Miss Nancy’s Primary Corner

Happy New Year, Everybody! At the first week of 2009, we also need some new books, new ideas! I read one of Charlie and Lola series book(book address:          E CHI)—-But Excuse Me, That is My Book by award winning author and illustrator Lauren Child.  In a charming and delightfully funny way, Charlie hleps his little sister Lola discover that there is more than on extra-special book to be found in the library. I wish this book will help students realize in our library there are hundreds and hundreds of books to choose from beside pincess book, beside Pokeman book. We also hold the competition for finding the coolest book on the selves. Students are very excited to discover there are so many cool books in our library. Each of them checked more books out than they usually do.  

No one in the whole world knows more about kids, toys, and gifts than Santa Claus. No one. (And, of course, he loves his job.) but how does he do it? What gift he pick out for himself?  Are you alway curious about these questions  like our little monkey Curious George? Come to join us for these two stories: Santa Claus, the World’s Number One Toy Expert written by Marla Frazee, Merry Christmas, Curious George written by Cathy Hapka

We are making decoration for our library Christmas tree this week!

For Kindergarten, we learned origami for making our own 3-D Christmas tree. Our little hands were busying with paper-folding, drawing, cutting,  each student made one little Christmas tree,  writed or drew their Christmas wish,  hang them on the big library tree. After that, each class helped Ms.nancy decorating one medium size tree for our library shelves.

For PK, we made Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer for our Christmas tree. Dads and Moms, come and see, our decoration make the library very beautiful!

We were studying Parts of  Book this week. Our human body has differnt parts: head, mouth, eye, hand, leg…. , Book also has different parts: Title, Spine, Front Cover, Back Cover, Author and Illustator, Publisher, Title Page, Copyright, Verso, Summary, Call number, Frontispiece. We used a special book Little Jake Goes to School  written and illustrated by  Mister Bob, one of Ms.Boyer’s friends. Mr. Bob made this book for students  learning book parts.  All of the parts of this book can be taken down and put back.  After practiced several times with kids,  each student got a chance standing in front,  showing and telling  with our real library books, a student will win one sticker for telling three different parts of book, two stickers for five parts, three stickers for seven parts. At last, the winners of three stickers can trade a tatoo wiht Ms.Nancy. Students showed big interests for this competition.

For PK3, we learned  Parts of book:   Title (the name of the book)

We have also been discussing five senses. I read the book MY FIVE SENSES by Aliki, we found some interesting things in our daily lifes: sometimes we use only sense, sometimes we use several senses at once. For example, when we bounce a ball, we use three senses, we see, hear, touch. When we laugh and play with puppy, we use four senses: we see, hear, smell and touch.

James Fyfe, one of students in Ms.Happer’s class asked a question: “who is running faster? ostrich or cheetah?” Nobody can answer this question, so we did a mini research in their library time this week, we got the answers from three different resources: 

• Online(www.goole.com or www.ask.com), 
•  The world Almanac for Kids 2008(Reference book: REF 031.02 WOR)
• Non-Fiction book on Cheetah and Ostrich(Cheetah under 599.75,  Ostrich under 598.5)

Luckily, we have many Non-Fiction books on Cheetah and Ostrich. Kids are very excited with the amazing pictures on the books, almost all of them asked to borrow  these books.

The answer for this question: An ostrich can run up to 40 miles per hour. A cheetah can run up to 70 miles per hour.

A cheetah is faster!

It’s thanksgiving time! we read story book Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting,  Other two information books Thanksgiving,  Celebarate Thanksgiving Day, we were talking about differences about Fiction and Non-Fiction book,  some kids’ opinions to tell  Fiction book are: animals are not talking, animals are not celebarate festival,  but they are arguing about  animals wearing clothing should not be the standard for telling Fic or Non-Fic books. We learned the library call number on the book spine, we discovered all of  Non-Fiction books have numbers on the spine label, they are ordered on the shelves by different subjects.

We love the story “Turkey for Thanksgiving”, the new holiday story captures the spirit of Thanksgiving sharing in the fresh and funny way, turkey got invited have vegetarian thanksgiving dinner with all of animal friends together, happy ending! After class, I showed kids our elementary library have huge book collection written by Eve Bunting, they all under E BUN on the easy everyboby book section around mural wall area.

We learned some facts from the information books, some key words are: the Mayflower, harvest, the Native Americans, 1621,  first thanksgiving, American holiday, fourth Thursday of Noverber, carnberry sause and turkey, pumpkin pie, Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York.

Our week was starting with Turkey Trot—-the Fun House Walking in the early morning, Kids got high team spirits, Ms.Chao’s troop followed me to the library, we read the book “Setting the Turkey Free” writted by W.Nikola-Lisa, illustrated by Ken Wilson-Max. After the story, we made our own turkeys, we trace our little hands, cut them out, decorated them with a lot of materials: toothpicks, popsicle sticks, feathers, everything imaginable. In our story, a young boy paints beautiful turkeys, he loves them so much, they take on a life of their own. But Foxy the fox is on the prowl, How can the little boy hold tight to the turkeys he cares for and keep them safe from harm? Inside this book is a festive story kids will gobble right  up!

                         
          made by KLC                               made by KLH

           made by Pk4SB                            made by KAC

        made by PK4 PH                            made by PK3 MI

This week, we started working on Farm for Kindergarten, I chose Click, Clack, Moo Cows that Type—-which is one of Caldecott Medal Honor Book in 2001, I also read  other two books from same author and same illusrator, Giggle, Giggle, Quack,  and Click, Clack, Splish, Splash,  Doreen Cronin’s understated text and Besty Lewin’s expressive illustrations make the most of this hilarious situation. Come join the fun as a bunch of literate cows turn Farmer Brown’s farm upside down! At last, Kids found out all of Doreen Cronin’ s book in the same position on the Everybody Book Section(the mural wall area), the library call number is  E CRO

Other books wrote by Doreen Cronin in our library:  Duck for President Diary of A Worm/Diary of A Fly/Diary of A Spider Wiggle Dooby Dooby Moo Click Clack, Quackity-quack:an Alphabet Adventure For PK4 PK3, I started working on Community workers this week, I read Officer Buckle and Gloria, by Peggy Rathmann, which is also one of  Caldecott Medal Honor Book in 1996, we learned some words: Police Station, Police Officer, Police Dog. Kids also gave examples of other community workers they knew: nurse, firefighter, teacher, librarian, doctor, bus driver.

P.S.  I linked American Library Association website for you on the right column, you can find all of the information about Caldecott Medal and also Caldecott medal winners and honor books from 1938—present.

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This week is the first week of the second semester, we were so lucky to get free trial to use Scholastic BookFlix—–the newest online interatctive literacy resource—-very cool programme for kids! I chose a pair of books(one Fiction book, another one Non-Fiction book) on Firehouse because our kids just been to the pudong firestation recently! We got watching “Dot the Fire Dog” and Read along “ A Very Busy Firehouse” on the smartboard, and after stories, we learned some new words: nozzle, fire fighter, fire truck, helmet, fire chief, siren. and each kid got chance to do the word match game for these new words on the smartboard. And also played “Fact or Fiction” game, that will help us tell Fiction and Non-Fiction books in the library.

   Dot the Fire Dog                          A Very Busy Firehouse