Challenge Tubs and Skill Tubs

In my last post I talked about the kids coming to the library during their center time from their classrooms.  We worked with their teachers to kinda set some rules about what they should be doing. We want them to always have the option of checking out a book.  However sometimes they don't need a new one yet and we want them to have the freedom of using the centers in the library.  We call them Cozy Corners but this year we added many things.  We wanted some specific skills that the students can work on that go along with what they are doing in class.  To start this I attend all the grade level planning meetings to find out how we can help and what we can do to extend their skills in the library.  That is how our Skills Tubs were born.

We started with the basic retelling of a story with First Grade and rhyming words with Kindergarten.   We have many props and felt board pieces that can be used for retelling a story.  My aide, Becca is also a genius at making things from nothing.  If I come up with a big idea she can make it happen.
For instance imagine making patterns in math.  She came up with making a tree out of pipe cleaners and using colored beads for the kids to make patterns on the branches.  We also include "Challenge Yourself" cards in as many of the boxes as we can.

Skill Tubs have "Challenge Yourself" cards in them

                                     

We put the items in a clear plastic size shoe box, which is what we use for all of our tubs in the library.  We found a perfect spot on the bottom of the Easy section.  That little wasted space is no longer wasted.  We marked the boxes with the grade and Skill tub and bam you have a perfect skill tub.  When we are ready to rotate them out we just take the skill tub tag off and reuse the parts for something else or let the teachers use them in their classrooms.

Using the bottom shelves to store these

Sensory tubs are also a big deal in our library and you would be shocked to know that the 5th graders love them just as much and the Kindergartners do.  If you want to learn more about them you can read the blog post from last year here.  http://donaldelemmediacenter.blogspot.com/2015/09/sensory-tubs.html 

These are just a few that are in the works.

Our Challenge Lab is new this year.  I have continued to struggle with running a good makerspace area where I felt the kids were really learning?  I've spent plenty of money on building things like Magnatiles, K'Nex and of course legos.  I always let the kids "play" with them but I thought maybe there needed to be some more structure or direction.  That is where the idea of a Challenge Lab came from.  Our gifted and talented teacher is doing challenges in here classroom for the entire school every week and I realized I could build off of this concept and really transform my makerspace area.

We still have a green screen wall that can be used but we also have one in another room in the building.  We have 4 different areas in there (as soon as our new bookshelves get here we will.) We will have the Challenge Tub area, the Build area, the Can you Make area, and the Electronic area.

The Challenge tubs will challenge the kids to build things with the materials provided. Each tub has a ring of pictures for them to look at and try to build.  This is where the challenge part comes in.  Everybody can build a tall tower,  but try building a 3-D object or a trap.  We have tubs with a deck or cards, unifix cubes, dixie cups, popsicle sticks and other things. There are also math challenge tubs included. 

Challenge tub cards

                                         

The Build tubs have building materials like lego's, K'NEX, Magnatiles, Straw Connectors and other building blocks. These can be used to build the same structures we have in the Challenge tubs or just free building.

The Can you Make tubs have things like sewing, bookmarks, greeting cards, weaving, rainbow loom and origami.

The electronic things are all of our robot and coding things.  

I hope you get some great ideas from this or just see what our kids are doing.

Welcome to Flex Scheduling........

Well not totally flex but almost.  I was thrilled to learn that because of the numbers at school I am only in rotation for 3rd and 5th grade.  It has open a world of possibilities for my school.  Before I came to Donald I had been in a flex schedule for 13 years. So I was ready for the challenge.

Stress always comes with something new.  I think teachers were sad to think their kids wouldn't be coming to library every week.  So it was my job to dispel that myth.  Let me tell you my circulation numbers are on the rise..

My Kindergarten and First grade teachers were all for sending a small group of students to the library during their Daily 5/Literacy station time but we realized we needed a little direction for them.  If you recall from a post last year we read Marley Goes to School by John Grogan to Kinder at the start of every year.  We talk about Marley causing mischief in the school.  We then use little brown dogs and tape them to all the Cozy Corners (this is our name for centers) that they can use.  This is their visual where they don't have to ask us if they can play or use something.  We had to come up with the way for the kids to know what they should be doing.  The teachers send them down in groups of 3-5 with a timer, usually an ipad and they have 30 minutes.  Well you know it doesn't take but about 2 minutes for the little ones to check out a book.  So after checking out they have some choices.  Our Kindergarteners can check out, read, do a skill tub and then a cozy corner and 30 minutes is plenty of time for them.

We made these little passes for them.  We have one hanging so we can remember what they are suppose to do as well. 

Each of our Kindergarten classes has a name like the bunnies or the puppies so their pass uses that picture so we can tell where they came from quickly. 

The First Grade teachers had a few different ideas.  They actually have two times during the day where the teacher pulls small groups and the other students have station time.  So what they want their kids in the library to do looks like this.  Even though they have "check out a new book" only on Monday the kids can check out any day they need to return their books.

Next weeks post will be about our Challenge Lab and Skill Tubs

Can't wait to share all the cool things that go on there.

October is the BEST

This time of the year is just my favorite at school.  I'm fortunate enough to have a Principal who allows the kids to do fun things and express their creative side.  I came to Donald 3 years ago and started the Storybook Pumpkin Patch.  Since then it has really grown.  This year we had the most storybook pumpkins ever.  I'm a real stickler when I tell them it has to be a storybook character and not a movie character and they must include the book.  Of course I'm willing to let them use a library book as well.  It is just so fun to see the ideas they come up with, with some help from mom and dad I'm sure.  I even had many kids use plastic pumpkins so we could keep them all year.

To go along with our Storybook theme each grade level had a different requirement for reading for the month of October.  Some required a certain number of books to be read and some required a certain number of minutes, but either way kids were reading up a storm.  On Friday October 30th we had Storybook Dress up day.  What a GREAT way to have a fun dress up day at school.  Many of the students switched classes and read to younger grades and many books and stories were shared.  Don't worry the teachers got into it as much as the kids did.  Can you guess who some of these characters are?

Don't worry we have some exciting things happening in November too.  Lets just start by saying our kids love to learn how to set the table and this Tom Turkey is already the center piece.