I LOVE YOU
"I love you, I love you,
I love you divine,
Please give me your bubble gum,
You're sitting on mine!"
-Anonymous
2nd grade students discussed Groundhog Day and were instructed to find out what this year's prediction was on February 2.
Since they are also studying Australia and New Zealand, their lesson included reading the story about SHREK, the Famous Hermit Sheep of Tarras. This famous sheep was born on Bendigo Station in Tarras, Central Otago, New Zealand. The story was written by the children of Tarras School, through a child's eyes. It covers Shrek's start in life at Bendigo Station, his journey to the mountains above, finding a cave and making it home, and finally his discovery and road to fame. This book has been based on the true story of Shrek, the hermit merino found on Bendigo Station on April 15, 2004. For six years Shrek evaded musters in the magnificent Central Otago high country of New Zealand. Shrek was carrying 25kg of fine merino wool and gave up 22 kg for SHREK'S charity of choice which is Cure Kids www.curekids.org.nz.
Students also discovered the difference between the Virginia Opossum and the New Zealand Brushtailed Possum. They also "felt " the difference between sheep wool and possum fur since real samples were passed around in the media center. Just ask any second grade student to tell you what they discovered and learned.
They also discussed Chinese New Year and read the meanings of the various animal traits used in the Chinese calendar.
First graders were inspired by Madonna's book entitled Mr. Peabody's Apples, which is based on a 300-year-old story told to her by her Kabbalah teacher. It is about the power of words and how we must choose them carefully to avoid causing harm to others. The Baal Shem Tov-"Master of the Good Name"-who was the author of the original story, was also a great teacher. He dedicated his life to helping others and stressed the value and importance of love for all people.
In honor of Caldecott Medal winning author David Wiesner's birthday, Sunday February 5, the students also told the story of Tuesday by inviting them as readers to stretch their own powers of imagination. Other books by him include Free Fall, The Three Pigs, Sector 7, Flotsam ( all which also were awarded Caldecott Medals), Hurricane, and June 29, 1999.
If you have not read one of his books check one out real soon and enjoy!
Students in JK discussed Valentine's Day tradition before listening to the story How Spider Saved Valentine's Day by Robert Kraus. They met the students of Public Bug School No. 1 which included Spider, Ladybug, Fly, two hungry caterpillars, and their teacher Miss Quito. Ask any student about the surprise ending....
Third graders finished their biography lesson and played the game entitled, "Guess Who is Knocking on My Door". Their classmates tried to guess who they read about after hearing the three clues. What a great way to learn from each other about famous people of the world.
K students have been reading all the books for this year's Florida Reading Association's Children Book Award Contest. There are 8 books on the list and children in grades Alpha-2nd vote on their favorite after they have listened to all of them. They heard the eighth book in the media center and were amazed at the ending.
Christian, the Hugging Lion by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell is the true story of an unusual family whose emotional reunion became a world wide Internet sensation.
Christian was born to a long line of zoo lions in 1969 at a zoo in England. He was three months old when John Rendall and Ace Bourke purchased him from Harrods' exotic pet department for abot $4,500 in today's money. From the moment that Ace and John brought him home, they knew they had created a special family. But Christian soon grew too big to live with the in their small apartment, so Ace and John flew Christian to Africa to live with other lions. A year later, they went to visit. Would Christian remember them? Here is the link to this true story:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiGKWoJi5qM
In honor of Valentine's Day, they also heard the story entitled Roses are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink by Diane de Groat. It was about Gilbert who brings a tin of homemade cookies and his original nice or nasty poems to school. Everyone learned a good lesson from this book.
2nd graders learned where the history of Valentine's Day began and the story behind Valentine the priest. In February 2012 issue of Ranger Rick there was an article entitled, Hearts of Nature. Students enjoyed seeing how nature loves them after checking out these "natural" Valentines-all of them straight from the HEART. They also discussed the books from the Fluffy series and read, using the Elmo equipment, Fluffy Meets the Tooth Fairy or Fluffy's Valentine's Day. This classroom guinea pig is a wonderful character who has lesson learning experiences we all could learn.
Jr. K students enjoyed listening to the story of a young lion who decides he would rather be friends with the other jungle animals than try to eat them in The Lion Who Wanted to Love written by Giles Andreae and illustrated by David Wojtowycz. They also loved the pictures of Hearts of nature fromRanger Rick's February 2012 issue, with pictures of "natural" Valentines-all of them straight from the HEART!
Alpha students listened to the story of how one blueberry muffin made all the difference in the book written and illustrated by Peter McCarty entitled Henry in Love.
3rd grade students worked with partners to answer research questions using the World Book online for kids site. The library just purchased a 2012 World Book set and for their next lesson, they will work with the same partners and do research using the books. A comparison will be made and a discussion of how to do research from both mediums will be held.
K students learned about the Froggy series of books written by Johathan London and illustrated by Frank Remkiewicz (who visited our school last year). They listened to Froggy's First Kiss and read parts of the book out loud. They liked the ending for sure.
Then they told me the story of the Museum Trip by Barbara Lehman. This is a wordless book so they had to pay very close attention and verbally tell me the story out loud. The last page raises several questions for all the readers to think about and they made great predictions.
In celebration of Reading Week, we asked students to dress up as their favorite book character for a special Tuesday, February 21 town meeting, since there was no school on Monday, February 20. Students were also asked to bring the book, their character was from so we all could all learn about new titles to read.
A big thank you goes out to Andi Mullins for chairing the library volunteers this year. Her hard work and precious time has paid off for all of us. She has been giving hands on training sessions since school started. We have many parents who are helping us in the media center this month and they are so appreciated. They are checking out books, helping students locate books and explore the many treasures found in our beautiful media center. Some are also helping with the book displays and decorations. Thank you so much to all of our wonderful parent volunteers who are helping the students "Go Wild for Books" this year.
