This week proved to be a fun but tiring week.  After a little over a week off for Winter Break and a four day week following that, five days straight felt very long.  Like most elementary librarians, my schedule is filled with 5-6 classes a day.  I am lucky to be given two preps per day, as well as time each morning, so my schedule seems to be steady but busy.  

On Wednesday evening, our school had a Mindfulness Night.  This evening was all about SEL (Social Emotional Learning) and invited students and their parents to take part in various activities.  In the media center, we put SEL related books out on tables and parents read to their children.  As a new employee of the district, this was a wonderful opportunity to meet parents and families and encourage reading.

My favorite part of the day is seeing my students smiling faces and placing books into their hands.  Below you will find links to the slides for each lesson (unless a lesson was borrowed from someone else and would break copyright to share). In my school, I also teach 3-5 Gifted and Talented classes so I have included my plans for those classes.

Kindergarten - Hibernation Theme - In kindergarten I have been doing a theme each week.  This week our theme was Hibernation.  We read the story The Bear Snores On and a Loud Winter's Nap.  We also sang the song Bear Is Sleeping to the tune of Frere Jacques and added it other animals who hibernate in the winter.  This was so much fun!  I really love adding songs to our storytime.

Grade 1 - We continued our Jan Brett unit by reading the story The Three Snow Bears.  This seemed to be one of my students' favorites of the books we read by her so far.  They enjoyed pointing out the differences between Goldilocks and the Three Bears and this version.  To end our lesson we viewed a short National Geographic video about polar bears.

Grade 2 - This week we learned about the 5 finger rule.  We read the story Goldisocks and the Three Libearians.  My students really enjoyed this story.  After reading, I demonstrated the 5 finger rule to my students and provided each student with a bookmark they could take home with them.

Grade 3 - This week we learned about parts of a book.  I read my students the book A Book Is Just Like You.  This is a perfect book to illustrate the parts of a book.  After reading the story, my students completed a coloring sheet where they identified the title, author, illustrator, spine, and cover.

Grade 4 - This week I collaborated with my 4th grade teachers on a research project.  I found an excellent research plan on Teachers Pay Teachers that really broke the research process down for students.  We picked a topic and worked on filling the first part of the slides together.  If you are interested in these slides, I have provided a link to the TPT product.

Grade 5 - This week we reviewed Nonfiction Call Numbers.  I also used slides for this created on TPT and the link to the slides product is available above.  Next, week I plan on creating various stations for students to practice what we have learned about fiction and nonfiction call numbers.

TAG (Gifted and Talented) - I see my TAG students two times a week.  In 3rd grade, we learned about Codes and Ciphers, and are just about to start creating a project in Scratch.  Did you know that as a teacher, you can get an educators Scratch account?  This allows you to create accounts for all your students.  In 4th grade, we started learning about Space Archeology.  Students were able to view several videos, and respond in a Padlet to what they have learned about space archeology.  They will then create a Google Slides presentation demonstrating knowledge of space archeology.  In 5th grade, we continued researching our energy sources.  Students had to research their energy source and are creating posters based on their energy source.  We will complete this next week, and present on our findings.

This was a fun week!  I am excited to continue some of these great units next week and am thankful for a long weekend filled with family and friends.