Lewis and Clark Learns

This will be my last post as a teacher-librarian for Liberty Public Schools.  After 30 years of teaching, I will be retiring at the end of this school year.  I will continue teaching next year at Kansas City International Academy.  I will totally be switching roles and can't wait to help middle school students work on their reading skills.  I have already started immersing myself in middle school reading by viewing webinars, rereading several books on the topics of reading and literacy ( The Cafe Book and The Daily 5 ),  and reading several new books that will help me manage the structure necessary for successful guided reading. On the other hand, I am also going full speed in the library as well.  We are ending the year by wrapping up Genius Hour projects, art bots, creating books on topics we are passionate about, introducing next year's Missouri award books, and getting summer reading off the ground so our LC kiddos keep on reading!  Several o...

GENIUS HOUR Fourth and fifth grade students started a rotation of Genius Hour learning when we came back to school in January.  We started by focusing on our passions and new learning we wanted to accomplish.  We have researched our topic, created a list of steps to get to our end result, and were sure to cite our sources along the way.  We are busy now working on our projects that we will share with others sometime in March or April. CARDBOARD ARCADE GAMES Our third graders researched inventors and are now building games they invented.  We have worked through the design process and are now in the building and testing phase.  We will be getting feedback from our classmates next week in order to improve our games.   We are working so hard.  The entire school, all 610 students will play our games!   READ Yep, in a library with a MakerSpace, we read...a lot.  We read Missouri award books (a ton of award boo...

For the last few days my fourth and fifth graders have been sharing their Genius Hour projects.  We did not create formal presentations this year, instead we shared in a much more informal setting.  My kids truly worked toward their passions while working independently or collaboratively with others.   An Emoji Pillow Lettering and Caligraphy Sewing Tinkering Sewing Cheerleader Bows Photography and Scrapbooking Robotics

So, we are rapidly coming to the end of the 2015-2016 school year.  What a year it has been!  My older kids are wrapping up Genius Hour projects.  Younger kiddos are finishing up inquiry projects, and in between we are creating games and marble mazes.  Check out some of our projects below... Keva Planks, Kindergarten, and Animal Habitats Genius Hour Projects