We had a wonderful time with Carmen Deedy today. Carmen is the author of so many books including The Library Dragon , Secret of Old Zeb, Agatha’s Feather Bed, Martina the Beautiful Cockroach, 14 Cows for America, Cheshire Cheese Cat, Return of the Library Dragon, and several others.

She is also a talented storyteller and captivates her audience with stories from her books, classic folktales, and stories from her childhood. Yes, we had an amazing day with Carmen.

Love the way Carmen interacts with the students after her presentations.

Students had even more one on one time with Carmen during the book signing time.

These students even showed Carmen how to write their name in Chinese.

Lunch Time: Carmen is from Cuba and came here as a young girl. To give her a taste of her home country with had a catered lunch from Pollo Tropical.

My 5th grade book club was invited to have lunch with her.

Our book fair is in full swing, and I love when the Media Center turns into a book store. The students love the decorations done by Ms. Lyons. I always love it when students squeal or talk excitedly about which books they are going to buy. It is also a wonderful time for me to talk to parents about my favorite books that I have marked on the shelves.

Decorations outside the door.

The Media Center is truly transformed during the book fair.

My favorite picks are tagged throughout the book fair.

Gwin Oaks hosted is 4th annual technology night. During Technology Night students eagerly shared the technology they are engaged in everyday at Gwin Oaks. You can see their technology projects at the following links.

Note: 4th grade has class links because of their technology special.

Kindergarten       
gokindergarten.weebly.com

1st
gwinoaks1stgrade.weebly.com


2nd
gwinoaks2ndgrade.weebly.com

3rd
gwinoaks3rdgrade.weebly.com

4th

http://cramertechnology.weebly.com/ http://finleytechnology.weebly.com/

http://hailetechnology.weebly.com/

http://healeytechnology.weebly.com/

http://pritchardtechnology.weebly.com/

http://robisontechnology.weebly.com/

http://rodrigueztechnology.weebly.com/

5th

gwinoaks5thgrade.weebly.com

Kindergartens just completed an author study on Mo Willems. We had a great time learning so much about Mo Willems and all of his books. We read and did activities on most of his books including; Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs, The Pigeon  books, Elephant and Piggie books, and the Knuffle Bunny books. We also watched a Mo Willems video to learn more about him as an author. Scroll down to see the different activities we completed.

We pulled all of the Mo Willems books and put them on display to make it easy for the kindergarteners to find them on their check out days. It is a good thing I took a picture when we first put the display since it was the only day when at least half of the books were on the display.

I partnered with the art teacher, Mr. Fields, to work on an Knuffle Bunny project. He read them Knuffle Bunny and showed how Mo Willems uses a combination of black and white backgrounds and colored pictures. Once they drew their pictures they recorded a sentence with me to tell about where or what Knuffle Bunny likes. You can see the other Knuffle Bunny movies here.

We also learned about the Pigeon and Duckling. We read all of the Pigeon books, drew the Pigeon following directions Mo gives in on his website, and wrote about what we wouldn't let the Pigeon do.

The students also loved listening to the Elephant and Piggie books. They thought they were so funny, and of course I did too.

Throughout the author study the students visited Mo Willems website to play games, watch videos, and learn more about the characters.

Towards the end of our unit and after we knew about most of the characters we played Mo Willems Bingo that I made from pictures of his different characters and books.

We concluded our Mo Willems unit with a party. I read I Am Invited to a Party and then the students watched the rest of the Mo Willems books on the video that we didn't get to read.The students also received a chocolate chip cookie (with no nuts just like Duckling likes) and an Elephant and Piggie bookmark.

We had a wonderful time learning about such an awesome author.

The Media Center has been a buzz with Skype visits over the last week. We started with a visit from Suzanne Williams, author of the Goddess Girls and Heroes in Training series. The 1st and 2nd graders have loved her books and eagerly anticipated their visit with her. During the visit they were able to ask her questions about the characters, plot choices, and her life as a writer. They were also super excited to learn that more Heroes in Training and Goddess Girls books were on their way. Now I just have to order more of her books to keep up with the demand.

Two classes at Gwin Oaks have Pen Pals. Mrs. Anderson's pen pals are in Boston and Mr. Finley's pen pals are closer to home and also in Lawrenceville. Today both of them had a chance to connect. Mrs. Anderson's class celebrated World Read Aloud Day by listening to Mrs. Broderick and I read our favorite books. I read Tikki Tikki Tembo and she read Exclamation Point. Mr. Finley's class had a trivia review game and asked each other questions about what they had learned.

Ms. Anderson's class celebrated World Read Aloud Day with students from Zervas Elementary.

Mr. Finley's class finally got a chance to meet the pen pals from McKendree Elementary. They have been writing each other since the beginning of the year.