Chocolate Lily Book Awards: Can Hens Give Milk?

This week, the primary classes read a fun book called Can Hens Give Milk? by Betty Stuchner. It was a funny story with farmers trying to feed their chickens grass so that they would give milk!

In response to this story our youngest students used an app called Skitch on the iPads and took photographs of farm animals, adding details using the Skitch tools, including a "speech bubble" to indicate what that animal might be saying in the story!




  

Besty, division 12

Diana, division 10

Frank, division 10

Ian, division 11

Our older primary students drew the hens from the story and added a thinking bubble to add their thoughts about the hen's perspective on the farmers' actions in the story.

Some comments from the students include:
"The pictures are big, bold and beautiful and the words are funny." by Quennie, division 10
"The words were a bit silly and funny." by Ryan, division 11

Two kindergarten students from division 11 explain what they liked about this book in the following podcast:

listen to ‘Can Hens Give Milk?’ on Audioboo

~Ms Novakowski

Chocolate Lily Book Awards: Sounds of the Ferry

This week's Chocolate Lily picture book award nominee is Sounds of the Ferry by Sara Leach, a local Whistler author. This was a short story but many of the students connected it to their own experiences on ferries. The author focused on the sounds she heard on the ferry and played with those sounds and words throughout the book. The primary students were asked to ...

Some comments from our students include:
I really like that book. -Billy, div 12
The pictures were colourful. -Serena, div 10
The words are beautifully written. - Jacob, div 11
I liked the things and sounds on the boat. -Chase, div 11
The illustrations helped me make connections. -Maxim, div 8
I like how the words are in different fonts. -Carissa, div 8
I like how the author drew the pictures detailed. -Vivian, div 8
I had a connection of when I was on a small ferry and when I went whale watching. -Emily M., div 7
The words go really well with the colourful pictures. -Bella, div 9
The pictures are nice and the words are wibbly, wobbly. -Jessica, div 6

Two kindergarten students from division 10 created the following podcast about the book:

listen to ‘Sounds of the Ferry’ on Audioboo

As we do podcasts for each Chocolate Lily book, I am creating a QR code for each podcast and printing a copy of it to include on the inside cover of each book. When students take these books home, if families have a phone or device with a QR reader/scanner, the code can be scanned and the podcast for the book can be listened to. I've included an example from the Sounds of the Ferry book!

~Ms Novakowski

dewey decimal games

Division 2 (grades 6 and 7) has created some amazing interactive games to help the rest of our intermediate students review and understand the categories in the Dewey Decimal classification system for the library. The students worked in small groups to create different games - trivia, matching, card games, board games and complicated interactive games with multiple components. Other than the content focus of the Dewey system, a focus of the task was on procedural writing and writing clear, concise instructions that others would be able to follow.

This past Monday, divisions 1, 3, 4 and 5 all had a chance to play the games in the library.

Divisions 4 and 5 also listened to a new book called Bob the Alien Discovers the Dewey Decimal System which was a great review of Dewey before they played the games.

Who knew Dewey could be so much fun?

~Ms Novakowski

winter wonders

Just after a light dusting of snow earlier this month, divisions 10 and 11, two of our early primary classes, were read the Canadian picture book Stella, Queen of the Snow by Marie-Louise Gay. The Stella and Sam books are a great series of picture books for primary students. The brother and sister team visit all sorts of settings and ask all sorts of curious questions, doing some big thinking along the way.
The book served as a source of inspiration for the students. After reading it, I asked the students I asked the students if they had any questions like Sam, about winter. We have been "wondering" together since September during our math and science project blocks together so the questions came quickly yet thoughtfully for these students.

I recorded some of the students' questions on a chart. It is always interesting to listen to how some students' questions are clearly connected to something from the book, our conversation or are building upon another student's question.

I asked the students how we could find out the answers to these questions. Responses included "read a book", "look on the computer" and "go outside and find out". I was particularly glad to hear the last suggestion several times. We have been doing a lot of investigations outside this year with these classes (I see them for another block each week beyond our regular library time) and it always amazes me how our walks and observations outside can inspire such rich inquiry amongst five year olds!

Updates on our winter wonders to come!

~Ms Novakowski

Scholastic Book Fair: February 2013

Once again, Sabrina and her crew of moms did an AMAZING job with the Scholastic Book Fair. The library was abuzz with the book fair and students loved coming into the "bookstore". This event truly transforms the library for the students.

Once again, we were able to acquire lots of new books for our library collection and raised funds to purchase books and other materials to be used by students in classrooms. Thank you so very much to the PAC for the ongoing support of literacy at Blair!
~Ms Novakowski

Chocolate Lily Book Awards: Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been?

This week the primary classes listened to the picture book Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been? written by and illustrated by . This book is based on the original, classic poem and the students enjoyed the rhyming text. What the students were really engaged by were the travelling adventures of the pussycat and using the illustrations to give them clues as to where in the world the pussycat was visiting. Although not a long book, this book took each class such a long time to get to the final page. There were so many questions, so many connections being made. The students were highly engaged by this book. We had the globe out showing the students where in the world all the places were.

Two of the classes had time to draw a picture of where they thought the pussycat would visit if he came to Canada and all the classes gave this picture a score out of ten. We had the students think about the criteria for what makes a good picture book as they were scoring the book.


Some of the comments from students include:
I liked the storm picture. by Eric, div 10
I liked when the mouse was on the hat. by Chase, div 11
I liked the cat because it travelled a lot. by Katy, div 10
It helps us discover the world. by Areej, div 8
The story was cool - the cat kept travelling and travelling. by Carisa, div 8
The book is really cute and the cat is curious. by EmilyM., div 7
The illustrations were very detailed. by EmilyW, div 7
I liked the ending. The cat invited the girl to travel with him. by Mia, div 9
I liked it because the cat travelled everywhere. by Tiana, div 9
I liked it because it was like a riddle book. by Matthew, div 6
The illustrations are detailed and I like the poem and style of the book. by Victor, div 6
The pictures helped us to know where the Pussycat was. by Rosie, div 6

The following is a podcast by a grade three student from division 8:

listen to ‘Pussycat, Pussycat, where have you been?’ on Audioboo

~Ms Novakowski

Chocolate Lily Book Awards: Louis the Tiger who came from the Sea

This week, as part of the Chocolate Lily picture book award program, all the primary classes listened to the fun picture book, Louis the Tiger who came from the Sea by Michal Kozlowski. This was a bit of a fanciful story that led to all sorts of "wonders" by the students. As a response to this story, the students were asked to record a question or two that they had after listening to this story.

"Where did Louis come from? Do real tigers come from the sea?" -Bella, div 9
"How did the tiger eat cereal?" -Iona, div 6
"Where did Louis the tiger come from? Why did he got to that house?" -Tenzin, div 6
"Can tigers swim?" -Rosie, div 6
"Is he a shark?" - Will, div 7
"Why are tigers striped?" -Vikrant, div 8
"How did the tiger get to the yard from the ocean and not know the way back?" -Josh Z., div 8

Our youngest students thought this story was really funny. Their comments included:
"I liked when the people dressed in sea animal costumes." -Quennie, div 10
"I loved when the tiger takes a bath." -Simon, div 10
"I like the fish costume." -Ethan, div 11
"My favourite part was when the tiger made a mess in the bath." -Jack, div 11

The following is a podcast created by two grade one students in division 9:

listen to ‘Louis the Tiger’ on Audioboo

A special thank you to our Blair Parent Advisory Council for their financial support of this important library program.

~Ms Novakowski

Chocolate Lily Book Awards: Seal Song

For the third year, the primary students at Blair are participating in the Chocolate Lily Picture Book Award program. This year we will be reading seven titles, and responding to them in different ways. For a short introduction to the Chocolate Lily program, have a listen to this one minute podcast!

listen to ‘Intro to Chocolate Lily Picture Book Awards’ on Audioboo

Last week, all of our primary classes were read the story Seal Song but BC author Andrea Spalding. For our first book, Seal Song, the students were asked to make connections to the story. Many students commented on times they had seen seals and some students made what we call text-to-text connections and compared this story to Frog Girl, a story we read last year in the library.

Some specific student comments about this beautiful picture book include:

"I like the part when Sheila helps the boy." -Jasper, div 12
"I liked the beautiful pictures." -Kai, div 10
"The pictures were so good." -George, div 8
"The story was really magical." -Vivian, div 8
"I liked the style of the pictures." -Amy, div 7
"The story was emotional." - Ifrah, div 7
"My connection is to the story Frog Girl when a girl turns into a frog." -Tenzin, div 6
"The story was about not hurting seals and friendship." -Rosie, div 6

And here is a little review and excerpt from the book read by a grade three student in division 7:

listen to ‘Seal Song’ on Audioboo

More information about the Chocolate Lily book awards can be found HERE.
~Ms Novakowski