Roland Smith Is Amazing!

On Monday, March 15th I took my own 3 kids to the Literature Festival in Warrensburg, Missouri. We had a great time seeing 4 great authors! We ALL especially loved the presentation by Roland Smith. I have seen him speak ten to fifteen times, but it never gets old. He is an amazing speaker and really captures the audiences' attention. My kids have been quoting him all week! You MUST check out his website. He writes a blog called, Roland's Journal that will grab your interest if you are keen on becoming a writer yourself. You can follow along as he blogs about his day...what he is writing, what is ready to be submitted, and so on. Check it out...

http://www.rolandsmith.com/

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We Are Off And Running

We are entering our 2nd full week of school and I have seen each class two times. So far we have reviewed our Missouri Reading Award Programs, checked out for the first time, learned how to access digital materials at home, set up Google Classrooms, and become familiar with Overdrive ebooks. Mrs. Haynes met with each class before their second checkout (first with their classroom teacher) and chatted with the kiddos about checkout expectations and a couple of other new things she is working on. She is so good about being proactive instead of reactive to what we know happens each year in our library.
Tomorrow each grade level will begin their first maker unit. These units will include inquiry, mini lessons as necessary to teach/review note-taking, selecting best sources, questioning, citing sources, locating materials in our library and on our website, and instruction/exploration on databases and apps we will be using.

This is our plan...
Fifth graders are designers and will begin worki…

Kindergarten Builders and Problem-Solvers

Mission: Using the supplies provided, build a contraption to help the Little Red Hen carry flour. Supplies: TinkerToys, Yarn, Bucket, 5 lb Bag of Flour Focus: Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Fun

The Power of A Book

I recently finished the book, Appleblossom The Possum by Holly Goldberg Sloan (the author of Counting by 7's) Let me start by saying I will read anything that H. G. Sloan writes. What an amazing author! Appleblossom is the sweetest little possum you ever did read about and she totally changed my feelings about possums. They just don't seem quite so nasty anymore:). Just look at that cute little possum waving to you on the cover below. She was drawn by Holly Goldberg Sloan's husband, Gary A. Rosen.

I started reading this book on Monday and found myself headed back to school tonight (Wednesday) after dinner so I could find out what happened to sweet little Appleblossom in the "monster's house." I have always thought that I didn't enjoy fictional animal books. I may be the only person in the world who doesn't like Charlotte's Web. I am beginning to wonder if it is because of the sadness I felt as a little girl when I read about Charlotte…

Lewis and Clark Learns

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