David Biedrzycki

We had the best day today. Author and illustrator David Biedrzycki spent the day at MES and shared with us how he gets his ideas, what he does with his ideas and how he writes and illustrates his books. You can learn more about David Biedrzycki and his books at his website davidbiedrzycki.com.

David Biedrzycki started drawing when he was four years old.

David Biedrzycki keeps journals in his car, on his desk, in his suitcase and by his bed so that when he gets an idea he can write it down or draw a quick picture.

David Biedrzycki also has an idea wall above his desk. This is a place where he tapes up ideas until they develop into books. I think that an idea wall is a great idea.

David Biedrzycki draws his illustrations on his computer. He drew us this picture of beetle during his presentation today. 

Right to Read Week

Don't Bug Me! I'm Reading!

Check out this glog about our Right to Read Week theme, BUGS:

Happy Mother's Day!!!!

Thanks to the moms for all you do to get your child ready for school everyday! I hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day! Here are a few of the pages from our books about our moms:

Nonfiction Bargain

So many of the children are showing such an interest in reading nonfiction that I thought I would pass along this great find...

I found these nonfiction books on the bargain bookshelf at Barnes and Noble this weekend. The are published by Fog City Press. I instantly fell in love with these books because they are full of over 60 close-up photographs and simple text. I limited myself to buying these three, but they also had Airplanes, Cars, Digging Machines, Emergency Vehicles, Trains, Trucks, Fish, Puppies, Kittens, Sharks Endangered Animals and Rainforest Animals if you are interested in getting one for your little reader.

Word Family Websites

We have been practicing word families this week.

Check out these websites to practice this skill at home:

practice making _ig words at Starfall

practice making _og words at Starfall

practice making _en words at Starfall

practice making _ug words at Starfall

practice making _at words at Starfall

BIG Story Problems

We have been working on solving BIG story problems in math. We follow four steps to complete our story problems. First we read our story problem. We find star words that we know how to read and then practice reading words we need to know to solve our problem. Next we draw a picture to go with our story problem. Then we write a math equation (BIG math word) that represents our story problem. Finally we write a sentence about the answer to our story problem. We have been doing these story problems on our SMARTboard and then working on them with a partner. Enjoy these pictures of our BIG story problems...

Gail Gibbons Author Study

We are finishing our nonfiction writing unit with an author study of Gail Gibbons. Gail Gibbons has written and illustrated over 140 nonfiction books. Our nonfiction bookshelf is full of Gail Gibbons' books, we spent some time as a class looking through Gail Gibbons books for writing ideas and some of us are using Gail Gibbons' books as mentor text as we write our own nonfiction. As a class we noticed that Gail Gibbons almost always labels a picture in her books, puts words in interesting places, has lots of picture boxes on a page and sometimes likes to decorate the boarders of her pages. Check out Gail Gibbon's website to find out more information about this amazing nonfiction writer, look for some of her books at the library and ask your child what nonfiction book they are writing.

What Is the Weather Like Today?

We read the book What Is the Weather Like Today? and made our own version of the book. We read about different kinds of weather, made it rain in our classroom and have become little meteorologist. Here are examples of the pages in our weather book that you will be able to read on Young Author's Night, May 13th.

addition and subtraction

I love the website IXL for practicing math concepts. We have been practicing adding and subtracting at school. Scroll down the kindergarten page on IXL and there are several activities for practicing adding and subtracting at the kindergarten level. Some children are even ready to move onto the first grade level:)

Spring Break 2010

We had a great "staycation" in

Cincinnati during spring break:)