By Ms. Kugel
Happy New Year! We have been busy in the library.
Kindergarten
Kindergarten students just completed an illustrator study on Jerry Pinkney. We really enjoyed his animal fables. We are now beginning a new unit learning about computer science. We will learn about some innovators in computer science and coding and do some activities both on and off devices to learn how people give directions to computers.
First Grade
First Grade finished their holiday unit by learning about New Years Day and Chinese New Year. They were very interested to discover that every holiday we talked about included a special meal. They also noted that many of the holidays we studied included a form of prayer and special candles or lanterns. We watched some book trailers and got excited about checking out some new series from the library. We are now beginning a new unit learning about computer science. We will learn about some innovators in computer science and do some activities both on and off devices to learn how people give directions to computers.
Second Grade
Second Graders learned how 3D Printers are being used to help animals when they read Beauty and Beak by Deborah Lee Rose. We also learned about Winter the Dolphin and were inspired to help animals ourselves. Students are participating in the design process by working in small groups to imagine a scenario in which they could use 3D Design to help an injured animal. They are researching their animal on Pebble Go and using Tinkercad (a free design software) to design a prosthetic for their animal. Students will write a story about their animals, and we will print their inventions on our 3D printer.
Third Grade
Third grade is loving Scratch! Scratch is a free, online, block coding program for kids. Students can log in from home on a computer or Chromebook. Kids can code all kinds of projects on Scratch - including animations, interactives and games. Third graders created interactive maps including some of their favorite places in Cambridge. They were able to code a “sprite” (or character) to move around a map with arrow keys and give information for different places as it touched them. They are now enjoying some freedom to explore and create their own Scratch projects.
Fourth Grade
Fourth grade has been doing some learning about the Dewey Decimal Section. They worked with a partner to study one “hundreds” section of the library. They determined the topics included, selected a range of books from the section, and created a short slides presentation to introduce their section others.
Fifth Grade
Fifth graders have been deconstructing advertisements. They’ve learned some of the techniques advertisers use to get their attention and convince them to purchase products. They’ve put this knowledge into practice by making their own commercials for paperclips. They worked in groups to write a script, rehearse, film and edit. Their projects are creative and promise to be very funny!
Your students in grades 3, 4 and 5 are competent in Google Drive, Google Docs, and Google slides. Given access to a computer, they are capable of logging into their school account to show you some of the work we’ve been doing. Your students in grades 2-5 loved our December focus on the Hour of Code. Most of the activities on
Hour of Code are available for free without the need of a log in and can be accessed all year long.
Scratch is another great activity for kids to play with at home. The tutorials on Scratch will walk novice users through how to make games and interactives. You don’t need to know computer code to help your kids figure it out, and they will love showing you what they have created.