January is Snow Much Fun!

 I made some changes this January from last year. I did not enjoy doing the chapter book with the two oldest grades. We had so many schedule fluctuations that a 4-week book turned into two months of library classes. By the time we finished the book, the kids had lost interest. So I chose some fun winter picture books which lent themselves to big-kid activities. 

My first new book was The Twist-A-Roo, by Kathleen Doherty. This was a visually engaging retell of the ants and the grasshopper with a little twist. (Pun intended) The fifth graders enjoyed it so much. 

They also enjoyed the activity the next week: they got to build their own kaleidoscopes! I don't always succeed at bringing excitement to fifth graders in the library. This is, in fact, my biggest challenge. With this book and activity, I finally reached a moment of success. Below are some pictures of my setup (which did take a little time) and then a couple pics of the kids enjoying their working kaleidoscopes. At the bottom of this post I have linked the exact mirrors I got on Amazon. The did have to be cut into sets of 3 congruent rectangles for each kaleidoscope. Our school paper-cutter worked well.

With fourth grade I chose a book which I have since learned comes from a controversial series. Apparently, some librarians/teachers have very strong feelings about the "How to Catch..." books. I have used the Gingerbread Man book with kindergarten before Christmas and now used the Snowman one with fourth grade. 

I would not want to have a steady diet of these books, but I am also not offended by the silliness of them. Kids deserve a little silliness sometimes. The kids enjoyed listening for the references to "famous" snowmen in this story. I actually selected it because I wanted to follow it up with a STEM activity. 

The kids were put in groups of three, given some select vocabulary and materials and were instructed to first plan a design for and then construct a snowman trap. I gave each group a laminated snowman also. The vocabulary words were "lure" and "enclosure," and both things had to be included in the trap construction. I read the book one week, and they had the entire library period the next week to work. They all worked hard, stayed on task, and enjoyed themselves.

Below is a picture of my favorite one. Their "lure" was a snow-woman! They demonstrated the trap well and it was well constructed.

I did repeat books/activities with the other grades because they worked so well last year. Below are some pictures of the sleds that second graders made and raced AND some Penguin Plunge photos from third grade. Enjoy!

All the penguins waiting patiently...

Mirror Sheets