Curious Kids Visit the Library

There is a book called Curious George Visits the Library that I love to read to my younger grades each year. It's what we librarians called an "oldie but a goodie." It is what I think of whenever I hear the word "curious." I have started teaching classroom habitude lessons based on Angela Maiers' book. The first habitude we are focusing on is curiosity. We have been using Wonderopolis to discuss wondering throughout our weekly library lessons. I was nervous to try out my first PLC habitude lesson with first graders, but they blew me away. My second and third graders this week have also been great wonderers.

We read The Mysteries of Harris Burdick and I modeled being curious while wondering what was going on in each one sentence story. Students in grades 4 and 5 will be writing their own one sentence mysteries. I cannot wait to see what they come up with.  Next, I showed the students an old super bowl commerical for Doritos where a goat loves to eat chips. There are no words spoken, but the students could all tell what was going on. Then, I told the students we were going to read The Cat in the Hat. However, after I checked the shelf for the book...it was missing! This led to us using clues to solve the mystery of whole stole the missing book. I wish I could have a video of the thoughtful and creative responses that my firsties gave as we dug into the mystery.

The library makerspace also got off to a great start this week. Our new instant film camera has been a huge hit with the students. It is so fun to see them get excited to share their masterpieces. The camera is going to be a major fixture in our makerspace. I will share our experiences with the camera once I have FERPA papers back. :)

Back to the Books

I am so excited for this year! The books and I have missed the students so much. Some fun things going on right now are that I hid math word problems in the books so that the students can reinforce some of their math skills while being encouraged to check out more books. I wonder who will find one first?

Also, we are going to be learning about habitudes this year during PLC time in the library. Habitudes are habits and attitudes that I want the students to develop. The first one we are working on is curiosity and the students are going to be doing a lot of wondering in the next few weeks.

Our makerspace is still going strong and will be better than ever. Thanks to donors, we were able to add a button maker, a camera for instant pictures, and Osmo coding. Our book fair bonus points enabled me to get some magnetic building blocks and some circuit activities. I cannot wait to see the wonderful creations that will be made this year!

It is definitely a great time to visit the Bradfield library and see all that we have going on. Come on in...we are getting #futureready!