CE Google Hangout with the AMAZING Josh Funk!

Click the photo below to see the highlight of our day - A Google Hangout with the AMAZING author - Josh Funk!

We Are Makers: CISD Summer Library Activities

Eggcellent Learning with Farmers Pa & Mcmillin

Photo source: http://www.adventuresci.org/events/event/eggcellent-science-2/

My two FAVORITE farmers visited CE last Friday! Farmer Pa and Farmer Mcmillin taught our students all about the life cycle of a chicken. Not only that, they have supplied our 1st grade classrooms with eggs that hatched today!

Farmer Pa & Farmer Mcmillin are here-CE 1st Ss learning about chickens @randicheyenne7 #castleberryisd #ceohgo pic.twitter.com/ZBiOKh81wq

— Sallee Clark (@libraryclark) May 13, 2016

1st grade has baby chicks! #ceohgo pic.twitter.com/W9BtSQytPu

— Cheyenne McMillin (@randicheyenne7) May 16, 2016

Students also learned about how a baby chick hatches and the anatomy of a chicken.  Did you know chickens have an egg tooth? Following the lessons with our farmers, students returned to the library to learn about sound waves and sounding boards.  Students created their very own chickens in a cup. We had so much fun with these farmers! Thank you Ms. Mcmillin for including the library in your science lessons!

CE May Library Newsletter

EPIC Author Hangout: Rubin Pingk

 
WOW! I think we just experienced the BEST author Google Hangout EVER!  Mr. Rubin Pingk, author/Illustrator or Samurai Santa, agreed to Google Hangout with us this past Friday.  With over 800 students in attendance online, Mr. Pingk encouraged our students to join him in his recipe for doing anything:

He encouraged our kiddos to follow this recipe in everything they do in life.  Start - start doing, Do it More, Don't give up, keep going, then go back and re-do the bad stuff.  Mr. Pingk also warned us about the enemies lurking to destroy our recipe.  

The enemies to success include: Procrastination, Frustration, becoming Satisfied, and Ego/Pride!  WOW! What great lessons to learn at a young age! Not only that, this goes perfect with our school theme of having a growth mindset.

Want to be encouraged by this brilliant recipe? Check out the Google Hangout below!  He also shares how he made a book, his favorite book, how to draw Yukio, and more!

We also had the chance to ask a few questions.  To manage this across 800 students we used the twitter hashtag #Pingkrocks

#pingkrocks Tweets

We also sent a few questions ahead of time to Mr. Pingk and he created some amazing artwork to answer them :)

Thank you Mr. Pingk for an 

EPIC Google Hangout! 

CE Library News - April

We LOVE Science!

I was so excited when I heard that Mr. Allan Small was visiting CE last week!  Mr. Small is an amazing science teacher.  He offers students the ability to have fun learning through hands on experiments.  I of course begged 3rd grade to please come to the library when hosting this science experiment!

Mr. Small presented the students with crayfish!  Many of the students have never seen or touched a crayfish.  The sounds in the room went from eww to aww to wow to oh cool!  First they began by examining the body and locating three main body parts taught by Mr. Small.  Once the parts were located, the students then learned about the different ways crayfish adapt to their surrounds.

After learning about how they adapt, the students were able to compare the crayfish to a giant water beetle.  They compared and contrasted the bodies and discussed the different adaptations of the giant water beetle.

Then it was time for the grand finale! DISSECTION!
The kids loved it!  They were able to view the inside of the crayfish and see the different sections of its exoskeleton!

Check out the videos below:

Wow! @TheFort_FW you are the BEST Scientist EVER!! Thank you for sharing this with our Ss #castleberryisd #ceohgo pic.twitter.com/lIk4yUxMyx

— Sallee Clark (@libraryclark) March 31, 2016

You Rock @FontenotMathCE Amazing science experiment! Tks for experimenting in the library! #castleberryisd #ceohgo pic.twitter.com/zSaWvgUzIn

— Sallee Clark (@libraryclark) March 31, 2016

Library Collaboration Project: Interactive Solar System

The 3rd Grade teachers and students at Castleberry Elementary School are Amazing!  Thank you so much for allowing me to collaborate with you and for taking a chance on coding!  The result is authentic learning with collaboration, making, and technology!

Throughout this collaboration project our students created Interactive Solar System Displays!

The students:
*Researched information on each planet in our solar system
*Collaborated and created solar system displays
*Collaborated and shared their research by coding within Scratch.mit.edu

As each planet is touched their research information is shared on the screen!
Scan the QR codes below for a few examples.  Links are below as well :)

YouTube Examples:

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Press Green flag to begin - Red stop sign to stop

Directions below each 

Press the Green Flag
Keys to press:
Space Bar
Right Arrow
Left Arrow
Down Arrow
Up Arrow





Press the Green Flag
Keys to press:
Space Bar
Right Arrow
Left Arrow
Down Arrow
Up Arrow

More Scratch.mit.edu Examples

Collaboration Friday: Valentine Story Problems!

What do you do with a million Valentine hearts that you Do Not Want To Eat?
Create story problems, of course!

Check out these awesome math skill videos using grouping & multiplication/repeated addition story problems.

Grouping:








Multiplication/Repeated Addition story problem

TCEA 2016

I love learning and connecting with new people!  I learned soooo much at TCEA! I have had to let it all settle in my brain and try to figure out how to implement and use what we learned.

I have been inspired by my fellow friend and Librarian, Mrs. Scott @ JJE, to share a few highlights of the conference. If you are looking for a great blog to follow, check hers out at http://thejoyfullibrarian.blogspot.com/



This week I participated in a new edchat at #EdBeat.  I really enjoyed the questions and conversation that ensued.  This was my favorite thought shared!

A5) I'd love to see my campus give kids an #edcamp period! #edbeat https://t.co/vDPIRZLD80

— Maggie Bolado (@mrsbolado) February 11, 2016

During the conference we found a collaborative notes group on Twitter, be sure to check out all of the amazing info compiled! 

We have Makey Makeys!!  Check out all of the resources on the Makey Makey button!

The Google Add-Ons were AMAZING! I think we may have found a new way to sign up for Collaboration Fridays! 

We saw a lot of Makerspace workshops! We even presented our own :) There are a ton of new things we are looking into purchasing to help our students grow even more! Click the button above to see our presentation.

Genius Hour!  Everyone is a genius at something!  

During the #EdBeat edchat someone shared a great list of websites you should checkout! 

February Library Newsletter

Who Framed Mrs. Lamb?

Last year students used video clues to infer who ate the gingerbread cookies.  This was a huge hit with our kiddos!  They used QR codes to see each video and were totally surprised by the outcome!  Check out the clues below.

This year we wanted to see if they could use those amazing inference skills to see who Framed Mrs. Lamb!!  We read the story The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School and reviewed the video from last year.  The students then read the new evidence and worked together to infer who the real culprit is at CE. 

Who Framed Mrs. Lamb Clues

I confess! #ceohgo #CE_ArtLions pic.twitter.com/A2Ag1A88yX

— Michael Jenkins (@MichaelJenkinsm) January 28, 2016

CE Read Aloud: The Day the Crayons Quit

Check out this amazing read aloud by CE's very own, Mrs. Lamb!  She captures the spirit of each crayon perfectly.  I know Mr. Daywalt had these voices in his head as he was writing this wonderful story! 

CE Library Winter Wonderland

CE Library Winter Wonderland

The week before winter break, the CE library hosts a week of maker activities that we like to call Winter Wonderland! It is my favorite week of the year! This year we had two activities that we educational and fun! The students were engaged and excited about the challenges.  

Challenge 1:

Students were challenged to create new antlers for the Grinch's dog, Max.  They were then asked to persuade the Grinch to choose their antlers.

Challenge 2:
We read the book The Biggest Christmas Tree Ever! Each group of students were given 35 small drinking cups and we challenged them to build the Biggest Christmas Tree Ever! Throughout the building time, we measured each tree and posted the tallest height on the board for students to work toward passing.  The winners created a talking Christmas Tree stating their height using ChatterPix.

Biggest Christmas Tree Ever Playlist:

January Library News

I Wonder...Box

Wow! I wonder what all this amazing app can do!

I absolutely love the Wonderbox app by Duck Duck Moose.  No surprise here, that the makers of Chatterpix would create such an all inclusive, creative app.  Wonderbox has the capability to be a student portfolio, offers high level blooms activity creation, collaboration, and creative prompts as well.

Mrs. Helgen and I have been utilizing this tool for the past few weeks and cannot see how we survived before.  It seamlessly integrates into our 2nd grade classroom and the creation opportunities are limitless.  We use it daily and in every subject!


I wanted to share a few of the lessons we have created and found within the app.

Math:
We began by challenging the students to video themselves  counting out money. Sending it to a friend for them to check.

In the second math lesson we had the students video themselves stating the amount of money on the picture.  They then sent it to 2 friends.  Their friends were to respond with a picture of the same amount of money using different coins.

Students created word problems using a specific equation and sent them to their friends as an assignment.  The students did the assignment and solved the problem sending it back to the creator to check for accuracy.

Example of one that was answered by another student.

Language Arts:
Students have been studying onomatopoeia examples in Robert Munsch books.  We asked them to write out two sentences using onomatopoeia and read the examples.

Science:
Students have been studying inference and seasons.  They used different clues to prove what season it was.  They then recorded themselves explaining their clues for their season.  The next day they wrote a season riddle for their friends to solve.

The edu version of this app will be out soon! Be sure to add this app to your TO GET list!!