Population Density - Room 9

Grade 4 is wrapping up a world geography unit by looking at population density. Students put their countries' area and population into Excel, and we sorted and ran a formula to see how many people lived in each square mile.

Then we practiced reading visual representations of data with this map:

source: wikipedia.org

Which continents are the most densely populated?

Here's a hint ... one of the cities on one of the continents is Tokyo, where the subway is so crowded that people get squished onto the train cars by professional "pushers." Here's video evidence:

Mock Caldecott Finalists - Final Batch

source: simonandschuster.com

Gaston

Words: Kelly DiPucchio
Pictures: Christian Robinson

Mrs. Poodle has four children: Fi-fi, Foo-foo, Ooh la la, and Gaston. He doesn't really look like his sisters. He doesn't really act like his sisters (although he tries). When they meet Mrs. Bulldog and her four children - three boys and a girl - at the park, the two families think that maybe there's been a mixup. Or has there?

I was so happy that a student in each class was able to articulate the message of the book: just be yourself, and accept others for being themselves as well.

source: simonandschuster.com

Some Bugs

Words: Angela DiTerlizzi
Pictures: Brendan Wenzel

Rhyming text, vivid verbs, and fantastic illustrations add up to a fun readaloud. I may use it in the future to kick off a first-grade insect classification unit.

Mock Caldecott Finalists - Batch 3

Circle, Square, Moose!

Words: Kelly Bingham
Pictures: Paul O. Zelinsky

source: harpercollins.com

If you've read Z is for Zebra, then you've already met Moose. He LOVES to be the center of attention, and he thinks that he deserves to be included as a star character in every book. This one got a lot of belly laughs from first graders.

The trailer below includes the voices of lots of famous children's authors and illustrators ... make sure to watch the credits.

source: harpercollins.com

Go, Go, Go, Stop!

Charise Mericle Harper

When I started going through picture books getting "Caldecott buzz" over the summer, this was one of the first ones I put in the "my kids will like this" pile. I was not wrong. It could be because of the construction vehicles; it could be because the kids got to yell "Go!" and "Stop!" Either way, I'm glad they liked it.

Mock Caldecott Finalist - Sam and Dave Dig a Hole

source: macbarnett.com

Sam and Dave Dig a Hole

Words: Mac Barnett
Pictures: Jon Klassen

I had so much fun reading this one, because the text NEEDS the pictures to give the full effect: Sam and Dave keep JUST missing "something spectacular" as they dig their hole. The students were FREAKING out as they dug next to, around, and below humongous jewels.

Here are Mac and Jon acting out some of the book:

And if you'd like tips on How to Dig a Hole, check out this episode of "Digging Deep with David Rees."

7 Continents and 5 Oceans with Grade 4

Fourth-graders are learning about maps and atlases.

How quickly can you correctly identify the world's continents and oceans on your first try? 

If you need a refresher before clicking the link above, watch this video.

If you'd like to be able to identify the countries on each continent, try playing the geography games on freerice.com. This site donates 10 grains of rice to the World Food Programme for every correct answer.

Don't Let the Pigeon Touch the Books! - AM K

In kindergarten, we are discussing book care in preparation for the students' first checkout; they are going to teach THE PIGEON some rules.

In case you haven't been introduced to the Pigeon yet, he is the star of a series of books by Mo Willems; the first one is Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! We read that and Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!, and I am happy to report that the students resisted his arguments. Then we watched this video:

The students compiled a list of rules that the Pigeon should know. For example:

DO	DON'T
read your books nicely	color in your book
keep them away from pets	put lipstick on the books
put your books back	rip the pages

In our next class, we drew our own Pigeons; Mo Willems has step-by-step instructions for drawing the Pigeon on his site. Then each student chose a rule to teach him. Here is what AM K came up with:

Boney Research - Room 4

Second graders took notes for the first time in library, listening to Dem Bones by Bob Barner and learning such information as:

• Where is your patella? 
• How many vertebrae are in your spine? 
• Where is your clavicle? 
• How many bones are in your foot? 
• Which bone is the longest? 

Then we created a list of questions they had about bones and practiced using a table of contents to find the answers. Here are some of the facts they learned:

• A muscle is attached to a bone by a tendon. 
• Bones are made of water and calcium. 
• Broken bones can heal themselves, but they can't move during the process.
• Joints have different names. One kind is a ball and socket.

And here they are at work:

If you'd like to know more about bone names, the Animaniacs can tell you:

Three of These Things with Room 2

We talked about sorting and categories in first grade, since the students are learning how the library is set up so they can choose their own books. After sorting some objects, we watched this classic video:

Then the students created their own "Three of These Things" game board. After viewing their creations below, you can play an online game to see how good you are at figuring out what is different. The link is at the end of this post.

Click here to play the game.

Happy Halloween!

Songs of the Seasons

source: harpercollins.com

In kindergarten, the students helped me read an interactive book called Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson. We knocked on the trunk, jiggled the book, blew away fallen leaves, closed our eyes and counted to 10 ... and after every action, the tree had changed with the seasons!

We followed up the reading with a discussion of the seasons and how they encompass different months and holidays, like Halloween. I now know what all the kids are dressing up as (and was happy to hear that one will be a Ghostbuster ... nice to know they're still around).

Finally, we watched some old-school Sesame Street videos with songs about the seasons. Enjoy!

RICBA Book Trailers 2

Here are a few of the other titles that kids were interested in, but we ran out of time to watch:


Gaby, Lost and Found by Angela Cervantes
click on title to access book trailer on Scholastic's site

Doll Bones by Holly Black




Athlete vs. Mathlete by WC Mack

RICBA Book Trailers 1

Room 9 went through the Rhode Island Children's Book Award list today and watched book trailers for several of the titles. We didn't have time to see all of them, but here's what we did get to:


Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein
click on title to access book trailer on SchoolTube


Spirit Animals by Brandon Mull




Rump by Liesl Shurtliff




Charlie Bumpers v. The Teacher of the Year by Bill Harley



Mountain Dog by Margarita Engle

Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo - AM K

I remember being introduced to a ton of great books via the Reading Rainbow TV show. One such title is Abiyoyo, a South African lullaby adapted by none other than Pete Seeger. I shared it with the kindergartners, who enjoyed singing along. ZOOP!

AM K students drew pictures of what they would make disappear if they had a magic wand like the father in the story.