passionately curious

Lookybook

Lookybook allows you to view entire picture books as you would in a bookstore, except this time it's digital.  Unlike Amazon's "Search Inside," you can browse from cover to cover before you decide to purchase. You can't find every picture book here, but new ones are added each week and the list is growing.  You can add comments,  put your favorites on a "bookshelf", or even embed a book to share with others.  While books with larger print are easy to read (I've read several with my 5 year old!), others are better at just giving you a sense of the book before you buy it.  Lookybooky is worth a look!  Tip: Click on the eyeballs of the embed to view a larger version.

On Top of the World

Idiom of the Week is another great resource from Primary Concepts that presents language in a playful way.  Using the adventures of the Wordly Family, ideas for discussion and practice are organized into a small spiral-bound book that are perfect for filling those extra 5-10 minutes between activities.    

Here's an example:

on top of the world
©Primary Concepts

Word Story
The little Wordly boy was on top of the world! Summer vacation was coming up soon. He couldn’t wait to swim, play with his friends all day, and read in the sun.
When you’re on top of the world, you’re feeling extremely happy.

Talk About It
✪ How would you feel if you could really be sitting on top of the world?
✪ When is the last time you felt as if you were on top of the world?

Picture It Materials: a globe
Draw a circle to represent the world; then draw a picture of yourself on top of the world. Fill in the sentence frame:
I am on top of the world because______.

My kids can't seem to get enough of idioms.  They are using them at home and whenever they discover a new one, we are the first to know!  Here are some other books that we can't keep on the shelves in our classroom library:

There's a Frog in My Throat! 440 Animals Sayings a Little Bird Told Me
by Loreen Leedy & Pat Street

Monkey Business
by Wallace Edwards

Comic Life

Sherry Ziolkowski, Web Specialist in Arlington Heights District 25, presented a great session at IL-TCE called Comics in the Classroom.  I was eager to hear this presentation because my colleague, Lucy Gray, recently told me that our school has a site license for Comic Life. I'm planning to teach my students this application so we can do something with it for an upcoming Oregon Trail Unit (perhaps with primary source photos). Supposedly ComicLife is easy for students to learn and teachers can choose the template for them. See Sherry's link above for a step-by-step description. This is my first attempt using photos from our early October fieldtrip to an apple orchard.   

Favorite Classroom Calendars

Here are a couple of my favorite calendars for the classroom:

Celebrating Children's Books
This is a great way to promote literacy in the classroom.  Kids get excited each month when they recognize one of their favorite books.  Here's how I use the pictures once the year has ended.

Food For Thought
Saxton Freymann's whimsical food sculptures provide smiles and wonderment as children try to guess which foods were used.  There's also a mini calendar available for 2007.

Snowflakes

To launch an upcoming study of snow in January, my class visted the Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry yesterday.  While there,  we saw a small exhibit on the photographs of Wilson "Snowflake Bentley."  Bentley lived in Vermont in late 1800s and was the first person to take photographs of individual snowflakes.  His story is beautifully illustrated by Mary Azarain in Jacqueline Briggs Martin's Snowflake Bentley (Caldecott Medal).  His real photographs are also available in Snowflakes in Photographs by W.A. Bentley himself. 

The exhibit, "A Snow Story," also included the stunning photography (see above) of a modern-day Snowflake Bentley, physicist Ken Libbrecht.  He has a wonderful and informative website devoted to snow crystals, snowflakes and other ice phenomena. 

Here are some interesting facts we learned from yesterday's field trip:

• Snowflakes are not white; they are clear.
• Chicago's biggest recorded snowfall of 23 inches was on Jan. 26-27, 1967.
• Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley took over 5000 photographs.

Holidays of Light

Because my students come from diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds, we cannot merely focus on one winter holiday, nor are we discouraged from celebrating any holidays.  Instead, we celebrate and study many.  The halls are filled with the smell of latkes and Christmas cookies; Nursery and Lower School classes make decorations for a "Hands Around the World" theme that brighten the school's main Lobby; and children, families and teachers gather before school for a seasonal sing-along. Our Lobby displays a Christmas tree, a menorah, and a kinara.  We learn about the holidays celebrated in our own class and the parents (better experts than me) plan activities, read stories, and share traditions.  We participate in food, clothing, and toy drives.  We celebrate our diversity and our community. 

Later this week, we are going on a field trip to the Museum of Science and Industry to see their annual holiday exhibits Christmas Around the World and Holidays of Light, a look at winter celebrations that feature light and enlightenment.  Their site contains great information about holiday customs and traditions from around the world.  Here are some books that also include these holidays and celebrations of the winter solstice:

                                                    

Celebrations of Light    

The Shortest Day: Celebrating the Winter Solstice         

Lights of Winter

Picture Cues for Phonics Work

This a great resource introduced to me a few years ago by one of our Reading Specialists.  The posters and display cards from PhonicsQ have simple, colorful pictures that are just right for elementary students.    As we work on the different components of our spelling program, I refer to them almost daily. You can use the cards for your Word Wall or to introduce spelling patterns. The blackline student cueing sheets can be used for bingo, word games, and reference while writing.   

Word Ladders

During Reading, I like the to be engaged in independent work so I can work, uninterrupted, with small reading groups.  This year, I've been trying the management system described in The Daily 5.  As a part of their weekly assignments, the children complete various Word Work (Spelling) activites.  I love the Word Ladder Kit from Primary Concepts. Children have their own sets of letter tiles and can work at their own pace. 

Below is one an example of Word Ladder.  The children build each new word by changing one or two letters or rearranging the letters.

bell
ball
bill
bib
crib
crab
cab
car
card
cart

                     

 

Word of the Day

While flipping through the Primary Concepts catalog this summer, I came across the Word of the Day.  This small spiral book contains interesting or "fun to say" words (flabbergasted, swish) along with prompts for discussion and corresponding activities. A new word is introduced several times a week during our Morning Meeting or as a time-filler in between activities. Some children have really taken to the challenge of using the word five or more times during the school day or at home. The word is written on a 3x5 index card and placed into our Word Jar (a large pickle jar).  Throughout the year, we will pull a word out of the jar to see if the kids can remember its definition and use it in a sentence. We'll also refer to this activity during Writer's Workshop when we talk about how writers use words to "show" something, instead of just telling us. 

Fall Colors

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources offers wonderful educational posters to help children learn about our state and they are free!  Some of my favorites include Illinois Fall Colors, Trees and Seeds , Toads and Frogs, Common Birds, Butterflies and Moths, and Insects.