Announcements
Our Bulldog Vote for WCCPB
Mar 28th
The Washington Children’s Choice Picture Book award is voted annually by the children in grades K-3. Their votes are submitted by their teacher/librarian to the Washington Library Media Association. Then all the votes are counted and the winning book is revealed each spring.
The official state vote has not been released yet.
Here were the choices for this year.
So, which book did the Bulldog Readers choose as their favorite?
Which one of these books is your favorite?
Do you think the state vote will be the same as our vote?
Are any of these on other state award lists?
If you are a world visitor, are any of these books available in your country?
Thank you 10,000 Visitors!
Mar 26th
10,000 visitors!
Our visitors come from all over the world!
Thinking about all the visitors we have had since September, I wondered how we could illustrate our visitors “Bulldog Readers style”.
Here are our visitors in books by continent!
North America
South America
Europe- England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland
Europe- Scandinavia
Europe
Europe
Europe
Oceania
Asia
It’s a 21st century world. Google! Bing! Yahoo! The internet is available 24/7.
Yet, there is still a great use for books.
They bring the world to your finger tips!
What do you notice about our country books?
Have you ever traveled to any of these places?
Are you a visitor from one of these countries?
Tell us about it!
Coin Drive Update
Mar 16th
The 6th graders counted, and counted and counted!
Here is our total of money raised to help those in need in Japan after only 3 days!
All of the money collected will be given to The Red Cross!
There is still time to donate! Look for those pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters!
Bring them to school and put in the designed jars in each classroom.
You can help – Every penny counts!
Here is a video that Tracy, one of our students made about the crisis in Japan.
We hope you will leave a comment!
We Love Math in the Library!
Mar 16th
Math in the Library? Really? Yes!
We have lots of math books in the library to help you become a Math Whiz like Math Man!
We have been reading different math books during class this week. Here is a sample of our math fun!
Kindergarten – Shapes, Shapes, Shapes
After reading these two books, we are shape ♦ experts! We also found that the tables in the library are trapezoids and 2 trapezoids put together are a hexagon!
First Grade – Counting, Counting, Counting!
What a great book to practice math stories and counting! Here is a sample.
Before bedtime, I read 2 books. Each book had 10 big pages. Each page had 1 pretty picture.
How many books were there? How many big pages where there? How many pretty pictures were there?
Second Grade- Grouping, Grouping, Grouping!
The Grapes of Math is filled with Math Riddles and pictures to help you practice counting quickly.
Did you know if you can group things, you can count faster? If you want to be SPEEDY at counting, check out this book!
Third Grade – Amazing, Awesome Arrays!
Our third graders wrote multiplication stories and sentences to go with the arrays around school. Here is just a few of the ones they wrote.
We walked into the library and saw some baskets of books.
1 x 5 = 5
by Jake and Leon
Arthur went to the gym and found some balls. He wanted to find the amount.
2 x 3 = 6
By Eric and Logan
We walked into the classroom and noticed some buckets.
4 x 4 = 16
By Catya and Claire
We went to the art room and saw some matryoshka dolls.
2 x 4 = 8
By Ola and Angela
A big thanks and shout out to Mrs. Linda Yollis for the array photo and story idea! We used this idea with her permission!
Fourth Grade – Great, Gorgeous Geometry
We did two projects in 4th grade. First we read, The Patchwork Path: A Quilt Map to Freedom.
After reading the book, we learned more about the Underground Railroad Quilt Codes. Then we made our own quilt squares.
Our next project geometry too! We will read The Origami Master by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer and then make origami birds. We found out about this book, from one of our blogging buddy classrooms in Tanzania, Africa. Thank you to the IST Elementary Campus Library for writing an awesome post about this book.
Fifth Grade – Perfect Polygons
How many sides does a octagon have? What about a nonagon? A decagon? A undecagon? Can you make one?
While reading The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns, we used geoboards and geo bands to make different polygons.
Then some students made 3 dimensional shapes with some polydron shapes.
What shape is Gracie holding?
Sixth Grade – What Makes a Million?
In 6th grade we explored the number 1,000,000!
Did you know that if you wanted to count to one million, it would probably take you 23 DAYS, without stopping to eat or sleep! That’s because most of the numbers are long and hard to say.
Andrew Clements’ new book A Million Dots literally has 1,000,000 dots in it! They are shown in drawings on each page. If you looked at each dot, individually, and took one second to look at each one, it would take you ELEVEN and 1/2 DAYS to look at them all! A million dots is a lot of dots!
After reading the book, the 6th graders had to use books to research facts so we could add them all up to reach 1,000,000!
We hope you love math as much as we do!
Do you have a favorite math book?
Look around your house, do you see a math array?
Can you make up a Math Riddle? Share! Share! Share!
Leave us a comment and tell us about it!
Disaster in Japan – You Can Help!
Mar 14th
First the earthquake. Then the tsunami.
The disaster in Japan is so overwhelming it’s hard to know how to help. It can make us feel sad and helpless and it’s a universal feeling where you are a student or an adult.
However, you can help. Our 6th graders decided on Friday that they could make a difference! They have started a coin drive.
The wonderful part about a coin drive is that anyone can help! We all have an extra penny or two hanging around the house. All those pennies add up and have the power to help some people who really need it.
I hope you will contribute. Bring in a penny! Put it in one of the collection jars around school. Know that your help could make the difference in the life of a person in Japan.
Fellow bloggers- wouldn’t it be great if we all could contribute from our own countries? In America we have many organizations that are collecting funds for the needy in Japan. I’m sure there must be organizations that are doing the same thing around the world!
Let’s turn the power of blogging into a way to help those in need!
Let’s collect those pennies!
Hurray! It’s Math Week!
Mar 14th
It’s Monday and the first day of Math Week!
Do you know you can find math EVERYWHERE?
Can you find math in ART? In PE? In the Library? In the Lunchroom? In Music?
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Join us this week as we explore the math that is all around us!
Check out our video with a special message from
M A T H M A N !
The Postcard Project
Mar 10th
We have joined The Postcard Project!
This project was started by a Mrs. Leakey, a teacher in New Zealand. You can read about it on here her class blog.
I found out about it by reading about it on the 2KJ and 2KM blog. Over two dozen classrooms around the world have signed up for this project.
Sending postcards is a great way to connect with other classrooms around the world. Each class finds a postcard of a place that showcases their town.
We get lots of tourists in Seattle and have many postcards showing our beautiful city. Some classes will receive postcards that show the Space Needle, some will see Mt. Rainier, others have our sports stadiums and some show the the Seattle skyline.
Student volunteers in the library wrote cards with Mrs. Hembree. Then they were sent off!
We didn’t have to wait too long to hear from our postcard buddies. Our first comment came from Hawes Primary School in England!
Now, we have a new bulletin board showcasing our postcards so everyone can see! A big thanks to Mr. Eldridge for giving us the idea for a blogging bulletin board!
What do you think about this international postcard project?
We would love to hear from you!
Math Man is that You?
Mar 8th
The Math Man defeats the Masked Math Marauder!
We CAN do math!
Math Week! Math Week! Math Week! Math Week!
March 14-17 is Math Week!
Join us here as the library jumps aboard the Math Week Bandwagon!
Math Arrays!
Math Books!
Math Games!
Will we hit our 10,000 visitor mark during Math Week?
What do you like to do most in math and why?
Using our voting poll and vote!
Leave us a comment about your favorite part of math!
Read Across America Day March 2nd
Mar 3rd
To celebrate Read Across America day, Parkplace Books sponsored a wonderful guest author visit by Samantha Vamos, author of Before You Were Here, Mi Amor and The Cazuela that the Farm Maiden Stirred.
Students in kindergarten through second grade came to the library to listen to Samantha read her books and talk about what her life is like now as a writer. After her presentation, Samantha autographed copies of her books, including two for our library.
The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred is Samantha’s latest book.
It is illustrated by the Mexican artist Rafael Lopez. Together they have crafted a wonderful bilingual tale about five farm animals, their farmer and a farm girl who wants to make some Arroz con Leche.
Written in the style of “The House that Jack Built” Samantha’s book is already generating lots of positive press. A Kirkus Starred review and on Tuesday a rave raview from School Library Journal stating, “The artistry of this book makes it a must buy for all libraries.”
Many children had the chance to hold special Spanish word cards in front of the group as she read Cazuela.
The illustrator Rafael Lopez brings his Mexican surrealism to all his work. In 2010 he won the Pura Belpre Illustrator Award for his illustrations of Pat Mora’s Book Fiesta.
The United States Postal Service commissioned his work for a series of postal stamps on celebrated Latino music legends. Oprah Winfrey also hired him to paint three paintings for her school in South Africa.
Samantha’s first book, Before You Were Here, Mi Amor is a colorful bilingual children’s picture book about the family time before one is born and the baby’s arrival into their new family.
It won the 2010 Washington State Book Award and was featured as “Best for Babies” in the 2009 Parent’s Magazine. Animator and artist Santiago Cohen applies his brightly colored folk-art style to this Latino story.
Samantha’s website provides book trailers, activity pages for children and discussion guides as well as more information about her life. Visit http://samanthavamos.com
More information about artist Rafael Lopez can be found at http://rafaellopez.com
Read about Santiago Cohen at http://www.santiagocohen.com
From Russia With Love!
Feb 25th
This week we received a package from our blogging buddies in Kansk, Russia!
Kansk is a town on the bank of the Kan River in the central part of Russia. The package took 2 months to get here!
As you can see on the map, Kansk is VERY far from Seattle, Washington, USA!
Our town is just a few miles from Seattle!
Map courtesy of Cluster Maps
We were very excited to open our package. Ms. V’s class has been blogging with our Russian Blog buddies, so they got to see FIRST what was inside the box!
We received a cute teddy bear, some stickers, a Russian nesting doll, and a flag!
Here is a movie that shows what was inside our package!
Map courtesy of Cluster Maps
We are now planning what to send back to them!
Have you ever received a surprise gift? What did you get?
How long do you think it will take for our box to arrive in Russia?
Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!
