We have been having so much fun with the first graders in the library this month!
They have been a working on a family holiday traditions project since Thanksgiving. We are creating an eBook together as a class to share with others. They can't wait to share it with their families for the holidays and learn about so many different traditions.
After interviewing family members, the students explained their tradition in four easy steps. With help from their family, they wrote the steps on a piece of paper the teachers provided to them. They have illustrated the steps as a draft in the library and will now be illustrating the final page. Once these are complete, we will put all of the pages together using FlipSnack.
The first graders have been reading, browsing, and discussing "how-to" books with easy steps and directions so this was the perfect connection to this common core standard and more.
To support our youngest readers in the library, we have added several beautiful new titles to our collection from Capstone including lots of cook books and origami books just right for them.
To make this connection to our new books and to the family holiday traditions project even more special, yesterday we had a wonderful connection to our friends from Capstone Publishing. Karon Dubke, senior photographer, Sarah Schuette, author of several of the new cookbooks and photo stylist, and Chris Harbo, author of the origami books, connected with all of our first graders and their teachers over Skype in the library.
They spoke to all us about creating these amazing books and how important it is to create clear written steps and photographs when giving directions to others. This will help our little ones as they work on the final illustrations and directions of their tradition.
First, Chris taught all of us how to create a swimming swan from the book Easy Animal Origami. I pointed out to the first graders last week how the directions and pictures are nicely laid out on the page and clear to follow. When we put their traditions together on paper and electronically this is something that will be so important too.
We had the blue square pieces of paper ready for the first graders and they all followed along as we created a swan with Chris. He walked them through each step.
It was very fun following his instructions and creating swans of our own. The first graders were very happy when swans appeared from the paper they folded.
Miss Saylor created one too.
Chris was working on a photo shoot in the art studio at Capstone that morning so he had been creating a lot of origami. He showed us several and we guessed what they were. My favorite was this tiny owl.
We are very excited to create more origami now with all of the new books we have. I can't wait to see what they make too.
She started by showing us the pages for the recipe we were going to make. The connection for the students to see how nicely each step is laid out is important as they work on our eBook.
Sarah told us the ingredients and supplies we would need and then we were ready to get started.
There was a space for each one of the first graders around the tables. Diana had the ingredients and plates ready for the first step Sarah would share.
As Sarah told us the steps, the first graders created their wands with pretzel rods, frosting, and sprinkles.
As the wands were finished, Sarah told them to "wave them around" which they all loved of course.
And they loved eating what they had made too.
A few of the first graders had great questions for Karon, Sarah, and Chris at the end.
I loved seeing how excited they were to keep of creating and cooking using the new books too.
It is so much fun to connect with our friends at Capstone. Thank you so much for sharing with all of us at Van Meter. We appreciate all of you so very much.
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