Hour of Code 2015 at MWE

The week of December 7th is Computer Science Education week, and once again we joined the masses participating in the Hour of Code. The idea is to have every student work for one hour during this week to learn about computer programming using various websites, activities, apps, and technology. I was able to have grades 1st-5th grade all visit the library during that week to complete various activities, and we had lots of fun too!

FIRST GRADE: 

What a fun day of learning about coding with my 1st grade Ss! Thanks @codeorg @SBISD for your support! #HourOfCode pic.twitter.com/PCOjrPe4Pi

— MWELibrary (@LibraryMWE) December 7, 2015

SECOND GRADE:

Second graders did a great job helping each other debug their programs! #HourOfCode @codeorg #mwetchrs pic.twitter.com/xf9gNYYhC3

— MWELibrary (@LibraryMWE) December 9, 2015

THIRD GRADE:

.@codeorg #mincraft and #starwars puzzles are fun! Great job Third Grade! #mwetchrs https://t.co/j1mXtSUNM4

— Karyn Lewis (@ktlewis14) December 10, 2015

FOURTH GRADE:

Creating #StarWarsTheForceAwakens games and #minecraft houses! #HourofCode https://t.co/IxpRwPDjTh

— Karyn Lewis (@ktlewis14) December 8, 2015

FIFTH GRADE: Bonus: Robots!

Sphero programming #HourofCode https://t.co/Y5qDokZbbV

— Karyn Lewis (@ktlewis14) December 11, 2015

Kindergarteners even got in on the fun and started learning about programming Dash robots using Blockly on their ipads!

Learning about Dash and programming! #HourofCode https://t.co/g8jFJeehox

— Karyn Lewis (@ktlewis14) December 8, 2015

If you are looking for more ways to get your students coding, use this Coding Symabloo page by Shannon Miller to find some great websites and resources!

#HourofCode is here! I updated the Coding Coding Coding @Symbaloo to share. https://t.co/buIQUtjbB6 #tlchat #edchat pic.twitter.com/0Evw9DUEOv

— Shannon Miller (@shannonmmiller) December 7, 2015

Toddler Story Time - December 2015

December brought thoughts of the holidays, so we read Christmas stories and sang songs to help us Countdown to Christmas!

Our stories this month were:
 Bear Stays Up by Karma Wilson
 Click, Clack, Ho! Ho! Ho! by Doreen Cronin

And then we listened to "Up on the Housetop" while looking at the wonderful pictures in this book:


We ended our time by making a Christmas paper chain to count down the days until Christmas was here!

Click here to see the December Story Time slides.

Keep reading, friends! I hope you get lots of books as presents this holiday season!

Toddler Story Time - November 2015

In November we focused on being thankful for everything around us, from the trees to our friends to our bodies!

Our stories this month were:
 little tree  by Loren Long

 all of me! a book of thanks by Molly Bang

 Splat says Thank you! 

Our song was "Skinamarink" by Miss Nina:

Click here to see the entire November Story Time slideshow!

Keep reading and being thankful for all the stories we have to share!

Toddler Story Time - October 2015

October was our first monthly Toddler Story Time session. 
We read stories and sang songs to get us ready for Fall in Texas.

Our books were:
 Maple by Lori Nichols

 Little Owl's Night by Divya Srinivasan

Our song was "One Little Owl" from Muffin Songs:

To continue the owl theme we made these super cute owls:

(from Kids Actvities Blog)

Click here for the October Toddler Story Time slides!

Keep reading, friends!

Toddler Story Time 2015 Update

I have loved my Wednesday mornings with my littlest readers joining me in the Meadow Wood Library from the community to share 30 minutes together with stories, songs, and crafts. I have seen many of my little readers move from story time to Pre-K and Kindergarten students at my school. I have seen babies grow into toddlers and then into preschoolers. It has been one of my favorite times of the week for the last 3 years, so it is with much consideration that I am changing our story time schedule.
As of this month, due to scheduling conflicts, MWE Toddler Story Time will only be offered on the first Wednesday of the month from 8:15-8:45 AM. I hope I am able to bring more to these special days, and that more families will be able to join us!

So, in case you missed any of our September Story Times, here are the slides with our books and songs that we shared so far this year:

Mac Barnett Day

Friends to the End

Dot Day

Don and Audrey Wood Day

Kevin Henkes Day

Fall Story Time

As you can see we have been very lucky to have so many great authors visit our local bookstore, Blue Willow Bookstore, here in Houston. I love being able to share their stories with not only my students, but my community as well!

Please remember to keep reading to your children everyday!

Genrefying the Everybody Section: Part 2

After several days of sorting, I finally had a rough sorting of my picture books. I ended up using these categories (instead of genres) for my first round of sorting:

• Historical stories
• Humorous stories
• Traditional stories (folk tales, fairy tales, nursery rhymes)
• Family
• School
• Holidays
• Children/Friends
• Animal Characters
• Dinosaurs and dragons
• Sports
• Vehicles
• Science
• Dogs
• Cats
• Princesses
• Pirates, ninjas, superhero
• Cowboys
• Wordless books
• Art
• Numbers
• Alphabet
• Words and books

Plus I already pulled out our "favorite authors", "favorite characters",  and easy reader books.

Almost finished resorting my Everybody books! Might @periScopeOut later today about my process. #tlchat #lotstodo pic.twitter.com/zPm8LHonI4

— Karyn Lewis (@ktlewis14) August 11, 2015

(A look at my books sorted into categories.)

As I started to put books onto the shelves, I quickly discovered that several categories were too large to really help my youngest students find what they were looking for. So I started trying to think of ways to further divide the categories of "historical fiction", "science", and "animal characters". I started with the historical fiction section, and will definitely pull out biographical/memoir stories and cultures of the world, but am still undecided about if I should divide U.S. history into "eras" or not. Next I will tackle science, which might turn into "the world around us" and "the animals around us" categories. When I take a look at the animal character books again, I might see if some could fall into some of my other categories, such as humorous, family, children/friends, and school.

In sharing my journey on Twitter, Kristen Murphy, a fellow librarian, shared a post by a public library that changed their picture books into neighborhoods. This article gave me something to think about, but I might ask a few students what they think before I make any changes! However my categories end up, I think it will make my picture book section much more accessible to my kindergartners and first graders! I can't wait to share it with them, but I've got some more work to do until then...

In case you want to take a look at how it is shaping up, here is a copy of the Periscope session I did earlier this week giving a visual tour of the process just after I finished sorting:

Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @ktlewis14 and @LibraryMWE to see more about my process and my reveal to students in a few weeks! 

Genrefying the Everybody Section

After 3 years of frustrated kindergarteners, I decided to reorganize my Everybody section! Being encircled daily by 5 and 6 year olds asking for "princess", "superhero", "dog", "ninja", and "dinosaur" books made me think there has to be a better way! So the process began by pulling out our "favorite authors, illustrators, and character" books:

Then I started making stacks of kindergarten topic requests:

I completed sections A-D today. Hoping to get everything sorted before school starts so I can recruit some volunteers to help sticker all of them!

What do you do to help your littles find the book they want on their own?