Legends and Tall Tales

This week our Trillium and Huckleberry classes listened with a few chuckles and grins as rabbit tricked Coyote multiple times and discovered what may be the cause of coyotes howling at the moon.  Through the use of this story, we filled in our interactive chart about the important elements that we find in all legends.  One of those elements being that all legends use creative ways to explain how things came to be in nature.  It's been a fun way to introduce so many different types of folk tales in this unit.  Our students are becoming experts at determining which genre of folk tale they are reading.

Everyone loves a tall tale!   Some of our Clarkia and Alder classes got to enjoy the wild adventures of Pecos Bill and Mike Fink this week.  The exaggerations of these superhuman characters added lots of laughter and enjoyment to our reading.  The students were able to pick out the bits of truth peppered throughout the stories and realized that these stories were set in a historical time period.  They also discovered that often times the problem was exaggerated and that the solutions had to involve magic to solve such ridiculous scenarios.    These books were a great way to end our folk tale unit as we will be moving on to a bit of poetry.

Fantastic Fairy Tales and Fables!

 Here are a few of the fairy tale books we have been exploring in our library classes!  We have discovered what elements belong in fairy tales.  For example, the characters are often animals or royalty.  We have learned that often the settings of fairy tales are in either forests or castles.   The plots are centered around the conflict of how good overcomes evil and that the solutions to the problems often involve magic.

Aesop Fables have been another genre of literature we have explored.  The students have loved listening to the animals learn their lessons and have been able to apply it to their own lives.  One the favorites has been the "Lobster and the Crab" by Arnold Lobel.  The humor that Lobel uses in this fable connects with the students.

A few of the classes have jumped into learning about Greek Myths.  We read "The Golden Touch" and discovered that greedy King Midas got more then he bargained for when his wish was granted.  We explored the characters, setting, plot, and solution of these myths and defined these elements.

We are looking forward to learning more about legends and tall tales in the weeks to come.  

Auction Items for Mountain Meadows!

We would love your help in filling a bag for the auction!

When you are out and about if you could pick up one of these items and then we will auction off the bag! A MRA student will be delighted to have these items to be successful in the Mountain Meadow classes!

Mountain Meadow Auction Bag Items

Wireless headphone

Wireless Mouse

Mouse Pad

IPad

Flash Drive

Digital Camera

E-reader

Shelf Marker

OBOB Books :

3-5 Division

Diamond Willow by Helen Frost

Escape From Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein

How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park

No Talking by Andrew Clements

The Sasquatch Escape by Suzanne Selfors

The Shadows by Jacqueline West

Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Mission Unstoppable by Dan Gutman

What Was Ellis Island by Patricia Brennan Demuth

What Was the March on Washington by Kathleen Krull

6-8 Division

Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan

The Great Trouble by Deborah Hopkinson

Return to Sender by Julia Alvarez

Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz

Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

Jinx by Sage Blackwood

Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool

Strike Three, You’re Dead by Josh Berk

Written in Stone by Rosanne Parry

Dr. Seuss Day Success

We had a great time celebrating Dr. Seuss Day!  The students enjoyed the day by dressing up as a Dr. Seuss character and reading celebrations happened throughout the day.   Here are a few highlights to enjoy.  Don't forget to bring in your completed Dr. Seuss Passport Books for a prize!

Read Across America

MOLALLA RIVER ACADEMY WILL CELEBRATE READ ACROSS AMERICA DAY ON MARCH 2ND FROM 1:30-2:30!

The students and staff can dress up as a character from a Dr. Seuss story all day.  At 1:30 we will be joining our buddy families and rotating through different classrooms to read an assortment of Dr. Seuss stories.  The Trillium thru Clarkia students will be filling in their Dr. Seuss Passport Books with stickers.  The Alders and Cedars will help the younger students read to get all the passport stickers.  The students who finish their passport books can come to the Mountain Meadow Library to receive a prize!  Happy Reading!  We can't wait to see the creative dress and the reading frenzy!

What Is A Folk Tale?

For the next month the library classes will be exploring the world of Folklore literature.  We will be reading and exploring different versions of traditional folktales.  I am finding that even the older students haven't been exposed to many of the different traditional stories we may be familiar with.  I hope to open up a world of traditional stories that have been passed down from cultures across the world.  

This week the Huckleberry and Clarkia classes filled in a poster sized T-Chart labeling all the elements of fiction and non-fiction texts.  They are becoming experts on these text elements.  

The Alder classes are continuing their research skill development through OSLIS (Oregon School Library System).   With so many different resources available on the web it can be overwhelming to find a primary source.   This week we found out that OSLIS can cut down on the sorting and make finding the right source easier.   Remember there is a link to the OSLIS site on the side bar of this blog.  The username is: molalla and the password is: oslis.  I hope that you use this great resource with your students.  

Our Surprise Visitor!

The Huckleberry and Clarkia Classes were meet with a surprise visitor this week when they entered our library time.  Brownie, the therapy dog came for a visit for the second time to our library but the first for these classes.  Here were some of the comments that I heard throughout the visit:  

"I felt safe to read to Brownie."

"This was awesome.  When is Brownie coming back?"

"Can I pet her?  She's a good dog.  What stories should I read to her?"

It was incredible to see how engaged our students became and how carefully they picked out the right book to read to Brownie.  It was inspiring to see timid readers take up the challenge to read out-loud so that Brownie was sure to hear.  We can't wait until she comes back.