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