Fall into the Library

First graders make monsters.

Fall has been a very busy time in the library. Amongst monster building, community creating, reflection and inquiry, our students have been deeply immersed in the business of learning.

First and second graders have continued to read books that highlight different emotions and how these emotions play out in our lives. Both grades read Anh's Anger and discussed what anger feels like, and how we navigate our anger.

First graders created their own anger monsters, giving their thought concrete form. In the story, Anh's Anger comes to him as fuzzy red being. The students particularly enjoyed the visual representation of the anger, which started out so large, and became smaller and softer as Anh danced, banged the floor and then sat quietly breathing. We discussed how we handle anger.

Navigating big feelings.

Second graders also enjoyed Anh's Anger, but they are in the midst of gathering their thoughts into a book about emotions. This book also gives students the opportunity to reflect on fear and worry, sadness being silly, joy and surprise. Once the students have completed the written reflections, we will take selfies of our faces showing how the emotions look on us. This will give students time to strengthen their computer skills and explore effects in PhotoBooth. This is a much loved lesson in second grade, so stay tuned for a future blog post.

Organizing information.

Third grade recently finished creating posters on the computer to share information gained from interviewing a classmate. This was the culminating activity of our unit on exploring questions. We discussed the different types of questions and how to develop these questions. Once they finished interviewing their friend, they were able to develop a poster online using a template of their choice. Students had the opportunity to change the template to the their liking including colors, font and images. This was our first tech project and the focus as on understanding how to manipulate information through layers on a page. Students will return to this skill over the course of the year.

Creating a radio commercial.

Fourth graders began the season reading for information. We worked on reading non-fiction for specific information. Students were introduced to identifying important information and highlighting it so they could easily pick it out again. This is a skill they will continue to develop. We then moved into our first tech project which is a radio commercial. Fourth graders imagined new communities and then created radio spots to entice people to live there. Students are working in iMovie to record their voices and add sound effects. It is a refresher for our fourth graders and will prepare the students for creating a similar commercial inspired by the fourth grade social studies curriculum.
It has been a busy past few months in the library in Lower School, and we are only just beginning!