Stuck-Book & Activity

I'm sure most of you all know and love Oliver Jeffers.  He is by far one of my favorite author/illustrators! I was so excited when his book Stuck was on this year's Iowa Goldfinch Award list because it gave me one more good reason to use it with my students!

Stuck by Oliver Jeffers

Students LOVE this book! When I use this book in my teacher I will read it aloud myself and then show them the following video of Oliver reading in it.  I mean everything is better with a British accent right?

Following this I will give each student a blank tree outline where they get to decide what gets stuck in their tree! I always love seeing what they come up with to get stuck.  Often their items match those from the story, but other times they come up unique items as well!  My one suggestion is to instruct students to draw their "stuck" items and THEN color in the background around them.  Otherwise they get stuck on just coloring in the tree versus using their imagination to come up with items.

Click HERE to make a copy of the Google Drawing.

Symbaloo & Kindergarten Mouse Skills

Anyone who has taken Kindergartners in the computer lab knows that mouse skills are the very first thing they need to work on! Those fine motor skills are tough for many and in a world of touch screens it can be a challenge!

I start off my lab lessons with Kindergarten talking about the mouse itself.  We talk about why it is called that, we meet our "mouse finger" and learn how to hold the mouse.  We also talk about only pushing the left button as well.

Following that discussion it is time for practice! I use Symbaloo for EVERYTHING in the lab. I create a symbaloo that is the home page and I create a link for each grade level from there.  It is so easy for kids to get to where they need to go and for me to add or remove links as needed.  The visual aspect of Symbaloo is also ideal for young children.

This is my homepage.  Some links stay here all year others come and go as needed.

Kindergartners click on the K and from there I have easy links to the Mouse skills games I have found online.  A little note. Use an Ad Blocker! While some of these games are great for learning to use a mouse the ads are OUT OF CONTROL!  I use AdBlock in the Chrome Web Store but I'm sure any would be fine!

This is the Kindergarten Page as of now.  As they get better with the computer they learn more navigation skills and terms like window and tab. The top row has the three links to Mouse Games I like to use.

Here is a close up those mouse games. Symbaloo creates an image for each tile but I am pretty picky so I usually save images and upload my own.

The first game is Bees & Honey by TVO Kids.  This one is awesome and adds a skill with each of the three levels.  First just move the mouse, then click, then click and drag.

The second two sets of choices are where the ad blocker comes in! Minimouse.Us has lots of great games that are simple and get kids using their mouse either by click, dragging or just moving it in general. A few favorites are the Pickle Bubble Popping, Frog Eating Flies and The Jumping Pig.  I show the kids these three, but they often end up on others as well.

The last game is Take a Trip from ABCYa and it teaches the skills of click and dragging. It also gives little facts about the different locations when they reach them. This one can be kind of tricky but the kids always seem to like it! It get harder with each level!

I'm sure there are lots more out there but these are just a few I have tried and the kids seems to respond to.  We spend a good couple of weeks working on mouse skills during their computer lab time!

Pokemon in the Library

Last year we all know Pokemon Go! was all the rage.  Keeping that in mind I created a library version of Pokemon Go! where I hide Pokemon characters in the different sections of the library.

Students work in groups to find the Pokemon and check them off their Pokedex that shows silhouettes of the characters and what section they can be found in.

This is an activity that can span grades K-6 and ALL of my students enjoyed it! Plus it gets them up, moving and having fun!  I pull them all back together at the end and review where the sections are.  It is just a different take on learning or reviewing the sections of the library.

Here is the link to the Google Drive Folder with the Images.  It is view only but all images are downloadable. This folder includes an image file of the Pokedex. I will link an editable Google Drawings file on the image below!! That way you can change your section names if needed.

Promoting Your Library....Candy Always Helps!

Hello! The new school year is upon us and there is no better time to start advocating for the library than RIGHT NOW! At the end of the last school year I jumped on the Future Ready Librarian bandwagon and joined the Facebook page. I have gotten SO MANY ideas just from following along. The willingness to share is what makes this group so great.

 One of the posts had a great and easy idea for getting people thinking about the library and letting fellow staff know that we are here to help! She shared an image of a brown paper bag full of Starburst candy with a sign on it that said, "Our Library is Bursting to Help You!"

I thought this was so clever so I decided to create my own graphic and share it! You can insert these graphics into a word doc, Google Drawing or design program/app of choice and add any additional info you may want! I created one in color and one in black and white.  I should also note these are PNG files so they have a transparent background, that way you can lay them over any color you like!

Click on the image and right click to save or go to the link below!

Click on the image and right click to save or go to the link below!

You should be able to click the image and right click and save but if not you can click HERE!