Cross-Curricular Lessons

I am blessed with an amazing team so I wanted to highlight some of the ways we work together. The week before spring break was Read Across America and our fabulous music teacher incorporated Dr. Seuss books into her lessons.

 The students discussed emotions by reading My Many Colored Days.

The kindergarten students worked on vocal exploration with Mr. Brown Can Moo.

March is Music in our Schools Month so as soon as book fair was over, I knew I wanted to read some music books with the students. 

We read Today is Monday and kept a steady beat with our reading buddies.

The students enjoyed getting to read a fun musical story in the library.

It is also Youth Art Month in March so even though it has been crazy with testing, I managed to squeeze in an art lesson in the library using the book I Spy Shapes in Art.

 The students looked for the items in the painting and then did a silent check mark when they found it.

We also read about famous artists using the biographies on PebbleGo.

Here is the completed Spring display that my student librarian created.

It is also Women's History Month so I put together a small display to honor famous women.

I am exhausted from this week, but I am excited that next week starts School Library Month and Poetry Month! I am excited to start working on those displays soon. :) 

Reading Across America Week

Dr. Seuss' birthday is on March 2nd, but our school was celebrating Big Art Day that day so our reading fun was moved to the following week. It is always a busy, but fun time to get to take a break from the chaos of the spring and enjoy books. Check out some of the activities below!

Teachers infused their lessons with Dr. Seuss. Ms. Davila used a different Seuss character each day to teach skills. Look at her amazing art work!

We had theme days all week. Monday was sock day for Fox in Socks. Tuesday was green day for Green Eggs and Ham. Wednesday was hat day for The Cat in the Hat. Thursday was college t-shirt day for Oh The Places You'll Go. I loved my flamingo socks!

 Second grade did a project on U.S. symbols so they got a visit from Lady Liberty herself to read a book about George Washington. Thanks Liberty Tax!

 On Thursday, we had a full morning of guest readers from KARLEE come to kindergarten and first grade. We are very grateful for these volunteers! 

 Thank you Jody Hyde Luna for supporting our school!

Grades 3rd-5th were treated to a visit from the fabulous author Becky Villareal to discuss her process for writing books.

Friday was our storybook character parade!

We had a bee and a lady bug flying around on Friday.

The specials' team plus our wonderful prek aide transformed into Hogwarts students. It was lovely to see that even though we may come from different houses, we can join together for a common cause. #ravenclaw 

The bee found Waldo!

Mary Poppins even flew in for the event!

3rd graders became dragons who are crazy about tacos.

Our office staff was replaced with Purplicious, Pinkilicious, a lucky lady bug, and the tooth fairy.

Pocahontas even sailed in to represent 5th grade.

Two of our favorite fairy tale characters popped in.

Oh, and we had book fair going on ALL week. It was crazy, but a great time.

I am already looking forward to next year's celebration and thinking of new, fun ideas. Thanks for supporting literacy Bradfield!

#EdCampGarland

On Saturday I attended the first ever EdcampGarland at Naaman Forest HS. The event was planned and run by the digital learning coaches from the high schools. It was a great experience and I am excited to attend future edcamps along with this one next year! Check out some of the fun from Twitter along with my explanations. Sorry for not being in order, but it is book fair week along with Read Across America week so I am squeezing this blog in. :)

We played Twitter bingo throughout the day. The goal was to get to blackout by the end of the sessions.

 One of the bingo squares was to tweet a picture with a librarian so I was highly sought after for selfies throughout the morning.

My first session was breakout.edu boxes. It was so much fun! I have had Twitter envy seeing these at other trainings so I am glad I got to finally do it. 

There are not rules at EdCamps, but there are ways to make your experience better!

 I facilitated a session about ELA apps/websites. It is scary to facilitate at first but I love hearing all the awesome ideas.The room is definitely smarter!

Another selfie for Twitter bingo!

I helped a bunch of people with their Twitter bingo in my ELA session.

This is a cool app that makes the Breakout.edu boxes digital!

#gisdlibraries was well represented with Delma and Cheryl hanging out in the makerspace area

Mason had the idea to do an edcamp in Garland and all the participants are sure glad that he did!

Prizes were all over the places all day long. This was my first Twitter bingo prize.

I met one of my Twitter friends in person and she was the sweetest. She is going to make an awesome librarian very soon!

 My friends helped me check off several bingo squares early on. Two i3 members and a great teacher from Plano. 

We had to work hard to find a principal but we did it! Ms. Edwards was a picture perfect principal to help us check off a bingo square. I am also glad my fabulous student librarian Carole was able to join in on the learning!

 I did not attend the session on sketchnote, but I should have! This is on my radar for future edcamps.

Here I am faciliating the session on ELA apps/websites. I got the conversation rolling by presenting the website/app ThingLink. It has become one of my favorites since I did a webinar on it for i3.

Search #edcampgarland to see even more of the experience and to see the collaborative notes from the sessions. 

Spring Time in the Library!

Today is March 1st so it is officially time to put away the winter and Valentine's day decorations. The weather here in Texas has thought that it was springtime for a while now anyway. Check out how our library transitions for spring.

Our wonderful student librarian Ms. Hensleigh created a display of green books. I never knew how many green books we had! There are even more waiting to go on the shelf as these books get checked out. I have also hidden some four leaf clovers in a few lucky books. I cannot wait to see who finds them first.Ms. Hensleigh will be adding some quotes about the color green to complete the display.

 Greenery and pretty flowers help our library feel more inviting.

I also switched out our genre of the month, word of the week, and habitude of the month. A new Pete the Cat poster and Eric Carle poster completed our hallway change up.

I have been doing some rearranging in our graphic novels and clearing out this year's bluebonnet books to make room for the new ones. The shelf is empty as we wait for the big reveal to happen in our library. 

I have been collecting the plush animals from Kohls for many years and this year I decided to show off my collection using our big back wall. The students and staff have really enjoyed seeing their favorite Dr. Seuss characters take center stage. 

I could hardly wait until payday so I could add this year's animals to my collection. They are so cute and cuddly that one teacher could not stop touching Thidwick!

The books that I do not have plush animals to go with are lining our long book shelf. There are so many that it took 2 pictures to get them all. The books will be flying off the shelves soon as teachers and students start celebrating Dr. Seuss.

2nd grade learned about Dr. Seuss' life from reading a biography on PebbleGo and then they illustrated a timeline about his life.

Our Read Across America week is next week due to a conflict at our school this week. Next week's blog will be all about our book fair and then the next one will include the fun from our celebration of reading week!