READ ACROSS AMERICA Celebration March 2017

Crete Intermediate celebrated "Read Across America" by reading all around the school in some of Dr. Seuss' famous places, such as ...

The students drew a name out of a hat to let them know where in the school they were to go to read.  All students grades 3-5 were mixed up and had time to read

Students reading at the beach!

During the week we also had  fun quiz questions about Dr. Seuss where
students won prizes if they knew the answers.

Makerspace Zentangle Coloring

Before

After

One of our maker space activities in the library in January was this giant table top coloring zentangle.  My daughters helped me create 2 different life-size zentangles for the library.  It took about 3 days for each 6 ft poster to be completed.  Our students enjoyed this teamwork project. The final project was hung in our lunchroom to be admired by all.

Holiday's at the Intermediate Library

We had fun decorating at our new Intermediate Library this year.   Using many of our outdated chapter books that we brought up from the Elementary, we created a "book tree".  It was quite the hit  as it decorated our check out desk.  Happy Holidays!

I SPY

What do you do with 2 empty shelves?  Why you turn them into I SPY shelves - that's what!!

Dr. Waters, our superintendent came to visit this week and sat down for a few minutes to play I SPY with our first graders.  We put random fun items on these 2 shelves, then covered the shelves with plastic wrap (to make a glass window).  Each week Gloria has posted 4 new items to look for in our I SPY case.  It has been a fun activity to encourage new vocabulary with the students. And even better, all of our I SPY books are checked out!  That is what makes it a fun library center.

BATS are ...

The 2nd graders have been doing a mini research unit on bats.  After reading a few non-fiction bat books, each 2nd grader wrote 4 bat facts on their paper bat.  I had facts that ranged from "Bats sleep upside down." to "There are 1,200 kinds of species of bats." and even "Bats have 4 fingers and 1 thumb."  Our paper bats are currently roosting in 3 spaces in our non-fiction section.

 Our final activity was to read the book, "Stellaluna" written by Janell Cannon. Then we watched the 10 minute education video (on the Stellaluna DVD) titled "The not so scary world of bats"  It really gave the students a real look at bats.  My favorite memory of this unit was when the Kindergarners were lining up and I said "Remember to be quiet, the bats are sleeping."  It got real quiet as they looked up to the ceiling.  Then one students asked "Are they real?" 
Way to cute.

Ahoy Matey - Books are a TREASURE Book Fair

This was the first year for the Intermediate School Book Fair.  We hosted the Scholastic Book Fair during the week of Parent/Teacher Conferences Oct 10-13.  The theme was focused around pirates.  Of course Miss Michelle found the perfect costume to celebrate the fun week.

She was also the creator of the super cool pirate ship that was the display for the teacher's wish list. We displayed many pictures of teachers and staff at our school dressed all in pirate gear.  Some with a parrot on their shoulder and other's saying "What aaargh you reading?"
I was so excited to see our first book fair was a success.  I look forward to buying more new books for the Intermediate library.

Mercer Mayer Author Study

I introduced the author Mercer Mayer to our first grade students this fall.  We began by learning all about Mercer's life and reading a few of his first books.  We read: "There's an alligator under my bed" and also "There's a monster in my closet"  I found a video on YouTube that is actually Mercer Mayer singing and playing his guitar to the book "There's an alligator under my bed"  It is a super cute song and the children enjoyed getting to see Mercer sing.  We then began to read "Little Critter" books.  All first graders made their own "Little Critter" puppet.  On the back of the puppet we added 4 facts that we learned about the author and illustrator Mercer Mayer.

We ended our Mercer Mayer unit by exploring a few apps on the ipad about Little Critter.  Students were able to read "Just Me and My Friend" and "My trip" which are both Little Critter apps.  The Little Critter books have been a hit with our first graders.