EasyBib Joins The Rainbow Loom Project As We Dive Into Research With The Third Graders

    

What an exciting day in the library and at Van Meter!  

We Skyped with two of our favorite authors.....Jenni Holm connected with our 5th graders and Jonathan Maberry connected with Renee Martin and her high school creative writing class.  

We had so much fun learning and creating with Manasi from Buncee with the 5th graders.  

And at the end of the day, the third graders and I welcomed two very special guests to the library.

Emily and Michele, who are both librarians and my amazing friends from EasyBib, were Skyping in to talk about research, search engines, and the importance of citing resources.  

As the third graders work through the stage of "Wonder" in their Rainbow Loom Research Project this week, the next stage will be "Investigation" where they will be diving into research.  By inviting the girls and having a conversation with the kids, we were able to really get them thinking and wondering about the essential questions they want to answer during this project.  

       

   

For those of you who are new to EasyBib, it is an online citation and bibliography tool which allows you to cite any type of resource you will use.  There is a super handy EasyBib app that they will be using on the iPads if they need to as well.
                            

Emily and Michele engaged the third graders in a conversation about the questions they were writing during the "Wonder" stage.  I love how they pushed them to think of more questions...deeper questions.....I could hear little whispers from the groups on what they were going to add and change.

They discussed search engines and told them about SweetSearch4Me, the best educational search engine for our young learners from Mark Moran and Finding Dulcinea.  

We are hoping to learn with Mark in the next few weeks too. 

I loved how they gave the students fun examples of what not to do.  For example, you don't say that you found the answer on Google.  Instead, you might say that you found it on the Rainbow Loom website. 

Emily and Michele introduced how EasyBib is a tool to help them cite the resources they use within a project such as the Rainbow Loom Research Project.

They discussed citing things like the Rainbow Loom website, a Pinterest wall about Rainbow Loom, and videos on YouTube about creating different bracelets.

One of our little friends said she finds her ideas on the Rainbow Loom Facebook wall.  That can be sited too and they will learn how to do that using EasyBib.

Next time they come, we will be Skyping with Emily and Michele to actually introduce the EasyBib website.  They will all have a laptop so they can learn right along with the girls.

The students will use their Google Drive accounts to sign into EasyBib.  This will be nice for them to have access to EasyBib for this project and all of the ones they are working on this year and next.

At the end of our connection today, Brooklyn showed Emily and Michele all of her bracelets....She is awesome at creating them and loves to share with her friends too.

The girls had the kids hold up their Rainbow Loom bracelets to show them!  

I think they definitely have some coming to them in New York City too. 

We will have the whole EasyBib crew wearing them by the end of our project.  

This is just the start of a whole lot of amazing learning that is going to take place between our EasyBib friends and the third graders.  Through these connections they will become better researchers and wonderers.

Thank you so much girls....We had a good time learning with you two.  

You are great teachers and librarians!  We appreciate everything you bring to us within our library and school.