EUE Media Minute

Congratulations, EUE students!  You collectively read 108,455 minutes during the month of February, beating our goal of 100,000 minutes.  Now we get to have a pajama day on Friday, March 2nd.  Students also get to pick between the following book based movies to watch at the end of the day.

• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
• Horton Hears a Who
• Chicken Little
• Tangled
• Prince Caspian
• Holes
• City of Ember
• Nim’s Island

Our Used Book Sale is also tomorrow.  Each book costs 25 cents.  Thanks to everyone who donated books and all the families for supporting their student’s reading!

• Reading Calendars (click to print)– All students and staff are encouraged to record the number of reading minutes done outside of school hours. We are keeping track of these minutes, trying to reach 100,000 student minutes and 20,000 staff minutes.  If we reach our goal, the student council decided we would have a Pajama Day, ending the day with a different book based movie in every classroom and small treat.
• Used Book Sale – Send in your gently used books anytime in February. We will sell these all for 25 cents each on March 2^nd. Each class will have an opportunity to go to the sale on March 2nd. All proceeds will go to fund our “I Love to Read” activities and prizes.
• Weekly Guest Readers in each classroom throughout the month. See your child’s classroom teacher’s Web page to sign up!
• Titlemania Questions each week about books with prizes for the winners.
• In School Reading Drills – At various times, reading drills will be announced and the entire school, staff and students alike, will stop what they are doing and read.
• Morning Meeting Mix-Up – Students will go to different classrooms for their morning meeting, mixing with students from grades 1-5, and do different reading activities.

1st graders are becoming a little more tech savvy by learning some strategies to solve computer issues.  They now know to:

• Check cords if monitor is not working properly
• Raise/lower volume from the desktop and from within programs
• Navigate to desired page
• Restart computer or monitor
• Turn off monitor and get adult help if they come across something uncomfortable online

1st graders also completed a whole class three step research process called the Super 3.  This process teaches the simple steps of Plan, Do, Review to make research more manageable.

2/3 classes completed an underwater WebQuest!  Our ocean researchers dove into online resources like PebbleGo databases, BrainPop video database, Britannica online encyclopedia and an informational ocean Web site.  As they learned more about our oceans, they also learned about navigating electronic resources.

4/5 classes discovered that just because something is posted on the Web doesn’t make it factual.  They compared many real and hoax sites, comparing site credibility using a checklist and discovered not all information is created factually.

There is still time, but not much!  4th or 5th graders at East Union may choose to participate in the Maud Hart Lovelace Book Award vote. To be allowed to vote and to be invited to the April 30th MHL Celebration Luncheon, students must read at least 3 of the Division I books and turn in a signed entry form to Mrs. Dierks before the Wednesday after Spring Break, April 11th. Any student reading all 12 books will be part of the Maud Squad and earn special prizes! This year’s books are listed here.

This week in Media:

1st grade began making simple eBooks using the iPads. Students paired up to choose a topic, think of three facts about their topic, and begin their books. Using the app Storykit, students took photos for illustrations and either typed or recorded the corresponding facts. That’s a lot to cover, so we’ll finish up next week.

2/3 classes continued their genre studies. Killian’s class explored realistic fiction, Kolesar’s class covered mystery and Weinzierl’s class discussed fantasy.

4/5 classes continued with their keyboarding, focusing on using their pointer fingers for U and R and their ring fingers for O and W.

Yikes, it has been awhile since I last posted! Sorry about that. I guess my brain was so wrapped up in conferences and book fair, blogging completely slipped my mind.

Speaking of the book fair, thank you so much for all the fabulous volunteers who make it possible!  I so appreciate you all taking your time to help.

The book fair did well again this fall, even with the economy the way it is.  Families definately voted with their dollars, proving we know reading is important for our kiddos.  With just over $2,000 in book sales, EUE students will definately see the benefit.  We were able to give out $150 in gift certificates to staff and parents who helped with the fair, $10 in scholarship money to families in need, take just over $375 in books from the fair for use in the Media Center, and $420 in cash to be used in the Media Center. That money will go toward country research books at 1st – 4th grade reading levels needed for the 2/3 research projects next year.

Many families may have heard their child’s reading level at conferences and are wondering what to do with that info.  Destiny Quest allows for students to search not only for subjects, authors and series, but also narrow those search results by reading levels.  If you would like help using this feature with your child or would like some specific reading recommendations, please let me know.  It is one of my favorite things to do for kids!

On to Media Classes…

1st grade demonstrated their knowledge of parts of a book, including cover, title, author, illustrator, spine and call numbers.  We discussed the importance of alphabetical order in the library and how it helps them locate materials.  Students then completed a paper/pencil assessment of alphabetical order and a hands on excersize or locating picture books using their simplified call number, the 1st initial of the author’s last name.

2/3 began a month long study of genres.  Mrs. Killian’s class explored mystery, Mrs. Kolesar’s class explored fantasy and Ms. Weinzierl’s class explored realistic fiction.  I’m presenting a different genre to each class so they aren’t all trying to check out the same books come check out day.

4/5 is well into their keyboarding unit.  We have completed 5 lessons so far and the kids are doing fabulous!  While I can present all the techniques, only they can decide to use them and they are.  We all especially like the blind typing tests each day, where I give words for them to type while they look at the ceiling or close their eyes.

1st grade studied the author, Doreen Cronin.  After discussing her various works and basic facts about her life, we read the book Click, Clack, Moo, Cows that Type.  Students identified it as a circle story, or one that repeats, and helped read the repetitive parts of the story.  Anyone walking by the Media Center may have thought they were near a barnyard!

Image found at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/geiselaward/geiselabout/index.cfm

2/3 classes learned more about award winning literature by focusing on the Theodore Seuss Geisel Award.  The students guessed what the award was give for.  “The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award is given annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished American book for beginning readers published in English in the United States during the preceding year.” – from the American Library Association Website.  After hearing parts of a few different winners, students paired up and explored a few of the Geisel winners available in our Media Center.  They must have found some they liked, because they were almost all checked out by Wednesday!

4/5 classes put the finishing touches on their Reading Interest Glogs and began their Keyboarding.  Students watched a video, took a pretest on what fingers touch which keys, and got to choose from a variety of keyboarding games.  The better the kids can keyboard, the faster they will get their homework done in the future!  This unit is all about their effort.  They get out of it what they put in.

1st Grade

explored the iPads in groups of 2-3 students, discovering how to turn them on, off, change the volume, navigate to different screens, open and close an app.  They also learned about donated Celebration Books and heard the book, When a Monster is Born, making story predictions along the way.

2/3 students

paired up, 1 second grader with 1 third grader, and explored the library online catalog, Destiny Quest.  The 3rd graders acted as the guides, as they had a full unit on using Destiny Quest last year.  This served as an introduction, as the 2nd graders will have the full Destiny Quest unit next year but need to be able to search for books now, and review for the 3rd graders.

4/5 students finally got back in the computer lab this week and could continue working on their Reading Glogs.  About 1/2 of the kids finished, so some will be moving on to typing next week while the rest will be finishing up their Glogs.  Those who did not finish can always log in at home to finish! See the finished projects at the Media Center Web site!

Join Caldecott winning author/illustrator Brian Selznick (Author/Illustrator of The Invention of Hugo Cabret) on his tour for his brand-new book, Wonderstruck!

Monday, October 17th at 6 p.m.
Barnes & Noble
2100 North Snelling Avenue
Roseville, MN 55113
651-639-9256

AND

Tuesday, October 18th at 6:30 p.m.
Open Eye Figure Theater
506 East 24th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55404
612-920-5005

Also, don’t forget the movie version for The Invention of Hugo Cabret is coming to theaters November 23rd!

1st Grade Classes learned about the Nonfiction Neighborhood, aka the Nonfiction section, and how it is different than the Everybody Bins.  We focused on putting books back so the next person could find them, including using shelf markers.  The kids really showed they listened when they checked out the next day, finding lots of informational books!

2/3 Classes talking about choosing great books, focusing on the Caldecott Medal for great illustrations.  We read the book, A Sick Day for Amos McGee , last year’s Caldecott Medal winner and watched a video from Erin Stead, the winning illustrator, on how she used woodblock printing to create her illustrations.

Image found at http://us.macmillan.com/asickdayforamosmcgee

4/5 Classes spent the day discussing the Maud Hart Lovelace book award and watching video trailers for several of this year’s nominated books.  These books flew off the shelves that day!  See the Media Center Web site for how 4/5th graders can participate and be invited to the MHL party later this year.

Images found at http://www.redballoonbookshop.com/MHL

Beside classes, check out and helping individual kids (my favorite parts of my job!), I got a lot accomplished this week!  A major project of cloning almost all 24 of our iPads is now done.  Each classroom now houses two iPads for students and the rest are available to classes as needed.  I also figured out how to use VolunteerSpot.com as a Parent/Teacher Conferences sign-up and wrote directions for teachers.  Hopefully this makes things easier for both staff and families!  Finally, we now have QR codes for all the classroom Web sites and many useful family Web sites like Parent Portal and the lunch menu.  Watch for them on Curriculum Night!

Make sure to stop by the computer lab on Curriculum Night with any school related tech questions you may have.  I hope to see you then!