Sunday, April 18, 2010

Rotation Thirteen

All lower elementary classes are beginning a new unit about fables.  With increasing sophistication depending on their age, students will discuss the morals of various Aesop's fables, learn the characteristics of fables, and analyze the difference between various versions of the most well-known fables.

PreK 3, PreK, K, Grade 1, Grade 2 
Guiding Questions: What is a fable? What can we learn from fables? 


Grades 1 & 2 finished up their Caldecott unit by seeing this year's winner: The Lion and the Mouse, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney.  It also happens to be a fable - what a great segue into our fable unit!

In this wordless retelling of an Aesop fable, an adventurous mouse proves that even small creatures are capable of great deeds when he rescues the King of the Jungle.  2009 Caldecott winner

We talked about acts of kindness and how kindness grows with each good deed we do for each other.  Students enjoyed hearing several versions of the story so that by the time we read this wordless book, they knew exactly what was going on!
 



Grade 3 
Guiding Question: What is the Silver Knight reading program?

Grade three students are invited to participate in our Silver Knight reading program.  They choose books from a list created by me and the librarians from Prague, Warsaw, and Vienna.  The books are meant to stretch students' reading habits and include a range of reading levels, from slightly below grade 3 level to slightly above. After reading each book, the child talks to me one-on-one about the story. Book talks include questions about the story's conflict, characters, setting, and the reader's opinion. I keep track of how many titles each child has completed.  The goal is to read five books in order to join our ice cream party in May.  At the party, students vote on which book they liked best.

In this library lesson, I talked about each book to generate student interest. The complete list of Silver Knight titles is here.

Grade 4/5:  
Guiding Question: What is NoveList and how can it help us find  books to read?

Grade four and five students learned how to use NoveList, the subscription database AISB pays for to find FICTION books.  This database allows users to search by title, author, and keyword to find books that interest them.  Users collect titles in a folder to create various reading lists.  Other features include reviews (generally speaking, the more reviews, the better the book!), book talks which are essay-style critiques, and suggested reading lists.

We learned how to browse for titles, search for books similar to those we've liked, and how to broaden or narrow a search based on various criteria.

Our NoveList username and password is aisb, 0708.  You can access it from our library website, right on the Home page.