Telling Fibs (posted a year late)

Fibonacci, a mathematician who lived during the 1200s, developed a number sequence named after him. Each number is added to the previous number to get the next number: 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 and so on. 

Author Greg Pincus invented the “Fib” form of poetry, in which each consecutive line has the same number of syllables that appear in the Fibonacci sequence.

During spring 2024, third graders (who are now going into fifth!!!!) wrote their own poems using this pattern: 

jump

jump

down there

on the street

I broke my bones oh

no, no, I think I need a cast

- R.F.

Library

books

are

so good

also books

are really awesome

and we need to use computers

- C.M.

tree

top

cocoon

open up

fly around soaring

butterfly butterfly fly fly

- M.P.

Reading

read

read

read. I

love to read.

All my knowledge in

a seed. My great future awaits.

- N.G.

Nightmare

Bird

went

on my 

head, started

to poke, and I bleed.

I woke up and started to cry.

- Z.R.

Baseball Time

I

can

playball

with my dad

when he comes back from 

school and his meeting around 10.

- D.S.

Treasure

Look!

Look!

Searching.

Please help me

search for the treasure!

Hooray, we found the treasure now!

- K.P.

Doggy

My

dogs

are so

cute. One is

named Roxy (she's cute)

and another one named Charly.

- J.R.

Fire!

Fire!

Oh no!

There is a - 

what?! Fire!!!! Run, run fast!

Danger! Danger! Oh no, run run!

- A B. 

The Park

Walk.

Walk.

Sidewalk.

Ooh, the park!

Let's walk to the park.

There are so many things to do. 

- O.C. 

Milkshakes 

Fruits. 

Blend. 

Milkshakes. 

They are good and sweet nutritious. 

Blend all the sweet fruits together.

- E.C.

Cat.

Lap.

Cute cat.

A cat nap.

Cat nap on my lap.

My cat likes to take a good nap.

- C.P.

Different Pets

Dogs,

cats

are cute

and friendly. 

A tarantula?

Are you sure about that? Maybe

a hamster or guinea pig? They are cute and cuddly.

- E.S.

Day at the Beach

Waves.

Life.

People

relaxing.

Sand castles near me.

I love the beach next to my house.

- B.M.

Dogs

Dogs

sit,

do tricks,

like to eat

lots and lots of treats.

I buy treats to eat together.

- G.W.

I

love

cars. I

like how they

move. I want to go

vroom in a very fast sedan.

- H.L.

Grade 2 Dewey Detectives

The Dewey Decimal system is a way of sorting nonfiction books. I don't expect my students to memorize specific numbers; that's what the online catalog is for. I do, however, want them to understand how certain topics go together. At least according to how Mr. Dewey thought they did. 

Second graders each got a search term and a number from a "hundreds." They had to work with kids who had the same number to figure out how their subjects could be classified under one major label. 

Can you solve the puzzles? 

• 500s: planets, electricity, magnets, elements, weather, rocks, dinosaurs, bugs, ecosystems, plants, animals
  
  
• 700s: music, jokes, origami, drawing, magic tricks, football, chess, yoga, knitting, dance 
  
  
• 900s: maps, ancient civilizations, countries, states, wars, explorers, The Titanic disaster, flags, American colonies

K Book Matching

A big part of information literacy is being able to recognize patterns and to categorize facts, sources, etc. We start work on these skills in kindergarten, and it is leading up to them being able to choose books from the shelves on their own, versus from the selection I put out. 

This week, students each got an Everyone or Early Reader book and had to find another student whose book was in the same category in some way.

Mock Sibert Winner 2025: We have a tie!

The American Library Association awards the Sibert Medal to the creators of "the most distinguished informational book for children published in the U.S. in English." This year, for the first time, we had a tie between two of the four finalists for the Garden City Mock Sibert:

Hello, I'm a Sloth, written by Hayley Rocco and illustrated by John Rocco

Erno Rubik and His Magic Cube, written by Kerry Aradhya and illustrated by Kara Kramer

Second-graders shared their reasons for their choices, as well as some of the facts they learned: 

• Sloths can swim in the water.
• I like animals.
• Sloths are cute.
• I liked the pictures.
• My favorite thing is they are slow climbers.
• Sloths are so cute and brave.
• Sloths go down the tree once a week to poop.
• They can fall 100 feet out of a tree to the ground.
• They have green hair.
• Sloths hang upside down to live.
• It tells us about facts we might never have heard.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I like Rubik's Cubes.
• This book gave us the most information.
• He never gave up.
• Erno Rubik grew up in Hungary.
• He used rubber bands for his first cube.
• His job was a math teacher.
• It is cool.
• He studied art and architecture.
• He had a square head in the pictures.
• It is fun to play.
• He loved puzzles.
  
  

Grade 2 Covers Inspired by "The Z Was Zapped"

In second grade, we read The Z Was Zapped by Chris Van Allsburg, which features the letters of the alphabet meeting sad fates. The students had to guess the action happening to them, which started with the same letter; for example, the F was flattened by a foot and the Q was quartered. (Can you say "alliteration"?) 

Then the kids created their own version of the book, as well as their personal call number. I've added their work into a binder that can be read during checkout time. Here is a preview:

There Are Wockets in Grade 1 Pockets!

I like to have the kids create pages for our own version of mentor texts; they copy the structure of the model and add original words and illustrations. The latest edition of Dr. Seuss' There's a Wocket in My Pocket (Continued) by first graders has been added to our collection! You can preview below: