Good morning. How was your weekend? I enjoyed mine.
Last week a short week for us. We had Presidents Day off. I never really like having Mondays off as Tuesday is my elementary day which means I see all of the elementary classes except one – not my idea of the best way to start a week. We made it through though and it was a good day.
My littles and I read Rumplestiltskin and Curious George and the Firefighters. These four little ones are so hilarious. I have a hard time not laughing at the comments they make. Last week one of them told me he was going to get a whale for a pet and keep it in his swimming pool (found out from his mom he doesn’t have a swimming pool). After storytime and check out they worked on a coloring sheet which reinforced proper library behavior taken from LiBEARy Skills K-3.
What do you do with a Tail Like This? and my all-time favorite Green Eggs and Ham were the stories for kinders this past week. They loved trying to guess which animal was represented by the body parts on each page of What do you do with a Tail Like This? We started working on information found on front covers of books – Title and Author – with a worksheet from Teaching Library Media Skills in Grades K-6. We did most of the work together which made it about following directions as well.
Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride was our read aloud in first grade. I did a similar lesson with the first graders on Title and Author
– with a worksheet from Teaching Library Media Skills in Grades K-6. The main difference with the first graders was that they needed to write out answers rather than underline them. We have a couple of first graders who struggled with this assignment but most of them handled it quite well.
The lesson for second grade was an easy one to prepare for. Before the lesson I read Seven Blind Mice and Once a Mouse. For the lesson we discussed the information found on a title page – title, author, illustrator, publisher, and place of publication. Before they arrived I placed a stack of picture books on each table. Students had to take one of the books and open to the title page. I then had them point to the different items found on the page and my assistant and I walked around making sure they were pointing to the correct item.
Guide words is a skill that is not needed with the increase use of online encyclopedias. I still like to teach it as dictionaries, glossaries and indexes all use guide words. I started my third grade library time by reading from The Homework Machine by Dan Gutman. Now that our Caldecott unit is completed, I read from chapter books for my older kiddos to introduce them to books at or above their level. I found a fun activity for guide words on Donna Young’s web site. We divided the students into groups of 4 and they worked on it together. My assistant and I had the answer keys I created to make checking their work easier.
For most of the rest of the year the fourth grade will be working on the Dewey Decimal System. Before the lesson I read to the students from The BFG by Roald Dahl. This past week we did a review of the Dewey Decimal System and I gave them a worksheet from Hooked on Library Skills! They struggled with this page so we will be reviewing and re-doing this next week.
At the start of the fifth grade session we read from The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963. Our automation system allows for students accounts which give the ability to request books from the system. The fifth grade teacher has asked the fifth graders all have these accounts so that they can request books for their upcoming projects. So we spent part of library time explaining that and collecting user names and passwords from the students. The fifth graders have been using Almanacs and the CIA World Fact Book for history projects all year. I wanted to do a short lesson on the Almanacs to see what they knew about using them. I used a worksheet from LiBEARy Skils 4-6 and discovered they need help reading the questions to determine the best place to find the answer. So, we will be doing another Almanac lesson next week.
We had some extra classes this week as well. The sixth grade science class came in to work on their annual Apollo projects. They use our World Book Encyclopedia subscription as well as our physical books (list below in my Amazon links). Because most of these students have been through our fifth grade, most of them knew how to find the resources and get down to work. It is always a joy to see students remember from one year to the next what you have taught them. Fifth grade came again to work on their Internet Mysteries unit – they had a bit of a challenge with entering and exiting the library appropriately but that happens and the teacher and I brainstorm ways to improve their behavior.
Our week ended with a fundraiser. I periodically do a Lego Club and charge the students for attending (the same fee they would be charged by our after school care). I have not done it yet this school year as it has been a bit challenging to find helpers. We had 25 K-4th graders come to the library after school on Friday to play with Legos. We started with a “free build” time when I let them build what ever they want with the Legos in their bag. I then let them decide if they wanted to work on their own or in groups to build the tallest tower possible – it had to hold my tennis ball. The kids had a blast (and I did too.)
Have a great week!
Amazon Affiliate Links to materials mentioned in this post.
Curious George and the Firefighters
What Do You Do with a Tail Like This?
Amelia And Eleanor Go For A Ride
Seven Blind Mice (Reading Railroad)
The Watsons Go to Birmingham–1963
Teaching Library Media Skills in Grades K-6: A How-To-Do-It Manual and CD-ROM
Hooked on Library Skills: A Sequential Activities Program for Grades K-6
The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2019
The CIA World Factbook 2018-2019
Apollo books in our library
America in Space: Nasa’s First Fifty Years
Apollo 13 (AMERICAN MOMENTS SET II)
The Apollo Missions (Focus Readers: Destination Space: Voyager Level)
The Apollo Moonwalkers (Giant Leaps)
History of Nasa: America’s Voyage to the Stars
The Man Who Went to the Far Side of the Moon: The Story of Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins
Reaching for the Moon: The Apollo Astronauts (Explorers of New Worlds)
Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon
To the Moon!: The True Story of the American Heroes on the Apollo 8 Spaceship
When you find a book on Library Lady that you would like to purchase, I hope you will use the purchase links provided. When you make a purchase through our affiliate links, you support this school librarian blog. I am grateful for you. Thank you!