The Storytelling Princess storytime for April 27 week

Hello, my storybook friends!  How about a great book for this week?  We haven't read a fairy tale lately, so how about today?  You're about to hear a fairy tale whose ending you do not know!  In fact, that's what the whole book is about!  You'll see.  Click here to hear The Storytelling Princess by Rafe Martin:  https://youtu.be/88mM9IB4Mvs

Don't forget your homework:
You make up a story whose ending NOBODY knows.  Maybe write it and illustrated it.  You can share it with your family; maybe Facetime to share it with your grandparents; maybe save it to show me when we get back to school.  Yes, I would like that!  

Don't forget to say this tongue twister five times as fast as you can:  Drake's Strait. 🌊 (You'll have to listen to the story to know what that's all about!)

Enjoy The Storytelling Princess!    https://youtu.be/88mM9IB4Mvs

4th Grade Desert Giant: The World of the Saguaro Cactus week of April 27

Hello, everybody!  I heard that you've been studying oceans 🌊and deserts 🌵 .  Did you know that we have deserts right here in the United States?  You've probably heard about the Sahara Desert in Africa, the Arabian Desert on the Arabian peninsula in Asia, maybe even the Gobi Desert in China, but did you know the LARGEST desert in the world is in Antarctica!  Yes, really!  But today, I'd like for you to hear a story about a cactus 🌵 that grows ONLY in the American desert called the Sonoran Desert.  The desert is out west in Arizona and California, and if you want to see the giant, enormous, huge, gigantic,  mammoth, colossal, massive, monstrous (you get the idea) Saguaro cactus, well, you can do that by taking a Reading Rainbow🌈 field trip with LaVar Burton by clicking right here:        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OSbJLRmudY  You might picture this in your mind:  the largest Saguaro cactus on record was 78 feet tall, the size of 14 grown men standing on each other's shoulders.  Whoa!  Sorry to say it toppled over during a windstorm about 30 years ago. Oops!  Enjoy the Desert Giant: The World of the Saguaro Cactus by Barbara Bash by watching the Reading Rainbow 🌈 video now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OSbJLRmudY

Enjoy your virtual field trip!  🌵

5th Grade Pink and Say week of April 27

Sometimes 5th graders ask me what my favorite book 📚 in the library is.   Hmmm...that's hard to answer.  Really my favorite book is whichever book I'm holding when I'm reading to you!  The same thing is true with our Civil War picture books.  My favorite one today is Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco.  Remember in 4th grade when you were studying personal narratives and we read lots of her books, starting with My Rotten, Redheaded Older Brother?  Remember how we looked closely at her illustrations, too, how she starts with pencil ✐sketches and leaves the pencil marks for hair ✐, freckles ✐, skin ✐?  Remember how she sometimes places real family photographs in with her illustrations?  See if you can spy those things on the pages during this YouTube.  Oh, how I wish I could be with you as you listen to this reading of Pink and Say, especially at the end when Patricia Polacco explains who Say really was!  

Click here to get started:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLf5YJloTGY

Waiting is Not Easy! storytime April 20

Good morning, my friends!  How about a story for this week?  Click here to hear Waiting is Not Easy! by the wonderful Mo Willems:    https://youtu.be/kSSXn-4S8-c

Don't forget your homework:  
1.  practice patience
2.  sing the "Fruits of the Spirit" song to someone you love
3.  Click here  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VRyu9fEEgs   
to watch Douglastalks.compatience  (Douglas Talks.com Patience)

4th grade My Little Island week of April 20

Have you been studying islands? There are islands ALL OVER THE WORLD; 🌎some are freezing and some are insufferably hot!  Would you like to fly away for a story My Little Island by Frane Lessac and a virtual field trip to the teeny, tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat with LeVar Burton and Reading Rainbow?  Check out Montserrat's very strange foods and animals (including the mysterious 'mountain chicken'). There's an ocean view 🌊 everywhere you look!  Remember learning about volcanoes last week?  Well, 25 years ago, a very dormant volcano that had not erupted in centuries did erupt in 1995 and destroyed more than half of this island. 🌋 It kept erupting a little bit at the time for the next 15 years.  Now it is dormant again and has been since 2010.  Do you think it will erupt on this beautiful tiny island again?  Click the link to explore the island of Montserrat with LeVar.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc_KgSiq6J4 
Enjoy your trip!

🌎🌋🌊

5th grade The Story of the H.L. Hunley and Queenie's Coin week of April 20

Interested in another wonderful Civil War book?  The Story of the H. L. Hunley and Queenie's Coin by Fran Hawk is a true tale of the world's first combat submarine, a Confederate submarine.  Spoiler alert: it sank in 1864, but what a history it had before its sinking!  It took explorers over 70 years to find the Titanic in her watery grave, but guess how long it took to find and raise The H.L. Hunley -- 136 years!  Wow!  She was finally raised from the ocean floor near Charleston, South Carolina, in 2000, is being cleaned and preserved, and is now on display in South Carolina.  What a piece of history!  Click the link to hear the true story of the H. L. Hunley and her brave crew members.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTrwA6mGHJk

4th Grade Dorobo the Dangerous, Mt. Fuji, and Origami week of April 13

How would you like to:
1. learn to count to 5 in Japanese
2. hear a great story about Mt. Fuji, Japan's highest mountain volcano, along with some interesting facts
3. learn to make your own origami Mt. Fuji

Well, what are we waiting for?   Click here to watch my video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBdOhOdIwAk

Then click below to see a very short video of the 36 Views of Mt. Fuji (although there really are 46).  I wonder if you can find Mt. Fuji in EVERY SINGLE PAINTING.  It's kind of like looking for Waldo.  Have fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2dqtcu2NN8

5th Grade Follow the Drinking Gourd week of April 13

There are so many stories and books to share about that time in our country's history called The Civil War.  I hope you enjoyed The Last Brother last week and also listened to the bugle sounds heard on both the North's and South's sides of the battlefields.

Today you get to watch the Reading Rainbow video called Follow the Drinking Gourd, a very famous song and book that will teach you much about the Underground Railroad.  Please click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVjklXQLKFM&t=56s

I can hardly wait until we can see each other again.  In the meantime, read, wash your hands, stay home, and be thankful that we live in this wonderful nation!

The Easter Bunny That Overslept storytime April 13

Good morning, my friends!  How about a story?  Click here  https://youtu.be/p9O9cO2V_Sk 

to hear The Easter Bunny That Overslept.  Enjoy!

Easter Sunday lesson week of April 6, 2020

Please click the link below to see my storytelling lesson for the week of April 6, the week leading up to EASTER.  It's the lesson with the last six REAL Easter Eggs.
https://vimeo.com/404734516

Mrs. Darnell's Easter Sunday  video 

4th Grade lesson for April 6, 2020 week

Hello, my rain forest-studying friends!  Did you enjoy field-tripping to the Amazon with The Shaman's Apprentice last week? Did you and your family discuss the questions that relate to the story that I posted?
If you were in the library this week, I would read to you another story about the rain forest by the same author, Lynne Cherry, who has spent a lot of time studying in the rain forest.  Click HERE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw0arFtHeVw&t=131s to hear The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest.   The kapok is HUGE, so tall that it emerges above all other trees.  To see a picture of a real kapok tree, click HERE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sTgIMQ2oDU
Speaking of kapok trees, why don't you grab a good book and read it under the TALLEST tree in your yard?  Pretend it's a kapok, but watch out for boa constrictors, monkeys, toucans, and sloths!

5th Grade lesson for April 6, 2020

More wonderful Civil War stories!  Did you enjoy Henry's Freedom Box last week?  Did you do the bathtub experiment to see what Henry's experience was like?  Email me to tell me your thoughts.

If we were in the library this week, I would read to you The Last Brother by Trinka Hakes Noble.  Each year when I finish the book, there's a long pause, like kids are deep in thought at the ending.  Click HERE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_t6XsrGUQk  to have the story read to you.  Gabe and Orlee are young buglers, one for the North and one for the South.  If you want to hear what the bugle calls that they played sounded like (charge, retreat, etc.), click HERE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42QGf3W2BZw.  Be sure to listen to the end to hear the mournful tune called TAPS.
O, how I miss reading these wonderful stories to you!  Please email me your thoughts about these stories.  Let's stay in touch!

Palm Sunday Lesson Week of March 30th

Please click on the vimeo link below to see my storytelling lesson for this week, March 30, the week leading to Palm Sunday.  It's about the first SIX of the REAL Easter eggs!

https://vimeo.com/403003940
Mrs. Darnell's Palm Sunday video

Week of March 23, 2020 distance learning

Hello,  my "Outback" learning friends.  Welcome to our second week of distance learning from the library.  

Here's my library lesson for 5th grade:

I miss you and miss reading to you each week.  Maybe we’ll be back together soon.  I wonder how your Newbery reading is going.  How about your Newbery word search? How many Newbery titles did you find in the word search puzzle?  Will you email me and tell me?  Also, has anybody finished your Newbery book?  If so, will you email me, tell me your title, and tell me if you think it was worthy of the Newbery Award or Honor, the highest honor a book can receive in the year it was published?  Tell me why you think that.  What was your favorite part?  Would you recommend that your friends read this book, too?  Why?

         If you were in the library this week, I would be reading you a book called Henry’s Freedom Box by Ellen Levine.  I like to share our Civil War era books with you while you are studying that time period in social studies.  This is such a bittersweet book (remember what that means?).  It is a TRUE story about the Underground Railroad.  Click here for Henry's Freedom Box. After you listen to the story, go to your bathroom and get in the bathtub (clothed and no water turned on).  Scrunch yourself up really small to fill about ½ to 2/3 of the bathtub space.  Stay just like that for as long as you can stand it.  Imagine you are scrunched up like that for 27 hours.  That’s longer than a day!  That’s like staying in that position from singing the National Anthem one day until lunch THE NEXT DAY!!!  Now as you do this you are all probably kind of comfortably lying on your backs…oh, no!  Imagine part of that time you are on your tummy, on your side, and even ON YOUR HEAD!  No food, no water breaks, no bathroom breaks, no recess, no stand up and stretch…for 27 hours!  Now do you have a better understanding of Henry Box Brown?

         Wow!  Two amazingly wonderful books this week…your Newbery and Henry’s Freedom Box!  It just doesn’t get much better than that.  Enjoy your free time escaping through good books.  I love you, am praying for you and your families, and am counting the days until we can read together again!

Here's my library lesson for 4th grade:

Hello, 4^th graders!  So this is the time that you are studying the rainforest, right?  Oh, my!  What a wonderful unit to study!  When 4^th graders study the rainforest each year, I like to read to them the book called The Shaman’s Apprentice by Lynne Cherry.  Since we can’t be together now, I found a VERY GOOD replacement: the Reading Rainbow video of The Shaman’s Apprentice.  In this video, the book will be read, and host Lavar Burton will TAKE you to the rainforest where you will meet real medicine men, tribal leaders, people who live in ways unbelievable to us, and missionaries who take the Gospel to the tribespeople.  I hope you will click HERE  to experience and learn from this amazing video of Reading Rainbow’s The Shaman’s Apprentice!  Better yet…if you watch it with your family, you could discuss these important questions:

·       What did the missionaries do in the village?

·       How can we be missionaries in our homes and neighborhoods during this time of quarantine?

·       The video mentions apprentices learning from older people.  What is a lesson or skill you have learned from an older person, maybe a parent or grandparent?  (My grandmother taught me to sew when I was about 10.  It made my mother too nervous, afraid I would get the sewing machine needle stuck in my finger, so my grandmother taught me!)

·       What are some stories or true-life experiences that your parents or grandparents have passed down to you?  Can’t think of any?  Maybe it’s because you haven’t asked!  TODAY, ask your parents (and maybe also Facetime your grandparents to ask them) to tell you a story about themselves when they were children.  You could also ask them what was a lesson that they had to learn the hard way.  They’ll know what you mean!  Enjoy these times at home learning more about the people you love and what life was like when they were children.

That’s it for this week.  Enjoy The Shaman’s Apprentice video with its virtual field trip to the rainforest as well as listening to and learning stories from the people you love.  I miss you, am praying for you and your families, and can hardly wait until we are together again reading wonderful books!

Here's my library lesson for 3rd grade:

Please watch the video of my reading G is for Georgia, posted on the 3^rd grade blog.