April Highlights

Spotlight on: Animated Movies!




In fifth grade, students just loved creating their movies about body systems for our Survivor M.D. research project! After weeks of research, our 'doctors' were given the task of teaching the rest of the class about a body system. To see more of our movies, check out our Survivor M.D. wiki. Next challenge: researching diseases and diagnosing a patient!

Meanwhile, fourth graders in Mr. Dugger's research class are creating "My HistorySpace," a ning where "explorers" can connect with other "explorers" on any topic and provides a variety of communication, connection, collaboration and information tools such as forums, blogs, videos, photos. Each student has made a talking avatar to introduce their explorer, as seen below.

Kindergarten-Grade 3 Round-Up:
Kindergarten classes have been enjoying the stories of Beatrix Potter. We have been utilizing a great website to supplement this unit as well as an online version of The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

To reinforce the difference between fiction and nonfiction, First Graders are in the midst of a unit on hippos! We have read George and Martha, gathered hippo facts from video clips on Discovery Education. This unit will end with the book, Owen and Mzee, the true story of a baby hippo and an 130 year-old giant tortoise who become best friends after a tsunami strands the baby hippo. We also received a letter from Robert Munsch! Last month, for our Great Tooth Tally project, we sent drawings to the author. Not only did he write us back, but also sent us a story in which he featured us as the characters!!

Second Graders are cooking up the ingredients in a fairy tale! After learning about the elements in a fairy tale, we read Cinderella and compared the original Grimm Brothers' version to the more well-known version. We will continue to study classic fairy tales through the month of May.

We are also ready to announce the winner of the Searingcott Medal. This year we decided to honor illustrators that never won a Caldecott. The gold medal goes to: ERIC CARLE! The book we chose to honor with a medal designed by 2nd grader, Grace, is MISTER SEAHORSE. We also gave honor awards to: PATRICIA POLACCO AND JAN BRETT, for the books ROTTEN RICHIE AND THE ULTIMATE DARE and HEDGIE BLASTS OFF, respectively. Thanks to Sara and Tiffany for designing the silver medals for us.




In third grade, we approach the end of our reference book study with a unit on almanacs. Students are learning how to locate information in the almanac. This unit will culminate with the third grade World Almania tournament.




More News from the Library:
I am happy to announce that our fifth grade research project on the 2008 presidential election, Meet the Candidates, has been honored with two prestigious awards:
Out of hundreds of applications from across the country, our project was named one of 47 finalists for the Cable Leader's in Learning Awards in the category of media literacy. Although we did not win the award, it was an honor to be named a finalist amongst a very qualified group of educators from all aspects of education.

The project won the 2009 ISTE SIG MEDIA SPECIALIST TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION AWARD! This annual award sponsored by Linworth Publishing, Inc. and Follett Software Company will be presented to Mrs. Kliegman and collaborating teacher, Mrs. Forte, for conducting an exemplary technology program extending beyond the library to meet the needs of classroom students and teachers. The purpose of this award is to identify, promote, and sustain excellence in collaborative and innovative technology-based projects driven by the school library media center in support of curricular and instructional needs in elementary, middle, and high schools. The award will be presented to three teams of a school librarian and a collaborating teacher—one elementary, one middle, and one high school, or its equivalent—at ISTE’s annual NECC conference. Additionally, the library will receive $2,000 worth of children's books and professional books.