Polka Dot Pants Dance Contest

All students at our school enjoy reading the "Pete the Cat" books, he is one of our favorite characters.  A fellow teacher Linsay Wach met Eric Litwin, the author of "Pete the Cat" just a few weeks ago and she shared with me one of his new books "Sing and Dance in your Polka-Dot Pants." Eric is hosting a contest, if you upload a video of your students dancing, you might win a author visit at your school.  So of course our school had to enter the contest, even if we don't win, we sure had a wonderful time reading, singing and of course dancing!

Here is the link to the website with all the information on it:The Nut Family

So this week Mrs. Lenertz (the music teacher) and I had a blast dancing with our students by doing the Polka-Dot Pants Dance.  Funny thing is that Mrs. Lenertz actually had polka-dot pants.  Here is the video of our students doing the dance

Get your game on @ the library

National Puzzle and Game week is coming up in November.  I am actually ahead of the game and decorating the library with games.  I have quite a collection going on the library shelf and the case.  My goal is to work with our students on turn taking and having patience.  Next week I am going to attempt to teach the 4th graders the correct way to play checkers.  I am planning on using the smartboard to introduce the game, then split students into small groups to let them play.  As the month goes on we will have a chance to work on others games such as mancala, connect four, memory and maybe even chess.

First Grade Reads the Classics

In November, the Crete Elementary First Graders read many classics in the library.  We read "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", "The Three Billy Goats Gruff",  "Jack and the Beanstalk", "Hansel and Gretel", and many more.  Every spring the 7th graders at Crete Middle School come down to the Elementary and perform these classics with a little twist. So we always try to make sure the students are aware of the original story.  This year our students made finger puppets to go along with "The Three Little Pigs" and joined up in small groups to act out the story.  There was lots of huffing and puffing going on.

2nd graders love the Bailey School Kids

I have been reading aloud "Vampire's Don't Wear Polka Dots" the first book in the Bailey School Kids Series to the second graders.  We have been learning about the 4 main characters, Melody, Eddie, Howie and Liza and of course Mrs. Jeepers.

2nd graders have been learning about subject and predicate in their reading class, so it was a perfect time to create a new book title for the series.

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Students had to come up with a subject EX: Mermaids, and a predicate
EX: don't eat cupcakes.  Then they created a book cover to go with their
idea.  The titles were very creative, I am using them to decorate the primary side of the library. 

To end the unit, we used the clickers to answer questions from the book.  It
was amazing to see how many facts the students were able to recall.
Our library has more than 30 books from the series "The Adventures of
the Bailey School Kids" and quite often these past 2 month we had less than
5 books on the shelf.  It is so much fun to get children excited about a book!

Storybook Pumpkins

Crete Elementary hosted "Storybook Pumpkins" in the library during the week of Parent Teacher Conferences October 12-15th.  Each homeroom class (grades K-4) was given a pumpkin and decided as a class what book character they would decorate it like.  The pumpkins were donated by Cliff from the College Heights Country Club from the 1st annual Pumpkin Festival which was held the week before.

Our pumpkins ranged from a "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" tree, to "Silly Sally, to "Frankenfly, to "Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox".  The corresponding book sat right next to the storybook pumpkin.
My favorite part of the activity was when the children brought their parents into the library to look at their class's pumpkin.

Wonderful Job Crete Elementary!  I am so proud of your class pumpkins!

Read "Mo" Books

Read "Mo" Books

 I have decided to start the library year off with one of my favorite authors - Mo Willems.  Mo's books are perfect for the 2nd grade reader.  Students are able to read his books independently and they have just the right humor for a 7/8 year old.   So for the first visit of the year for both the 1st and 2nd graders I decided to share the book "We Are in a Book" by Mo Willems.  I partner read it with my aides. I read the Gerald (the elephant's part) and Michelle or Gloria read Piggie's part.  It was a blast.  The children truly enjoyed Mo's humor.  After the story, I partnered the students up with a Piggie and Elephant book and they spread out in the library to read together.  I also had a life size book that the students were able to get in and we took their picture.  It was a fun way to start the year.  My prediction is that even though I have close to 20 Elephant and Piggie books, they won't stay on the shelf long. 

Back to School 2015

Back to School 2015

The first week of school flew past, just like usual.  It was a blast to see all the children's smiling faces.  I decorated the primary case just like I did  the summer school theme "I Read, What is your Superpower?  

 Our 3 school rules continue to be a constant for the children.  "Be Safe, Be Respectful, Be Responsible"  Most children at the Elementary would be able to name those 3 school rules for you.  We are continuing to give Cardinal Compliments to those children who are following the school rules.  I have them posted in the library using the book character Pete the Cat.

In the upper case I have chosen the theme "Dear Diary". I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought I had quite a few diary books so decided to encourage students to read a few.  Mr. Shestak was gracious enough to write in cursive the Dear Diary page.  

I also bought quite a few new books over the summer and decided to display them on on the bookshelf inside.  "New and Hot" is the shelf title.  Third graders had time to browse them last week and were already excited and ready to check them out.  

 I am looking forward to a productive school year!  Books will be flying off the shelves starting tomorrow!  Happy School Year!