Savvy Students
Spring Newsletter 2019 - Wyman Library
Second Trimester is Finished
The students have been learning a lot in library, honing their digital skills and putting them into practice with various grade level projects. Our new favorite app is SeeSaw. It's a wonderful digital portfolio site that allows students to apply audio, video, text, or pictures to showcase their work.
First Grade Family Books
Shared on SeeSaw
First graders illustrated and labeled a book about their families. They shared their books by videotaping or audio taping in SeeSaw. Students were able to like each others' books, and families could comment on their child's work. As part of a culturally responsive classroom we were interested to see how each family has their own culture. I was thrilled to see one student's favorite place to go with his mother was to the library. : ) A sample is shared below and more are posted on my library page here.
Kindergarten Art
After listening to the story The Dot by Peter Reynolds, in which a little girl learns to be proud of her accomplishments, to persist and to put her name on her work, our kindergarten students drew their own dots. The students saved them in SeeSaw and celebrated their work by adding their names. This was an introduction to copyright for K students.
2nd Grade Frequent Flyers
Second grade students learned about algorithms (a list of steps to complete a task). Students had to follow the steps to create paper airplanes and then test them in library. We used the website FoldnFly for our airplane instructions.
3rd Grade Liars
Third grade had a blast this trimester reading Tall Tales about Paul Bunyan, Mike Fink, John Henry and Pecos Bill. Then they tried stretching the truth themselves in their own Tall Tale stories. We recorded them using SeeSaw and I have posted a sampling of their original works here on my library page.
5th Grade Experts
Fifth graders are tackling a host of library lessons as they do group research on Internet Safety topics. They are creating presentations to teach the rest of the class as they become the experts on their topic. They are even writing exit tickets to quiz the class and make sure they have done their job well.
4th Grade, Digital Citizens and Nearpod
Forth grade students have been learning Internet Safety lessons through a program called Nearpod. Nearpod allows teacher control of a lesson that all students access through individual chromebooks. Students are given time to discuss, opportunities to write and share out to the class, and take part in surveys, polls and quizzes.
Picture Perfect
Picture Perfect is an eye opening lesson that showed 4th grade students how photos are manipulated by companies to help them sell their products. It helped students think about how the ads they see effect their own self image and made them realize no one, not even the models in the magazines are perfect.
Whose is it, anyways?
This is another great Nearpod lesson that taught 4th grade students to respect copyright laws and introduced them to giving credit to the intellectual property of others when they use someone's work during research or creation. Our follow up lesson used EasyBib on a biography project to create bibliographies.
Books to Read With Your Child
Kids Read Across Rhode Island
This year's Read Across RI book for kids is Sanity & Tallulah a graphic novel by Molly Brooks.
Kick Off celebration - May 4th
At the Rhode Island State House from 2:00 to 4:00.
Meet the Author and ask her to sign your book.
Rhode Island Children's Book Award Winner
The winner of the RICBA 2019 vote is Sergeant Reckless : the true story of the little horse who became a hero by Patricia McCormick. All Wyman students grades 3 - 5 took part in the state wide vote.
Tara Castro - Library Media Specialist
This year I have been working as a Fuse Fellow coach with the teachers of Wilbur & McMahon school in Little Compton. Helping the teachers at W&M focus on priority practices like giving students choice over how they learn, or how they share what they learned, has helped me to find more ways to offer my own students choice. There are always new applications to try but the trick is to get to the why. What will this "new" thing add to my student's experience in my classroom? How can I improve what I do? So, I am part teacher, part coach and most importantly, part student.
Website: https://mrscastroslibrary.weebly.com/
Twitter: @MrsCastro2
"Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important." Bill Gates