L.I.F.E.

Outer Space

lifewgs — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 02:40:46 +0000

NASA is celebrating 50 years in space this year. So, this week we joined the celebration beginning the night with a reading of Dan Yaccarino’s Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! I’m Off to the Moon. Students brought rocks from their backyard and we chose two to send to NASA’s Rock Around the World collection. NASA scientists will examine our rocks and provide us with an analysis of our rocks’ compositions. Then, we painted the remaining rocks for our own “moon” rock collection. We used glow-in-the-dark paint and glitter to create patterns and fun looking rocks to light up our night.

President’s Day

lifewgs — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 14:08:31 +0000

It’s always more fun celebrating President’s Day in an election year. We started the night with a mock election and just as in our national polls, the vote count was very close. In fact, we had a tie! After that the students built great forts, barns, and log cabins out of Lincoln logs while I read Judith St. George’s So You Want to be President. It’s a bit long for storytime, but there are plenty of interesting things to discuss and the illustrations are fantastic. Then, we made cherry pies (crumbled graham crackers, cherry pie filling, and whipped cream in a cup) in honor of our first president and presidential folklore, in general.

There are plenty of fun things to do online to celebrate and learn more about our Presidents. Try these:

Valentine’s Day

lifewgs — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:46:44 +0000

We meant to explore the origin of Valentine’s Day, but somehow left it behind in our eagerness to get on with the modern-day expression of the holiday. Specifically, eating chocolate and making a gift for a loved one. Students and parents created a simple frame from craft sticks. Then, using their considerable artistic and, in some cases, literary talent, decorated the frames with candy heart messages, stickers, glitter, and paint pens. We also added a paper backing that students used to draw a picture, or create an image using more glue and glitter. Another fun time at the library!

We also read a good story, Froggy’s First Kiss by Jonathan London. The Froggy books are great read-alouds, especially for young kids as they can help read the repetitive parts. The older readers caught me when I almost skipped the last page, so it’s entertaining enough to keep even some of our best readers interested.

Dinosaur Dig!

lifewgs — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:46:38 +0000

Who doesn’t like dinosaurs? We began the evening reading Elise Broach’s When Dinosaurs Came with Everything. Seeing all the different dinosaurs generated a lot of interest and information sharing from the students who had dinosaur collections of their own at home. Well informed about dinosaurs, we began our dinosaur dig, which was a 50 piece skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex buried in sand. Okay, it got a little messy as some of us didn’t exactly follow the careful excavation practices of real paleontologists. But, we had a lot of fun. Students also assembled a smaller 3D glow-in-the-dark T-Rex puzzle and a traditional tabletop puzzle.

Big kudos to students that colored and made up a story to go along with the comic strip on the flyer advertising library night. There are some really great storytellers among us at Walnut Grove.

Here are some great sites to explore more about dinosaurs:

Discovery Channel’s Dinosaur Guide
Games from Dinofun.com
BBC’s Prehistoric Life pages – including games and movies
Dinosaur Uproar – events at the Huntsville Botanical Gardens

Reading as a Hobby

lifewgs — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:08:55 +0000

This week in the library we focused on taking your reading hobby seriously. After reading the entertaining story, Wild About Books by Judy Sierra, we talked about keeping a reading journal. A reading journal doesn’t have to be fancy; a simple notebook will do. Book entries in your journal could include the title of the book, author, main characters, brief summary, and, most importantly, your impressions of what you read. Not only will journaling about what you read help you remember your readings longer, it’s a great way to look back at how your reading and views on things have changed over time. We also looked at Huntsville Public Library’s NovelList database. You can use this database to find reviews of books and links to books similar to ones you have enjoyed. All you need to access this database from home is a library card and pin number issued from any branch library.

We spent much of the rest of the evening decorating book bags to carry our books and other reading supplies with us. Parents and students showed great designer skills creating fun and attractive bags.

Camp Night in the Library

lifewgs — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:48:00 +0000

We had our best turnout ever for library night. We “toasted” marshmallows around the unlit campfire, sang songs, and told stories. Some of our best stories were told by the kindergarteners and preschoolers proving you’re never too young to start practicing advanced literacy skills. Several folks thought we were going to have a real camp-out with real toasted marshmallows, but most enjoyed the premade toasted marshmallows (coconut sprinkled with brown sugar), or the plain marshmallows dipped in chocolate and topped with sprinkles of their choice. We will definitely do this again with some improvements based on what we learned.

Winter

lifewgs — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 15:44:22 +0000

It’s finally starting to get a little colder in North Alabama. This week, we got ready for the cooler temps by reading the classic Ukrainian tale, The Mitten by Jan Brett. Actually, to warm up before our official story time, one of our kindergarteners read a Popcorn story book to the group. It was an interesting selection if you remember what happens at the end of The Mitten – not unlike a lot of popcorn flying around.

Reading The Mitten made me wish that I could learn how to knit and do other constructive indoor activities during these colder, shorter days. So, at library night we learned how to knit using just our fingers and some yarn. If you missed it, you can learn too by watching this video at YouTube.

There are lots of fun things to do indoors. Reading is always great. Remember to pay attention to what you are reading and explore ideas you find in books in your real world, too. You can use the library at Walnut Grove, the public library in town, and even the Internet to do more research on anything you find in storybooks, magazines, or other reading material you encounter this Winter.

Taking Flight

lifewgs — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:36:26 +0000

At Library Night this week, we learned about our local aviation history. Everyone knows Huntsville is famous for its pioneering feats in rocket science beginning with Werner von Braun and his team in the 1950s. Madison County’s leadership in aviation, however, actually began almost 50 years earlier with a little-known farmer and inventor, William Quick. He is credited with the first flight of a monoplane in 1908 – setting the standard in wing design nearly 20 years before the rest of the industry decided to abandon two and three wing designs. You can read more about Mr. Quick at the Early Aviators site.

We also conducted some simple experiments with balloons to test our own theories of flight. We taped string to the ceiling, threaded a straw through the string, taped balloons on the straws, and then taped the string to the floor. We experimented with how much air we put in the balloons to see how high up the string they would go and also how much weight we could add to them. For example, we added an empty cup and then tried several different objects of varying weights inside the cup. The students demonstrated exceptional curiosity, imagination, and scientific thinking as they tried adding multiple balloons, varying positions, and other options for increasing the distance of the balloons. We have a lot of brilliant minds at WGS.

If you are looking for more fun games and experiments to do with flight, check out the FAA Kid’s Corner.

Get Your Reading Ticket

lifewgs — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 04:55:13 +0000

We had a great time at Library Night tonight. After reading (re-reading for several of us) The Polar Express, we each decorated our very own, individual train cake. The artistry was fantastic and they tasted pretty good, too!

At the end of the night, every one got a Reading Ticket to log their reading for the rest of the school year. The tickets will be punched each week at Library Night for everyone who completes 7 nights of reading or being read to for at least 20 minutes. Once your ticket is full, you will get a PRIZE! So, if you missed Library Night tonight, be sure to come early next year so that you can get on the Reading Train with the rest of us.

Holiday Letters

lifewgs — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 04:49:56 +0000

The holidays are a busy time and it can be hard to find time to read as a family. One way to keep literacy related activities going through the holidays is writing cards to friends and family. We had a great time at the library making our own holiday cards and cinnamon-scented, sandpaper gingerbread men to go inside them as gifts. If you missed it, you can print a card to color at Printable Christmas Cards to Color – from Activity Village.

The sandpaper gingerbread ornaments were easy to make, too. Cut a gingerbread man shape out of sandpaper. Then, rub them with a cinnamon stick until you achieve the desired fragrance. If you get a light color of sandpaper, you can see the paper turning browner from the cinnamon stick, too. Then, decorate with google eyes, buttons, and/or crayons. They fit inside the card for a nice gift, or keep it yourself to hang on the tree, or anywhere you want to enjoy a little scent of Christmas!