Web Drill!!
This week fifth and sixth graders participated in our first ever Web Drill! Although we have an excellent internet filter at our school, I felt it was important for students to understand that, in reality, they are their own best filters. They have control over what they see and hear on the internet and that control is at the tips of their fingers. Even the best filter can let something inappropriate through and they aren’t always going to be using a computer with a filter. So I created our new Cold Spring School Library Skills Blog for this lesson. After showing them a presentation on different ways they could exit a website, they opened their laptops and had time to surf several pre-selected sites I had linked on the blog. ( Of course, these were not sites that were inappropriate….but worked for the sake of a drill) After they were engrossed in their perusing, I called out “WEB DRILL!” and they had to exit the site using one of the methods we had practiced. Besides having lots of fun, I think they learned some valuable personal skills for using the internet in an ethical manner. If you’d like to look at the lesson for yourself , go to the Cold Spring School Library Skills Blog and check out the Web Drill post.
Kindergarten—In Pamela Duncan Edwards delightful story, Livingstone Mouse, a small mouse must make his way in the world to build his own nest. Having decided China is what he’s looking for, he stumbles across many wrong choices until finally landing in the perfect spot (a China teapot). Students had fun seeing real world items though the point of view of a mouse and also got a start in understanding the concept of homonyms.
First Grade-- Can cows fly? Well, in The Cow Who Wouldn’t Come Down by Paul Brett Johnson, not only can Gertrude fly, but she doesn’t want to come down. After several hilarious tries to coax her down by her owner, Miss Rosemary, jealously wins out when Miss Rosemary creates a “Trojan Cow” and finally Gertrude can’t resist reclaiming her realm. But watch out for the farm machinery…have you ever seen a cow driving a tractor?
Second Grade—What if Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk had been a girl named Kate? In Mary Pope Osborne’s (of the Magic Treehouse fame) Kate and the Beanstalk, second graders got a chance to compare and contrast the two stories and many decided that maybe Kate’s story had the best ending.
Third Grade—We read Michelle Knudsen’s absolutely wonderful new book, The Library Lion, and learned that occasionally not following the exact rules in the library is a good thing. We also went on the Santa Barbara County Education Office Student Portal and explored the many resources available to our students. If you would like to try it out at home go the The SBCEO Portal and login in as: coldspringstudent. The password is: dolphins. You’ll have access to the World Book Online and other great educational resources.
Fourth Grade—This week we played our ever popular game, “Name That Book!” After reviewing different types of reference books in the library using a game I made in Keynote and projected on our screen, students had the chance to try out real life situations and decide in which reference book they would find their answer. For example, "If you’d like to buy your mother a really, really nice birthday present….maybe something with her birthstone in it....in which book would you find out what her birthstone is?"
Fifth and Sixth Graders did the Web Drill! (See the opening post.)
Until next week…..happy reading and happy blogging! Thanks to all who have emailed me about the blog. And leave a comment on the blog! I'd love to hear from you as a fellow blogger!
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