Our Origami Yodas & Centers

Here are a few classes with their Yodas. Also, here are some students at our centers from April. We had table top poetry, poet tree, magnetic poetry and make your own origami!

Nonfiction Text Features Projects

We have been working hard for the past few weeks on our text features book projects. The students have all worked very hard to build folders that have all of the nonfiction text features we have been studying.

Origami Yoda

This week, I will be book talking about a popular series called, Origami Yoda. We have four of the books in this series: The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, Darth Paper Strikes Back, The Secret of the Fortune Wookie, and Art2-D2's Guide to Folding and Doodling.  Tom Angleberger is the author behind these creative books! He also wrote: Fake Mustache: Or, How Jodie O'Rodeo and Her Wonder Horse (and Some Nerdy Kid) Saved the U.S. Presidential Election from a Mad Genius Criminal Mastermind  and  Horton Halfpott: Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor: or, The Lossening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset. The IMC has copies of both of these books, thanks to Mrs. Warkentien for donating them!!!

Click this link to go to Origami Yoda's webpage! Have fun and may the force be with  you...always! ;)
http://origamiyoda.wordpress.com/

Pop in and Read

Mrs. Warkentien and I donated the "Pop in and Read"to a class with the highest bidder at our district's fundraiser last month. Leo, from Mrs. Klacza's class, one this auction. We popped in and read a few of our favorite picture books. We brought pop corn and pop for the students to enjoy while they listened. It was a pop-tastic time!

New Shelves

Thanks to the bright idea by these four fifth grade boys, our brick pillars have a new look. Peter, Corey, Tony, and Sean had this idea to use the space on the brick pillars to promote some books in our IMC. It took forever to finally get them (they were out of stock at IKEA) but finally they got a supply and we got some! Mr. Alberto put them up over break. Hope you stop in and check out a book on our new shelves!

Anderson's Literature Conference

Today I attended a children's literature conference with Mrs. Warkentien, Miss Trefonas, Mrs. Sulima, Miss Hagensee, Mrs. Schlagbaum, and Miss Maier. We had a great time listening to the authors speak about their books. I enjoyed meeting two great Illinois authors that sat at our table! First, Laura Crawford is the author of two books I purchased for the IMC. She wrote Postcards from Chicago. It ties in perfectly with 3rd grade's Chicago unit. I also purchased for 5th grade The American Revolution from A to Z. She was so nice to talk to and she autographed both copies for us! Thanks Laura!!!
Then we were lucky enough to have Aaron Reynolds sit at our table! He's coming to our school Tuesday night. When I introduced myself he gave me the biggest hug. It was great to talk with him and hear about his books. We also talked a little bit about our author night! :) Speaking of author night, we have over 160 people coming!!! Thank you to everyone who decided to come!

Did you know the year 2013 means Amelia Bedelia is 50 years old!?!? We were given a cupcake a sang Happy Birthday. The author of Amelia Bedelia, Peggy Parish, her nephew spoke today and how he continues to write Amelia Bedelia books. Mrs. Warkentien and I each bought a chapter book!!

I am excited about all the great books I purchased for our IMC. Mrs. Warkentien bought some too. She is donating them to the IMC when she is done reading them. Isn't she wonderful?!?!? Be sure to thank her! Take a look at the books you will see in the IMC soon. Which one do you think you'll want to read first?

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! In honor of this lovely holiday, we had an estimation jar filled with conversation hearts (in Spanish words) for the students to guess how many. It was a center we had up for two weeks. We would like to congratulate Morgan from Mrs. Bell's room. She was the winner with a guess of 460. The total was 464! Great job Morgan! Morgan got to take home the jar and pick a book prize.
We also got a few good laughs from some of the guesses and what was written on them! Which one did you think was the funniest??