Fun with STEM!

Last week was STEM week- celebrating Science, Technology, Engineering and Math!  In my Tuesday classes (2M, 3GH and 4G) we were able to focus on STEM during library.

First we read the book Iggy Peck, Architect

In the story, Iggy, a budding second grade architect, has to save his teacher and classmates when they become stranded on an island.  He builds a beautiful Golden-Gate-Bridge-esque suspension bridge and saves the day.

I asked students to channel their inner Iggy Peck and challenged them to build bridges over "streams" using only 10 legos (if they finished the first challenge, their stream got wider!).

Narrow stream challenge:

Wider stream challenge:

Students were also able to try STEM-themed centers during book checkout.  I had additional legos (with challenge cards) and magnatiles (also with challenge cards).

When does your child have library?!

Curious when your child has library?  Our schedule is now posted to our library website: https://sites.google.com/a/wellesleyps.org/upham-library/about

Where will you get caught reading?!

Have you emailed me your "caught reading" photo yet?

Please email Ms. Cote a photo of yourself reading in a unique or unusual spot!  We will post your photo on our back to school bulletin board (NOT on the blog or social media).  Email photos to cotek@wellesleyps.org  I can't wait to see all your unusual reading spots!

Here's one of mine- I was in London and was able to attend the Red Sox v. Yankees game (I promise I put down my book and watched the game....!).

Librarian of the day!

We had a special guest, Haochen from KBE, as our Librarian of the day.  We put him to work and he helped us so much!

Checking in all the returned books!

Mr. Dees needed to check out a book- Haochen took care of it!

He wrote out the agenda on the white board for all our classes!

Helping me read to 2C

Thank you for all your help, Haochen!

All about UpCott!

I wanted to share our “UpCott” results.  Recently, Upham students continued the tradition of voting for a picture book to win the “UpCott” Medal -- Upham’s version of a mock Caldecott.  The Caldecott Medal is an award given out by the American Library Association to the most distinguished picture book of the year. Over several weeks, Upham students listened to potential Caldecott winning titles, deciding whether the book was worthy of their UpCott vote.

Students chose the title Drawn Together by Minh Le and Dan Santat (Santat was the author/illustrator from last year’s UpCott winner, After the Fall):

Third grade students also worked hard to create an UpCott medal design while first and fourth graders voted for the winner.  The winning design was created by Tyler R. (3W) -- congratulations, Tyler!  His medal design has been affixed to the cover of the winning UpCott title.

To explore which titles won ALA medals, please visit: http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2019/01/american-library-association-announces-2019-youth-media-award-winners