Carolyn Crimi visits Chets Creek

This week we had our annual author visit. This year we hosted Carolyn Crimi.

What a great presentation she gave. One of the best things I loved from her was the idea of a "story hunt" and of course she had to put on her special hat which always helps her write.

She had the kids imagine that she was in her house (which is 100 years old) and follow her along as she looked for things to write about. The kids were so excited as she invovled them in helping her write a story out loud.

She was energetic, creative, and full of imagination.

At the end of the presentation she shared "The Louds Move In" and had the kids laughing through the whole book. It was great to have her here with us and movitate our young writers. Check out her website - Carolyn Crimi.

A Celebration of the Arts

This week we have been having our annual Art Extravagza week at Chets. This is a week full of assemblies that expose the children to all the different cultural arts.
This week we started out with The Riverside Guitar Quartet. They were four guys who could really play a variety of music on guitar. On Tuesday we listened to jazz by The Kelly-Scott Jazz 6-tet. The kids loved that!

Wednesday was a Japanese storyteller named Kuniko Yamamoto.

On Thursday we watched the muralist Cliff Beaman as he drew beautiful pictures from chalk (with music in the background.)

On Friday we were able to see Tom Sapp. He is a graphic designer who has made many characters for mascots.

He even created Chets Creek a mascot of their own!

The kids loved the programs. On Friday night we celebrate with a family night of Arts Extravaganza.





The kids will have opportunities to make different things with their parents and see other types of art being done at the same time such as pottery.










We also have a silent auction where anyone can bid on themed baskets put together by each classroom. You would be amazed at them!

It is a fun filled week followed by a great night. What a great opportunity to enrich our children.

Looking for Something New

The great thing about blogs are they allow you the opportunity to learn from others as well. One reader has shown me a great website that allows readers to read books on-line. They also offer books in different languages. Not only does this site have free on-line books to read but also has a great program that anyone can use to create a book on-line. Plus it has a tutorial on how to create your book. The site is free - all you have to do is register. The site is Big Universe. Check it out and give me your thoughts of how you can use it with your class.

Time to Celebrate our Teacher of the Year

At Chets Creek we always celebrate big and with style. That certainly is true when it comes to our Teacher of the Year breakfast. This year that teacher was Haley Alvarado. We begin by welcoming our V.I.P. into our theme decorated media center. We start with breakfast and then each grade level performs a skit in honor of our TOY. By the end of the morning we are laughing uncontrollably. At the end of the day we will meet as a team to attend the district's Teacher of the Year Awards. It will be great ending to a great day!

Connecting the Work

At Chets Creek we continue to think about how we connect the standards with the work we are doing in our classrooms. One way to show this alignment is through a standards based bulletin board. This month we chose to showcase our story the students made to How Little Cloud Became a Big Cloud. Although we don't have the actual voice thread playing next to it (we are hoping to get that up and running this week)we have the individual pieces of student work up along with the class portion. The rest of the students sheets were placed on the clips so that the whole story would be shared. Parents and other teachers are able to see how influential an author can be to students during an author study and how they are able to take on that author's craft. I can't wait to see how this impacts their narrative writing throughout the rest of the year!

How Little Cloud Became a Big Cloud

After listening to Little Cloud by Eric Carle, we decided to write our own sequel to his work - How Little Cloud Became a Big Cloud. The kids loved this book so much and loved thinking about what little cloud could turn into. They wrote the middle of the story on their own and then we wrote the beginning and ending together as a whole group. What fun it was to hear everyone's ideas. We decided to voice thread the piece. We love it and I am sure you will love it to.

A great way to share books!

Are you looking for something new to use with your class? Check out this great website that allows you to share on-line books with your class directly through their site or on your blog/website. It is Lookybook. It is a free website that has a wide range of books categorized by genre, author, or illustrator. What a great opportunity for parents to read new books with their child and share books that we also have read as a class. There is a wide range of difficulty which allows readers of all levels. Best of all, it gives you an opportunity to preview a book and decide if you are interested in buying it. The downside of it all is that if there is a lot of print, the size can make it a little difficult to see unless it is enlarge on a nice size screen.

One of my favorite characters is SkippyJon Jones. He is full of excitement, mischief, very creative, and always into trouble. If you haven't met SkippyJon, take a moment to enjoy this book. (If you click on the glasses it enlarges the image)


I can't wait to share all these books with my class. Please post a comment if you have any great ideas to use with this website!