Pete the Cat - I Love My White Shoes - Live Telling

September 30th! Track Out....

What a last week we have had in the media center. For a breakdown, here goes...

Most Third Grade classes listened to Dogku, by Andrew Clements. We discussed poems and some of the formats, especially Haiku. After enjoying the story we discussed Acrostic poems and how they were supposed to be the easiest or most simple to write. I introduced the telephone "cell phone" poem. Of course the students got all excited about this format and wanted to explore...part of my plan. They began to write their own poems using the formats we discussed. They chose the type and title or focus of their poem and shared with the class.

Most Fourth grade classes continued to dig up interesting facts about Roald Dahl using his official site roalddahl.com and place the information into an acrostic poem format, remembering that each word or phrase needed to support the topic...Roald Dahl.

Most Fifth graders finished viewing National Geographic's, Lewis and Clark Expedition. They were taking notes (part of research) about the challenges and unbelieveable events that led to the exploration of a western passage. We will take these notes and begin to organize them in a logical way when we return.

Most Kindergarten classes enjoyed meeting Pete the Cat. We explored You Tube for the author and illustrator who put on a live concert at a library. The students danced, read and followed along with the story. How much fun is reading! See above post...

Most First grade classes completed the story Max's Dragon where we listened for rhyming words embedded in the story...They became so excited when they heard the rhyming words and couldn't wait to share their knowledge.

Most Second grade classes listened to the book written by Patricia Polacco titled,
Appelemondo. Appelemando lives in a very drab, uninteresting village. For him, dreaming is a way of life. Whenever the boy dreams, his four friends can actually see them. They drift up from the top of his head in paintbox colors and, at one point, literally change their somber world.

Thunder Cake!

The second graders have been reading personal narratives written by Patricia Polacco. This week our focus was on discussing fears we have and how we overcome our fears or are in the process of overcoming things we are afraid of. Patricia was extremely afraid of thunderstorms and her grandmother distracted her by gathering ingredients for making "thunder cake." Between reading about thunder cake and my daughter telling me she was going to thaw her wedding cake from last year, I decided to make Patricia Polacco's, Thunder Cake. Delicious! Below is the recipe from Patricia Polacco's official website:

Thunder Cake!

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together one at a time:
1 cup shortening
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs, separated
( blend yolks in. Beat whites until they are stiff, then fold in.)


1 cup cold water
1/3 cup pureed tomatoes

Sift together:
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup dry cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Mix dry mixture into creamy mixture. Bake in two greased and floured 8
1/2 inch pans at 350 degrees for
35 to 40 minutes. Frost with chocolate butter frosting. Top with
strawberries.

ENJOY!!!

Happy First Anniversary to my daughter and her husband

Heather and Andrew at Carolina Inn, Chapel Hill, NC with UNC mascot, Rameses. September 25, 2010

Rotation Week "6"

Yes! We have just completed another rotation of classes! What a great past six days. Let me share with you what the students have completed.

Kindergarteners enjoyed two of Eric Carle's read alouds titled, The Very Clumsy Click Beetle and

The Very Lonely Firefly. I began storytime with the lights off and I taught them a "scary" fingerplay called Creep Them. We left the lights off as I explained to them about fireflies are not actually flies, but soft bellied beetles. We shared stories about going out at dusk at the beginning of summer and catching fireflies. Scientists still don't know what causes their "cold organ" to glow. We learned this from the author's note at the beginning of the book as well as using a non fiction text to look at photographs of real lightning bugs. We truly enjoyed the story and at the end the fireflies' bellies lit up! This was why I wanted to keep the lights off so the students could see them very clearly. We continued to read The very clumsy click beetle, saw photographs of a real click beetle and followed up with a game of sorting fiction books and nonfiction books.

First graders enjoyed another dragon story about a little girl who finds an egg which hatches into a (you guessed it), dragon! The title of the book is Raising Dragons. Afterwards we divided up into two groups and played a game called Fact or Fiction. I tried desperately to try to trick the students into believing dragons were real, but they were too smart for me.

Second graders viewed a DVD titled Rechenka's Eggs, by Patricia Polacco. What a beautiful heartwarming story. After the story, Patricia Polacco demonstrated how to make pysanky eggs while talking about her grandmother who taught her years ago how to make these Ukrainian decorated eggs.

Third grade students discussed fix up strategies while reading. In other words, what do you do when you come to a word you don't know? They certainly have some ideas to help them now. To practice these strategies I read a book by Jon Scieszka titled, Baloney (Henry P.) Many of the words are foreign, however by using picture support, context clues, activating prior knowledge, listening to me read ahead as well as listening to the sounds within the words or words within words, they were able to decode fairly easily.

Fourth graders completed the condensed version of Danny the Champion of the World. We are now prepared to go to the computers this coming week to learn more about Roald Dahl's childhood, school years and life as a very famous author.

Fifth graders enjoyed another selection from Guys Write for Guys Read. I read Andy Griffiths' (Not the Andy on TV Land with Barney and Opey)selection titled, My Dad is better than your Dad! We continued to work on our Interactive PowerPoint Slides about Lewis and Clark, finding locations of the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Ocean, North Carolina, drawing the Mississippi River on the slide (talk about fine motor skills), Pennsylvania, Missouri, and the city of St. Louis. The reason we are filling in with these points of interest is they directly correlate with the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Another "rotation" in the Library

Wow! It's hard to believe another rotation of 36 classes has come through the library over the past six days. We have morning circulation up and running with help from our fifth grade student volunteers who has so generously given their time to shelve books, help students find books, check in books, check out books, place books on the cart and deliver books and materials to teachers. I don't know what I would do without them!

...On to what we have learned in media specials the past "rotation."

Fifth graders have listened to another selection from Guys Write for Guys Read, compiled by Jon Scieszka. We enjoyed Jack Prelutsky's, A Day at the Zoo. Afterwards we just learned how to insert a map to use as an interactive map for our Lewis and Clark expedition. We will be adding to the map as we learn more about Lewis and Clark, Sacajawea, the Corps of Discovery and Seaman. (More in later posts. This is a major process.)

Fourth graders have listened to an extract from Roald Dahl and all but one class has finished the VERY condensed version of Danny, the Champion of the World, in the Roald Dahl Treasury. Tuesday, September 13 would have been Roald Dahl's 95th birthday if he was still with us today. We celebrated with a trivia question for a Peach Award (based on the book James and the Giant Peach. It was published in the states 50 years ago this year. We will be focusing on going to his website and reading about his childhood and testing our knowledge about many of the books he has written.

Third graders have focused on using the online search stations and searching independently for their books on the shelves. We are becoming more and more independent in the media center as well as looking for good fit books. There is more to this rather than looking up titles or subjects. We have learned how to look for reading levels, nonfiction and fiction titles as well as genres. To begin our lesson we read, Bob the Alien learns the Dewey Decimal Classification System.

Second graders have learned about meteors, which are not falling stars, but rocks/iron particles that are in space and can come very close to earth. We read Meteor, by Patricia Polacco and learned a true meteor landed on her farm in Michigan where it serves as her grandmother's headstone. There will be a meteor shower in October 8th and December 13th. You might want to watch for these as a family and begin a tradition.

Students in the first grade learned about dragons. They are mythological creatures. We also read about Komodo dragons (nonfiction) that live on the island of Komodo. They are called dragons because of their appearance, "fire colored tongue" and fierceness. We also discussed pets such as bearded dragons. Afterwards we enjoyed a funny chapter book titled, A friend for Dragon by Dav Pilkney. Dragon wants a friend so badly, and snake takes advantage of Dragon by playing a trick on him. We laughed until we had tears in our eyes.

Kindergarten students continue to check out from the "E" neighborhood. We have read more books by Eric Carle and have learned many finger plays. I am so amazed at how fast and how much they learn. They are very well behaved which is a reflection on their parents. Thank you for all you do to teach your children about responsibility, respect, and good listening skills. It really makes my job so easy and we have so much fun! This is a goal of mine so students will grow to love coming to the library, checking out books, reading, and becoming lifetime users and 21st century learners.

Happy Reading,

Mrs. Wetherell

10 years ago...

I remember this day as I had just accepted a new position at a brand new school in New Jersey. It was on a Tuesday, a beautiful early September day without a cloud in the sky. Several of the student's parents would not make it back to pick them up from school because they worked in one of the World Trade Centers.

Thank goodness my husband was not traveling since he was able to collect our three children from school and bring them home. For the next week you could still see smoke, dust, etc. rising from lower Manhattan.

Let's not forget those that lost their lives in New York, Washington D. C., or Pennsylvania that day.