The Five Elements of Story - in Rap Form!

Okay, so check this out......when it comes to coming across things that I think will excite students and pull them into a lesson I get super excited especially when it involves digital media. Therefore, it was no surprise when I saw this video clip I became giddy with excitement about how this could be utilized in upper grades classrooms. When teaching about story elements in readers or writers workshop we could energize our students and even get them singing this song in the hallways - and it's all about literacy!! This song even uses some relevant examples that students can relate to and understand. Perhaps I'll start hearing our own FPG students humming this tune across the school. I'd be happy to collaborate with any teacher on a "Five Elements" into lesson in which we could share this and do a follow-up activity.

Kindergarteners and Library Fun!!

Each year it is always very exciting to introduce our newest FPG students to the library and all the fun you can have in a exploratory space filled with books, technology, and learning. The first two lessons of the year with Kindergartners have been fun, fun, and more fun!! As a way to introduce them to the fun in reading we chose two separate themes for these lessons. The first theme revolved around apples being that September is National Apple Month. Students listened to an interactive read aloud of 10 Apples Up on Top by Theo LeSeig and then sang a super silly song entitled "Apples and Bananas". Of course, the students giggled more than sang as they played on the words by replacing bananas with banoonoos and baneenees. We wrapped up our time in the library by placing apples up on top of our own heads by making apple hats. By the end of the lesson we were all ready for a nice big delicious bite out of an juicy apple!

Our most recent lesson revolved around Pirates as we celebrated National Talk Like A Pirate Day. And no lesson about pirates is complete without real pirate eye patches and a few "Arggghhhh's" thrown in! We had soooo much fun when we realized that pirates stopped by our FPG library, made a mess of some of the books, and left their eye patches behind for us to wear. We got to be real pirates as we shared the book, How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long. Afterwards we found library treasure maps the pirates left for us and we used them to explore the different areas of our library and found a treasure waiting for us in the picture book section! We wrapped up our time together with an animated pirate song on the Smart Board.

I can tell that the next several years are going to be LOTS of fun with some wonderful learning experiences to look forward to together. I am always reminded of the power of books and how they can spark imagination and curiosity in kids when I work with the kindergartners. And while we may not really be pirates, we sure do find treasure in the books we read.

Oh Me, Oh My.....A New Year Begins!

I love the start of a new school year.....I love getting books back into the hands of kids....and I love getting to share new tools and gadgets with students. The first few weeks of this school year have been filled with welcoming students back into the library.

For our younger students we have had so MUCH fun enjoying two separate books - "Miss Brooks Loves Books and I Don't!" by Barbara Bottner and "Dogs Don't Brush Their Teeth" by Diane DeGroat. The first title mentioned is a humorous story that details how a school librarian loves books to a degree that the young girl in the story simply cannot understand. In fact, when Miss Brooks gets excited about National Book Week, the young girl cannot imagine being as excited about books as her hip librarian. All the books her classmates share during book week seem too silly, too kissy, or too pink! However, in an amusing twist, the young girl finds just the book for her and goes on to share it with her whole class. This book ends when the young girl realizes that everybody can find something funny, fantastic, or appalling in their library. The students were able to make lots of wonderful connections with the story as they practiced how to "turn and talk" to their neighbor just as they do during reader's workshop. We then followed this with a reading of Dogs Don't Brush Their Teeth in which students saw pictures of things dogs do in real life and things they don't do...the pictures were super silly and the students laughed at every page turn. Using both titles to get students to think about how we make connections when we read, we asked them to use this second reading to think about things students at FPG do and don't do in our library. It was quite amusing hearing feedback from the students and listening to their creative juices flow all while getting them to voice what they remember about the expectations of the library.


With the 3rd-5th grade classes, we have been busy introducing them and their classroom teachers to the new Destiny Quest online tool. While this online tool serves as the library catalog in which students can search for books, it is also a social network for kids to share and review books. The students are very excited about this new tool and they each have their own account which includes virtual book shelves, personal list functions, and the ability to check their library account online. Located on the library webpage, this tool can be used from anywhere there is internet access including at home! Users can view the top ten most popular books in the FPG library at any given time, view book lists published by the library staff, and check out the latest arrivals. Students are well on their way to adding books to their virtual shelves and submitting online book reviews that are displayed in our catalog! The follow-up lesson taking place over the next two weeks will be a collaborative lesson between the classroom teacher, the school counselor and myself in which we discuss how to utilize the "Friend" feature on this tool to share book recommendations and comment on another's post. This lesson will include a digital citizen component in which proper digital etiquette or "netiquette" will be explored.

All in all, the year has gotten off to a great start and it has been wonderful seeing and working with our FPG students and staff once again. I look forward to a great year of learning ahead!