Wisconsin School for the Deaf - The Wisconsin Times Vol. 135 No. 3 Spring 2014 | Page 4
Children’s Book Week 2013
Each year in Wisconsin, children nominate their
favorite books for the Golden Archer Award. During
Children’s Book Week, children all over the state vote
for their favorite book. Votes are tallied and a winner
if chosen. During Children’s Book Week at WSD, all
the elementary classes make their way to the library
each morning to enjoy a Deaf adult signing the one of
the books nominated for the Golden Archer award.
This year the story signers were: Katy Schmidt, Joel
Mankowski, Travis Waala, Tianna Galloway and Robert
Paul. Following each story, students were divided
into small groups for a variety of activities designed
to coordinate with each story. David Copeland and
Christopher Rawlings, WSD’s ASL Specialists, engaged
students in an ASL lesson using the SmartBoard.
Nell Fleming, WSD’s Librarian, asked students to summarize
the story and describe what they liked (or didn’t like) about the
story using an iPad with a video camera. Kari Todd, WSD’s
Literacy Specialist, had a variety of creative ‘paper and pencil’
activities focusing on English literacy. Patty Kostechka, WSD’s
Educational Assistant in the library, provided fun activities
everyday incorporating pictures, colored pencils, yarn, paint
sticks and loads of laughter.
Thanks to WSD’s Bilingual Specialist, Karla Gunn, for recruiting the story signers and hard work coordinating
this eagerly anticipated annual event.
Preschool Winter Wonderland
The preschool class has been having fun experiencing the excitement of winter
while staying indoors protected from the bitter cold. They learned about putting
things in order from the bottom to top when they built their own snowman.
2013-14 Winter - 4
The have worked on
using a shovel by
pushing a white box
through cones. They
also felt how cold
ice can be while they
were chipping away
at ice cubes to free the
penguins who were
frozen inside. Even
more fun, was looking
at the ice through a
magnifying glass.