November has been a busy month in the library so far and we still have a week left! The second grade studied folktales so we read Stone Soup in the library and identified the characteristics of a folktale that could be found in this particular version of this old European story. Then all of the second graders and their teachers came to the library to make stone soup. We used five crock pots and five stones and assorted ingredients that were added by the students into the crock pot for their class section. Ingredients included pinto beans, black beans, taco seasonings, dry ranch salad dressing, tomato juice, Rotel, chopped chilies, and browned ground beef. The soup cooked all day in the crock pots in the library and at the end of the day, Ms. Manso and I delivered the crock pots, spoons, bowls, and crackers to each second grade classroom so the children could sample their culinary skills.
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| Second grade teachers adding the stones. |
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| Yoselin and Ms. Navarrete adding ingredients to the soup. |
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| Ms. Chavez and the students in 2F enjoying their soup. | | | | | | | | | |
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Early in the month, the third graders studied the celebration of Dia de los Muertos. They used print resources as well as information available through the Kidsclick! Internet browser for children to complete a worksheet on the holiday. From there, the children took their information and used it to complete a fill-in-the-blank paragraph about the traditions surrounding this holiday. In the next week, the third graders will take their fill-in-the-blank paragraphs and write their own reports that will be added to an altar shaped construction paper folder. The students will decorate their altars with illustrations that represent what they learned about the Day of the Dead. Stay tuned for pictures of the final products.
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| Using websites on Kidsclick! for research. |
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| Using print resources for research. |
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The fourth and fifth graders listened to another Bluebonnet Book, Sparrow Girl for fifth grade and The Uglified Duckling for fourth grade. The fifth graders compared the historical fiction account of the killing of sparrows by farmers in China in 1958 with the plague of locusts and the Dust Bowl that affected the southwestern United States in the 1930s. They used EBSCO to view a short video clip of the Dust Bowl and then answered a worksheet about the Dust Bowl from magazine articles available through EBSCO. The fourth graders compared The Uglified Duckling to Hans Christian Anderson's The Ugly Duckling and identified the characteristics of a folktale that could be found in this story. When fourth grade returns to the library in two weeks, they will complete a worksheet about Aesop and the origin of fables.
