January -- Snow and Penguins

 Isn't this the cutest bulletin board? Thank you, CANVA and Pippi Post! In my attempts to get kids to broaden their literary interests, I came up with a challenge for our Grammar School. The challenge was to read and respond to 25 new books in the first 25 school days of 2025. For grades TK-2, each teacher read a book to her class, and then the class had three questions to answer about the book. For grades 3-5, I had 5 books/grade, and the kids participated in a drawing to see who would get to read and respond to the books. To make it even more fun, the books were wrapped, and classes or individuals got to unwrap the books. I added a penguin to the board each time a challenge-book with answered questions was turned in. You can see that we have 25 cute penguins on the board. The snowflakes represent books which were read multiple times. On the last day of January, each student in the school received a cute penguin sticker to comemorate the challenge being met! It was alot of fun and livened up the month of January a little bit.

 For grades 4 and 5, I am reading A Week in the Woods, a neat book by Andrew Clements. It is a realistic fiction book and seems to be keeping their interest. We will continue reading it in February because we missed library a few times during January. I read a ton of snow-related books to grades TK-3 in January. I am picturing/listing some of the best ones below, along with the activities we did that the kids seemed to like. 

   

TK -- These were their two favorites. The Snowman is a wordless book with lovely pictures and a sweet story. I did not actually read it. There is a video of the book on YOUTube with beautiful background music. It was so good that the kids sat still watching it for 25 minutes. Here's the link: The Snowman. What made it even more exciting was that after the video, the kids got to create their own snowmen using supplies in tinker trays. They had "snow" much fun! 

Snow is My Favorite and My Best is one I was not previously familiar with, but I really liked it. It's one of those books that uses little kid vernacular, and it totally entertained the littles. After that book, the kids got to use their hands and sense of touch to reach into fake snow and distinguish between a plastic penguin and another bird. Again, they had "snow" much fun. (I promise not to do that again.)

Kindergarten -- I did a Robert Munsch focus in kindergarten. I've loved his books and enjoyed reading them to kids for years. I knew he had several that focused on winter, so I thought this would be a good time to read some of his work. The kids loved the humor, the repetition, and the unexpected. My favorite two activities were making a thermometer and learning the basics of temperature with 50 Below Zero and predicting how many snowballs (little marshmallows) it would take to cover a toy snowman after So Much Snow.

First Grade -- I read a couple winter-related Jan Brett books, The Three Snow Bears and The Snowy Nap. Jan Brett's books are a favorite at our school, and these did not disappoint. We did a sequencing activity with the bears book. I found it online. With The Snowy Nap, they got to paint hedgehogs with forks. It was so interesting having them predict the tool they would use after looking at my example -- "that thing you stick in your ear," "toothpick," "comb," "your fingers."

I also read Penguin's Big Adventure to first grade, and we did an offline coding activity. We looked at the attached grid on the viewboard. One child went out so they wouldn't hear the code, and the others created the code by holding arrows up. The first child returned and read the code. They thought they were big kids, especially after I told them that they'd soon be doing some real coding. (Shhhhhh!)

To get the activity, click HERE.

Second Grade -- With second grade, our favorite book was Snow Globe Family. Our favorite activity (which actually went with another book) was designing sleds. I gave them a small snowman and a selection of Legos. The assignment was to create a sled for the snowman and slide it down an incline without the sled breaking or the snowman coming out. The snowmen weren't Lego-related, so it was harder than it sounds. They were up to the challenge though!

Third Grade -- Our favorite activity was BY FAR the Penguin Plunge! Rebekah and I prepared some tp roll penguins ahead of time. (It would have been fun for the kids to make them, but there was a time element.) We had one penguin for every third grader, and yes, they could take their penguin with them at the end of library time. I read parts of The Penguin Family to them, and we discussed how the mama penguins leave thier eggs with the fathers and walk back to the ocean and "plunge" in. I grouped the kids in 3-4 per group, giving each group a yardstick, a recording sheet, and their penguins. There was also a piece of tape below one edge of each table. Their task was to thump their penguin off the table, plunging it into the "water" below and then measure the distance from the tape and record it. They had a blast! Equally important, they were very busy measuring, adding measurements, and trying to figure out how to increase the distance of future plunges. Pictures and links to recording sheet, etc. are below!

Click HERE for Penguin Plunge Recording Sheet.

You can see that we had a great time in the library in January. We ended the month with some penguin-related centers -- building homes for plastic penguins, origami penguins, a penguin puzzle, and how to draw penguins. I am looking forward to February and still "loving it in the library!"