4th Grade: Why is Flobbertown such an awful place?
Prekindergarten: What is a "Dino-Store," and what can you buy there? Kindergarten: Why would you do with a robot at a sleepover? 1st Grade: How does a dog sound in Korean? 2nd Grade: What colors do we see the most around North? 3rd Grade: Why is Diffendoofer School such an amazing place? 4th Grade: Why is Flobbertown such an awful place? 5th Grade: Why is it so important to get a pottery commission from the King? To find out the answers to these questions and more, ask your child what they're doing in library!
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Amidst all the post-Linda Sue Park visit activities we were finishing up, some classes had the opportunity to take a time-out and celebrate a legend's birthday--Dr. Seuss! Theodor Geisel was born on March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. In his illustrious career, he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984, an Academy Award, three Emmy awards, three Grammy awards, and 3 Caldecott Honors (Wow!). He wrote and illustrated 44 books. I had the opportunity to read one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books to students: Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! If you'd like to check out this or other Dr. Seuss books, come to the library and see what we have to offer! On Tuesday, February 19th, Newbery Award-winning author Linda Sue Park visited WT for a day of activities, cross-campus interaction, and fun! North campus 1st through 5th graders traveled to the City campus to hear Linda Sue Park speak about her writing and the importance of reading. She also told us about the puppies who keep her company when she is writing and the traditional Korean game that children play when they turn a year old. Both North and City students worked together to complete projects centered on Linda's books. First graders created their own book of animal sounds in different languages modeled after Park's picture book Mung Mung. Second graders read another picture book called What Does Bunny See? and created their own books on what colors they noticed around WT. Third and fourth graders read the book The Firekeeper's Son and created artwork on how to signify peace in modern times. Finally, fifth graders wrote and illustrated their own Sijo poems after reading Linda Sue Park's sijo poetry in the book Tap Dancing on the Roof. A special group of fifth graders also had the opportunity to eat lunch with Linda and ask her questions about her writing. I was so excited about the author visit that I forgot to take a single picture. If you took a picture of the day, I'd love to see it! To prepare for Linda Sue Park’s author visit, the 5th graders at North read her Newbery winning novel A Single Shard, which is the story of an orphan named Tree-ear, who lives in a 12th century Korean potters’ village. Tree-ear desperately wants to become a potter, but he has to start out at the bottom as a lowly apprentice for a master potter named Min, chopping wood and doing chores. A group of us decided that we wanted to simulate the journey of an apprentice from doing hard labor to skilled work for our fifth graders, while giving them the experience of further working with clay. Sally Allan played the part of the taciturn master potter, silently throwing a pot at the wheel when the students entered the art room. When she finally noticed her new apprentices had arrived, she gruffly instructed them to grab a toothbrush and start scrubbing the art room floor. After a bit of hard work, the apprentices rotated through stations doing tasks an apprentice might encounter, like recycling clay, rolling clay, making coil bowls, and carving designs. They even had a chance to learn how to properly chop wood with outdoorsman Steve Cooper. Finally, our apprentices got a chance to try their hands at the pottery wheel, instructed by the master potter Sally. Brock Perkins and I played the role of journeymen, instructing them as they went along. Being humble apprentices, they weren’t allowed to talk, and if they did, they were given a toothbrush to continue scrubbing. Many of the bowls that the students created were glazed and donated to the Empty Bowls project. The experiment placed the 5th graders into Tree-ear’s mindset and readied them for the author visit, while also giving them experience working with clay and, of course, a little bit of hard labor! |
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