Judy Moody Author Megan McDonald Supports School Libraries

3rd Grade: Color Thesaurus

3rd graders honed their reference skills using the thesaurus - in print and online. First they created synonym chains out of index cards - some were quite long with up to 25 synonym chains! Next students used artist and author Ingrid Sundberg's Color Thesaurus. The Color Thesaurus is a visual representation of the different names and shades of colors. Students found new words for their favorite colors and then added them to a group poster. Why go with just blue when you have all of these options:

Image from: http://ingridsundberg.com/2014/02/04/the-color-thesaurus/

The word cloud below represents students' color words:

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Author/Illustrators Lori Cook and Trahern Cook Visit WHES

Author/illustrators Trahern& Lori Cook are visiting @Woodland_Hgts! Gertie the Christmas Ostrich! pic.twitter.com/yKFyBa745h

— Elizabeth Graham (@Libscigal) December 17, 2015

Hour of Code 2015

#HourOfCode 2015 2nd Grade loves @codeorg tutorials, learning in the library #edtec https://t.co/SwnzTtVqrF pic.twitter.com/l04uylvNGa

— Elizabeth Graham (@Libscigal) December 9, 2015

Fun times with 4th grade girls @Woodland_Hgts #girlscodetoo #HourOfCode pic.twitter.com/nIUhTJACzz

— Elizabeth Graham (@Libscigal) December 11, 2015

Ready for a Whole Week of the Hour of Code

@codeorg @Woodland_Hgts Started our Hour of Code a little early! pic.twitter.com/kvEgTkXGZG

— Elizabeth Graham (@Libscigal) November 24, 2015

Summer Reading Program 2015: Every Hero Has a Story!

This is a great week in the library as we host visitors from two branches of the Spartanburg County Public Library. Both the Headquarters and the Westside branches have sent librarians to Woodland Heights to promote the SCPL Summer Reading program. This year's theme is "Every Hero Has a Story" and there are lots of cool promotions, prizes and events that go along with the theme. All library classes are learning about the program and why Summer Reading is so important (and fun)!

Catie Cornwell and Isabel Smith of the Westside Branch in the Storywell

Thank you Ms. Catie and Ms. Isabel!!

Ms. Fran hanging with 3rd grade

School Library and Public Library Meet-Up

Parents, please make sure your children participate in this FREE program. Click here for much more information. This year you can even sign up on-line and the SCPL will forgive up to $10 in fines when you sign up for Summer Reading!

Avoid the Summer Slide - the usual drop in reading scores from May to August! Keep reading students!

Digital Tool of Choice: Voki

@libscigal Welcome Elizabeth Graham as our newest Voki Ambassador! Then go read her blog post! http://t.co/nL1XcjUF2s pic.twitter.com/jZEDLXqkZM

— Voki (@officialvoki) May 1, 2015

Presentation Day

5th grade students present their Roaring 20s Vokis, Tagxedos, and trading cards.

Tweet from Author Kelly DiPucchio

@Libscigal Thank you for sharing Chloe and Gilbert with your awesome readers!!

— Kelly DiPucchio (@kellydipucchio) March 25, 2015

Crafty Chloe & Gilbert the Goldfish Wants a Pet

Now, that the South Carolina Book Awards season is over, we are having some fun read alouds of new picture books. Earlier this year I shared Gaston by Kelly DiPucchio with our students. Great dog story - always a favorite!



When I ordered new books I made sure to order more DiPucchio picture books, including: Crafty Chloe, Crafty Chloe: Dress-Up Mess-Up, and Gilbert Goldfish Wants a Pet. This week K4-2nd grade students have enjoyed these new books and crafty library centers. Bob Shea is the illustrator of Gilbert the Goldfish (check out the book trailer below) and we realized hat he is also the author/illustrator of another favorite new book, Unicorn Thinks He's So Great.

A Dog's Way Home Book Trailer

Three of our fifth grade students took their own time to create a book trailer about A Dog's Way Home by Bobbie Pyron. Great work Nya, Charity and Kendall!

Graphic Novels - Oh My!

Graphic novels are popular with all grades and ages of students. Fifth graders are trying their hand at making their own comic strips. Students learned about talk balloons, thought balloons, panels and sequencing. They have a choice of creating their own hand-written paper version or trying out the Comix Creator on MakeBeliefsComix.com.

Destiny Quest

 

5th grade students learned a new way to use our Follett library catalog: Destiny Quest! Destiny Quest is like Facebook or Goodreads for students. They can recommend books to each other and add books to their virtual bookshelf. Students were very excited about this new feature!

New Books

The Long Haul Contest

Donors Choose Match Opportunity - Project is 1/2 Off!

Thank you for the match offer! Donors Choose Project is now 1/2 off thanks to @ToonBooks!! http://t.co/tlN9Uqvg0E @donorschoose @akjbooks

— Elizabeth Graham (@Libscigal) January 7, 2015

New Year, New Books!

What could be better than a big shipment of new library books? That is what we received on Monday, the first day back from Christmas break.  Mrs. Graham, Mrs. Coats and our wonderful library volunteers are busy processing and preparing these books to get them out to the students as soon as possible! Excitement is building. Be on the lookout for sneak peeks of some of the awesome new books. 

Day Two: Code Time

Third grade students try out The Foos, Anna and Elsa, and Angry Birds coding activities.

"I've never done this before, but I am just getting it."

Mrs. Wallace on her first grade students' coding work: "Great for problem solving."

Hour of Code Week: Programming in the Library

#HourOfCode 2nd graders love programming The Foos pic.twitter.com/gOYugsTjX9

— Elizabeth Graham (@Libscigal) December 8, 2014

Thankfulness Padlets

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