​A modern day Candy Land! First graders are navigating through the shapes and colors with coding commands. Not only are they practicing coding, but they are practicing taking turns, using kind language, and communication to problem-solve. Excellent job today first graders!

After reading After the Fall by Dan Santat, third graders used resources to brainstorm and choose the style of paper airplane they thought would fly the furthest. They built prototypes, tested them, made adjustments, and tested them again to see if their adjustments improved their design. Our young engineers recorded this process in our Seesaw app to share.

After reading the Monarch Award Nominated book LIFT by Minh Lé ad Dan Santat, we've started reading even more amazing Dan Santat books! I displayed 42 Dan Santat books YESTERDAY...and we are down to only twelve or thirteen! They are flying off the shelves! Devonshire LOVES Dan Santat! Come and check one out soon! His illustrations are the best!

Fourth grade had a refresher on call numbers and where to find things in the library! Each team/table was given a picture of a book to find in the library. They used our online catalog, Destiny Discover, to get a call number and "race" to find the book! The team who found their book first, moved on to the next round! Here are our Champs of 4L! Way to go boys!

Use the emojis along with the Destiny Discover app to see if you can figure out the book titles!

Mrs. Connelly reached out to author/illustrator Todd Parr to let him know about our goal of making good behavior choices to earn hearts! Once our school earns enough hearts we get a reward! Todd sent us a message letting us know he is rooting for us to make our goal! Every grade did an author study on Todd Parr. I think every student at Devonshire can now recognize a Todd Parr book without even seeing the title or his name on the cover! Our younger students read his books, talked about his positive messages, and even tried to draw themselves as a Todd Parr character. Our older students learned where Todd grew-up, where he lives now, how many books he's written, and what inspired him to be an author. Thank you Mr. Parr for being a wonderful inspiration!

Fourth and Fifth grades are using various materials, such as play-doh, lego, and art supplies to create their stop motion videos! We've got a creative group of students here at Devonshire! Look for their finished products on Seesaw soon!

Returning from Winter Break, we have launched into reading the award nominated books of our Illinois Monarch List! As we make our way through reading this amazing list of books, we talk about genre, theme, author's message, text features, fiction vs non-fiction, as well as learn new vocabulary. We use "turn and talks", whole class shares-outs, and Seesaw Assignments, to consider questions that come up as we read, and give our thoughts, predictions, and connections. When we've read all of the books, we'll vote in a bracket style to see who we will crown the winner of the Monarch Nominees! It will be a tough choice this year! 

Teachers are students alike are having fun with the January board! Teachers sent in pictures of themselves as young elementary students, along with their favorite book as a kid! Students and teachers have to match the "now pic" to the "then pic" pic on the board. Not only has this has been enjoyed by all, but it has gotten students looking for the books their teachers enjoyed back when they were kids!

This week is "Hour of Code!" 
Hour of code week is held in early December each year to recognize of the birthday of computing pioneer Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, which is  December 9, 1906. This week our 2nd-3rd graders worked in the Kodable App, where they drag blocks of code to guide a "fuzz" through a maze. Meanwhile, our 4th-and 5th grades worked in the Code.org website completing modules that guide them through a progression of coding, including learning to use repeated blocks of code and looping. They used these skills to go into creative areas of the site to create games, art, and dance.