And the Winner Is ... (Mock Caldecott edition)

The American Library Association awards the Caldecott Medal to the artist of "the most distinguished American picture book for children." This year, I read 10 picture books with Caldecott buzz to kindergartners and first-graders. 

For our Garden City Mock Caldecott, 

135 students chose from among

3 finalists, and

1 came out on top with 

80 votes (59%):

100 Mighty Dragons, All Named Broccoli, 

illustrated by Lian Cho and written by David LaRochelle. 

Here are some reasons why: 

• All of them were named Broccoli
  
  
• Dragons are my favorite
  
  
• It's "mathy"
  
  
• Because I like the Mario and Luigi ones
  
  
• All the dragons went away
  
  
• 100 is my favorite number
  
  
• It had Elvis in it
  
  
• At the end 100 baby dragons come to join the one lonely dragon named Broccoli
  
  
• It has more activity and details than the other books
  
  
• She has so many babies
  
  
• Because of the flames
  
  
• It is very silly
  
  
• I like dragons because they breathe fire out of their mouths
  
  
• There was a million dragons!
  
  
• Because the 100 grow up and the 1 left becomes a mom
  
  
• It had my sister's name in it.

And some student art inspired by the book:

New Year, New Books!

We've added almost 70 new books to the catalog this month, including donations, book fair purchases, DonorsChoose acquisitions, and transfers from Waterman. Students, if you see something you would like to read, log on to Destiny Discover through Clever and put a hold on it.

Coding with Cups - 5th Grade

We celebrated Computer Science Education Week a little late in 4th and 5th grade with the "My Robotic Friends" activity from code.org / Tinkersmith. Using a "coding language" of arrows and symbols, the students had to write a program that would build a particular configuration of plastic cups. Here are 5th graders in action.