Books in Bloom

This year for the Books in Bloom project, we are using our Community Read, "Life is Good" as inspiration.  Every month we read a picture book with a theme related to that month's superpower.  I love reading 'little kid' books and picture books even though we are in 5th grade. We this discussed this idea with the March superpower of FUN and Dr. Seuss.  He made younger books 'fun' as a way to make them enjoyable to little readers, however many of them also would deliver a deeper message that you don't quite understand, until you are older.  During last month's discussion on LOVE, we read "I Love You Stinky Face". I found it while going through Logan's books.  In doing so, I came across "Giraffe's Can't Dance" and thought how well it fit in to ALL superpowers. We read it last month, as well as this month, and discussed how it would be cool to incorporate into a Books in Bloom project. 

We split the ten superpowers in half for each class. Then, we split into smaller groups to tackle each superpower and connect it to the book.  YOU then brainstormed ideas of how we could display this information in a floral/springy type of way.  We took little ideas from each class and formed one big super fun idea.  We even started creating Gerald out of recycled materials, which wasn't part of the original plan, but an added bonus!

Watch an animation of the story!

Stay tuned to see the final project....
What are your feelings on reading "little kid" books in 5th grade?  Why do you think it is beneficial? Comment below!

Explorers Jeopardy Game

Happy Friday to all onions, tomatoes, celery and eggplants!! Since we had such a blast playing Jeopardy to review for the test on Monday,  I thought you might enjoy playing over the weekend as practice.

Click Here for the Jeopardy game

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Yesterday was Dr. Seuss' birthday.  It is now known as "Read Across America" day.  Actually the whole week of the good doctor's birthday is Read Across America Week.  Dr. Seuss changed reading for young students in the 1950's.  He made reading FUN!  Our superpower this month happens to be, fun... coincidence?  We have spent time this week reading some 'fun' books. We also dedicated some time yesterday to analyze some of the quotes from various Dr. Seuss books.   When you are younger and reading his books, they just seem fun and silly. However many of his books have bigger meanings and lessons to be learned.  We discussed many of those yesterday as each of you were given a quote to analyze and explain what it means to you today.  

My favorite quote happens to be a Dr. Seuss book, as you can see, clearly displayed on the blog!  

Click Here to learn more about Read Across America

We pledged! Try and find our class.

I'm so Proud of these Planet Projects...

 I'm blown away by the creativity displayed in these projects.  It's amazing!  I am looking forward to doing something similar down the road.  Be patient in getting these back :)