March Mouse Madness at Moye

PPCD and the employee daycare babies.

The little ones in PK, PPCD and kinder enjoyed listening to the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and participating in activities to help them recall the sequential, story-building details of what happens when mouse enjoys a chocolate chip cookie and a big glass of milk.  After listening to the book, the prekinder babies retold the story aloud together as I turned the pages of the library's over-sized copy of this Numeroff "classic".  Then they moved to the tables to make mice puppets and enjoy mice-sized chocolate chip cookies.  

KC prepares to act out If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

The H.R. Moye kinders were such fun as they used props to act out the story after hearing it read aloud.  Each child had some item from the story - a glass, a gallon milk container, a straw, a napkin, even a broom and mop.  We used my daughters' old plastic kitchen and our plush mouse doll to help us set the stage.  As I retold the story, the children with the appropriate item or prop came forward to act out the action on that particular page of the book.  I am not sure who had more fun, the librarian or the children!

Mouse colors a picture of his family.

Mouse needs a haircut.

Mouse sweeps up after his hair cut.

Then he mops the whole house!

 

Mountain Lions go to the Library

A Fast and Furious February

Let that records show that snow dancing definitely works!  The first week of February brought about four inches of the frosty white powder to our desert home and with that we had four days off from school to enjoy this rare treat.  Having the days off was wonderful but as a result we had to fit four weeks of learning and library into a rushed three week schedule.  But that we did!

This month, the youngest Moye Mountain Lions learned about Mother Goose and how nursery rhymes were one way children hundreds of years ago became reading-ready.  We recited some popular rhymes then watched "Richard Scarry's Mother Goose" and made woolly little lambs that the PK and kinder babies could use as prompts for sharing what they learned with family at home.

The first graders compared Mother Goose's "Itsy Bitsy Spider" with the water cycle.  We read a nonfiction book together then used the information to
complete a water cycle worksheet.  The children were already familiar with the cycle so did a great job applying their prior knowledge and facts from the book to fill in the blanks on the graphic organizer.

Second grade used Britannica Online for the first time with our research of polar animals.  We talked about what an encyclopedia is, looked at the print versions we have in the reference section then used the online encyclopedia and nonfiction print resources to complete a worksheet on their animal.  The children were able to explore Britannica Online a little bit, watching videos, listening to audio clips and selecting photographs to print of whales, penguins, walruses, seals and polar bears.  In coming weeks, we will use the information they gathered to write a short paper on their animals and will top things off by learning to draw various polar animals and making a penguin pencil holder.  Stay tuned for pictures of our final products.


Third graders watched PowerPoints about the Dewey Decimal System and the neighborhoods in the library.  We discussed the purpose of the call number as the specific address for a book within a neighborhood or collection in the library.  Children identified the call numbers for the nonfiction, fiction, easy, biography and reference neighborhoods.  I divided the students into groups of three or four students then gave each group a collection of small items to sort.  Each group of children had to devise a plan for sorting the little objects and then organize the buttons, erasers, foam shapes, beads and be able to explain to their classification system.  After careful consideration, almost every group figured out a classification system similar to the way nonfiction books are organized by subject and assigned a Dewey number.  In several classes, the children even sorted tiny foam princesses, crowns, slippers and magic wands together into a category they called fairy tale things!  Better known to librarians as the 398.2 section!  Be still my heart!


Fourth graders finished up soil research by taking the information on their graphic organizers and creating a three to five paragraph report.  We placed the worksheets, which served as our notes with their research papers inside folders the children decorated with soil-related illustrations such as the mineral and organic matter that create dirt, the layers of soil, and the types of soil.  I hope to have time to hang these products in the main hall this week.


My poor fifth graders have hardly had an opportunity to visit the library lately with all of the cohorts, benchmark and mock testing they have been doing.  I still have hopes that we will finish the planet research we began before our snowstorm.


Now that the snow has melted and temperatures are warming, I am looking forward to spring but will always remember the almost magical hush of February's falling snowflakes.  Lazy snow days bring out the child in all of us and you can be sure that next year, I will try my luck at snow dancing again.