assessment you want them to take (in background screen here) and then choose your class (Jackson Library).

step3

In optional settings, choose ‘return scores’= after student submits.

step2

Now give the students a QR code or bookmark the Go Formative login screen. Then they are ready to login and click their assignment.

SAMPLE STUDENT LOGIN CARD

charizard

 

@charizard    

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stu login

Go Formative pix

Spooky Poems

GoFormative stu ans

Fright School!

Posted in apps, holiday, picture book lesson, and reading skills

Last week in the Jackson Library, first graders had fun with a new spooky story, Fright School, by Janet Lawler. There are excellent vocabulary words in the story, so I created an interactive poster with words and corresponding pictures. We used context and the fun illustrations to determine the meanings of the words. During check out, we had fun with Amanda Noll’s I Need My Monster interactive storybook app and no spooky library lesson would be complete without doing The Monster Shuffle dance at the end!

words studied: scolds, seeping, relish, foul, clutch, quake, peer

 

 Fright School

Author site, video, quiz

Fright School lesson

I Need My Monster book app

Janet Lawler’s site

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