Leaping into March!​

For lots more information including book lists, award winners, content area web sites,  library schedule, and links to our library catalog and reference tools, please see Ms. Burman's website.

Every student visits the library once a week with their class, and many students also visit independently.

Kindergarten students have been discussing how using imagination helps us to understand stories.  We have compared and contrasted fiction and nonfiction books and have identified clues to determine what type of text we are reading.  We will look at beginning chapter books.
First graders have been comparing fiction and nonfiction books.  We have read and discussed a number of social emotional texts, including Red and The Invisible Boy.  We are beginning a unit on biographies.
Second graders learned the story of Mary Blair, Disney artist, to introduce a unit in Ms. Martinez's art class.  We also read and discussed a number of social emotional texts, such as We are all Wonders and Our Friendship Rules. 
Third graders have been reviewing library tools - dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia and atlas.  Students know how to access an online encyclopedia through the Claypit Hill School Library web site.  We will begin to look at the census.
Fourth graders began an interactive novel read aloud.  In Ms. Wood's class, we are reading Remarkable. Ms. Mello's class is listening to Crenshaw. Ms. Scarpulla's class is listening to Wishtree and Ms. Tobin's class is listening to Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library. We will utilize all the literary tools we learned about in the first half of the school year throughout the read alouds.  These read alouds were class selected.
Fifth graders are working on a research project.  They have learned the difference between "thin" and "think" questions and have drafted at least three thick questions for their research topic.  We discussed strategies for accessing information on the web and how to trust web sites.  We talked about the importance of inferring when researching information.  Students will review plagiarism and will spend the next several weeks researching their topic.
Ms. Burman's web site