Scavenger Hunts; or, Navigating Our Library Space

The first few visits to the school library can be a little confusing, especially for little ones who may never have visited a library before. North Andover is lucky to have a wonderful library, the Stevens Memorial Library, that I'm sure many families have visited - but not every family. Therefore, the first time our students visit their school library, they might be feeling a lot of things:

• Anxious ("Will I make a mistake?" "This doesn't look like my classroom.")
• Overwhelmed ("Do I have to read all these books?!")
• Stubborn ("I don't like reading, and I won't like the library.")
• Excited ("We're out of class, this is just like recess!")

It's really important that we go over all the rules of using the school library at the start of the school year, just so every child is on the same page with regard to expectations. Once those rules are gone over (Lesson 1), we can move on to Lesson 2: Navigating Our Library Space.

Kindergarten - Grade 2

For the younger set, we have been reading "Alphabet Mystery" by Audrey Wood:

Click on the picture to see this title in the MVLC catalog!

We talk about what happens when the letters get jumbled up and out of order - it's no fun! 

Afterwards, we talk about how numbers are also in a special order, and to illustrate that, we sing Five Little Monkeys. 

BUT WAIT! It turns out that those little monkeys have scattered all over the library, and are hiding in the different sections! As a group, we quietly (so as not to startle the monkeys!) line up and march through the library space, pointing out the monkeys and the sections they're in. While most kindergarten/first grade teachers have expressed an interest in having students only check out picture books for the first few weeks, this exercise introduces the students to all the important places within the library. 

Grades 3-5

The older grades are (by and large) already familiar with the library space. However, what I've been noticing is that the older students know where the books are - "Diary of a Wimpy Kid is on this shelf!" - but not why the books are where they are. 

During our lesson, we go over the three basic call number labels, or "Secret Codes", for the books in the library:

E = "Everybody" or "Early Reader" - picture books & early readers

F/FIC = "Fiction" - chapter books

Numbers = Nonfiction 

I pose a challenge to the older grades to use what we've talked about, and what they already know about the books they're looking for, to find their books at check-out instead of using the catalog computers. This way, they can learn to recognize the important call number information so that when they do use the catalog, they know what all the call numbers mean and where they are.

Lastly, we break up into teams of two and do a quick Scavenger Hunt. The teams have to find a book representative of all the different sections in the library. One tricky one that's come up at the schools is Reference Books (i.e. books to "refer" to for a quick question, like a thesaurus, dictionary, or encyclopedia). We'll be getting better acquainted with these books as the year goes on, especially since in middle- and high-school students are expected to use reference books as research tools. 

That's all for now - stay tuned for more, Library Detectives!