Not Just a Gingerbread story

It's that time of year in elementary schools where students are learning about that yummy cookie - Gingerbread!  There are so many fun activities to do with all the different versions of The Gingerbread Man.  I just have to add one more!  As a librarian, I'm always looking for books that help students not only enjoy a good story, but also learn how to find other good stories.  So, The Library Gingerbread Man by Dotti Enderle is a perfect fit.  During this story the Gingerbread Man pops out of a library book and is chased by all kinds of characters, creatures and such from the nonfiction section of the library.  To follow up, I had students explore the nonfiction section and choose a new character for the book.  What fun finding their favorite nonfiction books and justifying why they think their character should make it into the book.  To find out more about this lesson and get the printables for the lesson check out the link below.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Gingerbread-and-Dewey-in-the-Library-1009413

Strega Nona and 2nd graders

Recently I had fun with a Tomie dePaola favorite, Strega Nona's Harvest.  For a second grade lesson I integrated comparing characters, character traits, providing text evidence and learning a little about the author.  My lesson sequence was as follows:
1.  First we went to a website to learn a bit about Tomie dePaola: www.readingrockets.com.  They have great author interviews.
2.  Next I explained their purpose in reading this book; identifying character traits and giving text evidence.  This was not the 2nd graders first time to show text evidence or learn about character traits, but they still need guidance.  I used a whole-brain method to define character traits...
        Character Traits: Its' who the character is on the inside. (point to your heart).  You can tell by what the character does (do arm and feet fake walking motion) or says (use one hand to make talking motion near your mouth).  The students copy your motions while you say the definition.
3.  Then I show them this Venn Diagram and I tell them the character traits for Strega Nona, Big Anthony and both.  Their job after the story will be to give text evidence of what the character says and does to show these traits.
4.  During reading I stop and point out text evidence.  By the end of the story they are getting quite good and giving the evidence.
5.  After reading, each pair shares a Venn diagram to write just one text evidence for each part.  There is way more than one.  Guide partners that are not giving strong text evidence.

5th Grade - Website - Yes or No?

In today's age of information we must teach students how to know if the information they are finding is credible or not.  So as a 45 minute lesson with my 5th grader, I have created this informative and hands-on lesson.  After introducing the topic with the before question, we watched the youtube video,  http://youtu.be/J_qR5lpnXBE, on evaluating websites.  As they were listening they identified the meanings of the vocabulary and then had time to practice for themselves.  The Before and During took about 10 minutes and then the rest of the period was finding a credible website.  They had time to share and evaluate each other's evaluation skills!

Biography Inquiry Jump Start

To jump start an inquiry research project I chose to start with a read aloud.  Duh, I'm a librarian.  The objective is to begin a research unit on importance of past United States presidents.  Instead of the typical, fact gathering research, my hope is to make the students think deeper and more at what really matters about the subject.
So, I started with a picture of the Washington DC Mall that maps out the Presidential memorials.  They noticed only 5 out of 44 presidents have a memorial.  I then read aloud Looking at Lincoln by Maira Kalman.  This biographical information book shares the life of Abraham Lincoln and ends with a look at his memorial in Washington, DC.  After listening I asked students to write about why they think Abraham Lincoln was one of the 5 presidents chosen to have a memorial.  This is the first of two lessons on biography inquiries.  The next lesson students will choose one of the other 4 presidents to learn more about. They will have to justify why they were also chosen to have a memorial on the Mall.

Voting for a Favorite Book

In Texas, 3rd - 6th grade students have the opportunity to vote on their favorite book from a list of 20 nominated books - The Bluebonnet Award.  To help my students make an educated decision on which book to vote for, we looked at criteria for award-winning books.  With this lesson they listed their ideas of what makes a good book and then listened to me read aloud a recent award-winning book.  I chose Beautiful Blackbird by Ashley Bryan (a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award Winner).  We also explored the criteria to win a Coretta Scott King Award.  Through the process students then created their own criteria of how they will choose the Bluebonnet Award winner.  At the end of the lesson we then looked at how to find other award-winning books using the online catalog.