April is National Poetry Month

We are continuing to celebrate National Poetry Month and Poem in My Pocket in the MC and all around BES.  In the MC we are having "Campfire Poetry"!  The kids are loving it and so am I!  Everyone has the opportunity to share their poem around the campfire.

We are also celebrating Poem in My Pocket day all week at BES!  Students are sharing their poems with different adults in the building each day!

Happy Poem in My Pocket Day (or week)!!

Mrs. McElroy

Poem in my Pocket

April is National Poetry Month and April 30th is Poem in my Pocket Day.  We are celebrating poetry all month long in the MC!  This week we are researching/finding poems to memorize.

Kindergarten learned an Earth Day Poem to celebrate Earth Day.  We worked on rhythm when reciting it!

The next week, the week of Poem in my Pocket Day, students will recite their poems and will receive a prize for doing so each day!

Happy Poetry Month!

Mrs. McElroy

March Madness Champion

We completed March Madness in the MC and it was so much fun!  I have had many requests to check out all of the Elite 8 books, but especially the champion book!

The Final Four books were Ivan, the Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla, The Numberly's, The Incredible Book Eating Boy, and The Adventures of Beekle the Unimaginary Friend.

We then voted for the final two books to make it to the championship:
The Adventures of Beekle the Unimaginary Friend versus Ivan, the Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla.

And the Champion is.......

IVAN, THE REMARKABLE TRUE STORY OF THE SHOPPING MALL GORILLA!

There is also a fiction chapter book based on Ivan titled The One and Only Ivan.   I have recommended it to several students and we do have a copy in our MC.  March Madness was a fun way to extend Read Across America week all month and get the whole school involved.

Mrs. McElroy

Read Across America Week

We had an exciting week at BES celebrating Read Across America Week.  We started out by having over 60 different readers come to do read alouds for National Read Aloud Day on Monday, March 2!!

Which, also happens to be Dr. Seuss' birthday.  To honor Dr. Seuss we had a different dress up theme for every day of the week based on a different Dr. Seuss Book:

Monday- Green Eggs and Ham (wear green)
Tuesday- Fox in Socks (silly socks)
Wednesday- Wacky Wednesday (dress wacky)
Thursday- Cat in the Hat (hat day)
Friday- Dress like your favorite Dr. Seuss Character

 

We also had a guest reader on the announcements every morning to read a portion of our theme book!

 Thank you to all our Business Partners and the PDC for helping with this!

We are also continuing with our March Madness Bracket to celebrate reading all month long!!

Mrs. McElroy

March Madness

To celebrate Read Across America Week all MONTH in the MC we are having our very own March Madness!  We have a Book Bracket and began with the Elite Eight:

The Princess and the Pig by: Jonathan Emmett
The Numberlys by: William Joyce and Christina Ellis
The Circus Ship by: Chris van Dusen
The Adventures of Beekle the Unimaginary Friend by: Dan Santat
A Pig Named Perrier by: Elizabeth Spurr
The Incredible Book Eating Boy byL Oliver Jeffers
Ivan The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla by: Katherine Applegate
My Teacher is a Monster by: Peter Brown

The classes voted on our Final Four and there will be more on that next time...as well as all the fun we are having celebrating Read Across America Week!

Mrs. McElroy

President's Day

Last week was President's Day and we celebrated in the MC by answering the EQ: What is a president?  I got lots of interesting answers from "Someone that does paperwork" to "They control the world".  It was fun to hear all the "facts" that students know about presidents.  We then compared our facts to two books Duck for President and My Teacher for President.  We compared and contrasted these fictional books to what really takes place when electing our countries leaders.  There is always so much to learn from these students!!

Mrs. McElroy

HRRB

On Tuesday, February 3, the Reading Stars competed in the first ever Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl Barrow County Competition.  And we placed 3rd!!

The Team worked so hard and most students read all 16 books!!!!  I couldn't be prouder of our Reading Stars and look forward to next year!

Even more exciting, the team wanted to continue so the Reading Stars are still meeting every Tuesday to talk about what we love....books!  We are now reading The White Giraffe by Lauren St. John and so far the book is fabulous...we are all hooked and can't wait to see what will happen next for Martine as she moves to South Africa to live with her grandmother she didn't even know existed!!


Mrs. McElroy

KAHOOT IT

Kahoot it is just what we did this week. 2nd and 3rd Grade has been covering research and reference materials for the last several weeks.
 
The past two weeks we focused on dictionary skills.  Last week we started with the EQ: What can information can I find in a dictionary?  This week we practiced using the dictionary with the EQ: How can I use the dictionary?

2nd Grade had dictionary races which are always lively and fun!  But this year with 3rd Grade we brought in some technology! Now that 3rd grade is BYOT several of the students brought their own devices and then we shared others to play Kahoot.  The students LOVED it!

They practiced working in groups and they had to actually use the dictionary to answer the questions!
A win all around!
 

Mrs. McElroy

NEW BOOKS!!

Welcome to a New Year....and welcome new books!  I am so excited that we were able to get new books for the Media Center to surprise the kids with when they came back.  Who doesn't love a new book?!?

Thank you for your support during the Book Fair...this is how it helps our school!  Getting new books into your students' hands!!

Don't forget that you can purchase a yearbook online at ybpay.lifetouch.com and the Yearbook ID Code is 12157115.

Also, 5th Grade ads are due by January 15th.  They should be emailed to me at laura.mcelroy@barrow.k12.ga.us.

Thank you!

Mrs. McElroy