Monthly Archives: October 2016

Digital Citizenship Week 2016

Digital Citizenship Week (Oct 16-22) is a week, sponsored by Common Sense Media, that is focused on learning what it means to be a digital citizen.  The  Common Sense Media “comprehensive curriculum is designed to empower students to think critically, behave safely, and participate responsibly in our digital world”. As a Common Sense Media (CSM) Certified Educator, I regularly incorporate CSM lessons throughout the year because digital citizenship is part of information literacy taught in media lessons.

During Digital Citizenship Week 2016, my students in Kindergarten to grade 2 learned about A-B-C searching and how, just like in the library, you need to use your alphabet to search online.

My students in grades 3-5 learned more about what it means to be a good digital citizen, and how they could become a Super Digital Citizen by following a few common sense rules.

My grade 5 students also had some time to play the Digital Passport , CSM’s “award-winning suite of engaging games that address key issues facing kids in today’s digital world”.

The Common Sense Media curriculum includes parent handouts and family activities that I send home with my students.   At a future Flower Hill ES PTA meeting I will be sharing information about the organization as CSM is now partnering with the National PTA.  Stay tuned!

 

 

Celebrating Courage, Creativity & Collaboration on Dot Day

Encouraging our students to embrace the growth mindset is an important focus this year at my elementary school, and  International Dot Day, inspired by Peter H. Reynold’s book The Dot, is a an effective way to engage students.     International Dot Day is one of my favorite days in the world of children’s literature, and I love to help my students make their marks by celebrating courage, creativity and collaboration.   Younger students created dots in their frames – remembering to sign them – and older students created collaborative posters with dots.

Peter H. Reynolds writes a series of books, all with a theme of growth mindset, and they are wonderful additions to my school library, as students and teachers alike check them out.

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Reading Challenges Can Be a Good Thing!

I have challenged my students in grades 3 to 5 to read as many Maryland Black-Eyed Susan (BES) Book Award nominees as they can – and those that read more of the books than I do this year will be recognized at the end of the year (there will be classroom and grade level recognitions as well).

 

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As you can see from the bulletin board display, many students are participating in the challenge. The black centers each represent a student, and they earn a petal for each BES book they read. The Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Book Award is selected by Maryland students in the spring, so all students who participate in this challenge will have the opportunity to vote on their favorite picture book, chapter book, and/or graphic novel, if they have read the required number of books. To learn about the Black-Eyed Susan Book Award, please visit the website here, and for teacher librarian resources, please visit here. As the year progresses, I will post updated pictures of this bulletin board to watch the flowers bloom!

A second challenge for students is to participate in the Reading without Walls challenge from Gene Luen Yang, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

For more information about the Reading without Walls challenge, visit Gene Luen Yang’s website here .

From the beginning of school through September 30th book circulation for all grade levels was 3779 books, compared to 3304 last year. 400 more books were read this year than last! Whoo hoo! That is cause for celebration!

Reading challenges CAN be a good thing!!