Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss

This Monday, Smithville Elementary celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday, and, since he's one of our favorite authors, we've kept the celebration going all week long!

We've been dressing up according to our Dr. Seuss theme days!

The library got a Dr. Seuss makeover!

Truffula trees sprouted overnight!

Students are using our chalk wall to vote for their favorite Seuss character!

And, we've been participating in some fun Dr. Seuss crafts!

Leiana models her Lorax mustache and her pink hat for Cat in the Hat day.

Blain and his mini Truffula tree.

Gabrielle is proud of her pink and purple Truffula tree.

Is that Abigail behind that mustache?

Evan with his Horton Hears a Who pencil.

Inez knows that "A person's a person, no matter how small!"

Matthew's origami fish.

Miguel with his Thing 1 bookmark and Keep Calm and Read On bookmark.

Steven made a tiger-striped fish.

A little Katy cat!

Thing 1 and Thing 2 (also known as Marisol and Jasmine).

Abby's Horton pencils says "Small people are awesome!"

To download instructions for these, click on the picture of each below!

Quilted Stories

The Colorado Valley Quilt Guild has been kind enough to share another box of their "quilted stories" with Smithville Elementary this semester!

Each story comes with a coordinating quilt that was handmade by guild members.  What an interesting, hands-on, unique way of sharing a story together!

Teachers can check out the books and their accompanying quilts in the library.

You can learn more about this semester's selections here:

It's Awards Season in the Library!

As you can see from the library chalk wall, it's awards season in the library!  We're anxiously awaiting the announcement of this year's Newbery Award winner, Caldecott Award winner, and Bluebonnet Award winner!  In the mean time, we've been making taking a good look at some past Caldecott winners.

To start off our Cladecott exploration, we've been looking very closely at the artwork in Saint George and the Dragon.  After looking at an image closely and listing all of the details we can see, we then share what we think is happening in the picture based on the details we notice.  After practicing this See and Think exercise as a class, students have then been looking at images from other past Caldecott winners and writing down what they notice and think about each image.

Paul, counting animals in Noah's Ark

Jason is thinking about what the man on the high wire might be up to in The Man Who Walked Between the Towers.

Jade notices lots of cars and buildings in The Little House.

Samantha is making inferences about why an explorer is sitting atop a dollhouse in Jumanji.

Annie peruses Rapunzel.

Mason wonders what it would be like to have Rabbit (from My Friend Rabbit) as a friend!

Layton and Seth take a closer look at some Caldecott winners.

Gabriella and Louise share the details they notice in their Caldecott winners.