October Library Delights

Can you believe it's almost Thanksgiving?! Where is the time going? Well, I guess we should expect to feel like the time's flying by when we're having so much fun in the libraries! Here's what we've been up to:

All six grades in all five schools have been talking about how to find books in the library. Since our library instruction in North Andover has been a bit scattered over the years, we thought it best to try and get everyone on the same page, regardless of age. Plus, it's really important for our older grades to be really confident library users, as they will be asked to independently access library information in middle school!

Grades K-1

We've been going over the rules of the library with the younger grades, and making sure they understand how a library works. The "No No Never Box" from last year made another appearance, demonstrating to kids what kinds of things they should keep away from their library books when they bring them home. We read The Pigeon Needs a Bath by Mo Willems, and talked about how the pigeon should definitely not read his library book while he's so dirty!

Click to find this in the MVLC catalog!

 We also talked about the Parts of a Book, and made sure to learn about barcodes.

We've also been talking a lot about finding books in the library, and how we choose our books when we visit the library. Kids tend to choose books impulsively, and they do not always take the time to figure out what the book is about for themselves if they're a pre-reader, so we practiced some of those very important skills.

Grade 2

Our second graders built upon skills they learned last year this month, and we reinforced some of the learning happening in the classroom around Just Right Books. We used the document camera and the projector to practice the Five Finger Rule for determining if a book is "just right". In many classes we were able to watch this short, informative, kid-made video all about the concept:

We also talked a bit about putting the books in ABC Order. First, we tried organizing ourselves into ABC order by last name totally silently and it was really hard! We talked about why organization in a library is important, and why it's helpful to have books organized by the author's last name. Then, we broke up into groups and sorted piles of books into ABC order. 

If your second grader is interested in extra practice, check out Mrs. Lodge's Library's Shelving Game - it's excellent practice! Hopefully we'll get a chance to try this out with more classes.

Grades 3-5

We spent a good amount of time in the older grades going over some basic library skills, since these students have only had sporadic library instruction at the elementary level. As the library media specialists have noticed that some kids are still confused by Fiction and Nonfiction, we spent some time talking and brainstorming in groups about the similarities and differences of each, and what makes a book one or the other. It was a lot of fun!

We've also been talking about searching our library catalog (did you know you can do this from home?!). We make sure to start our searching with a keyword - the most important word in our search - checking the call numbers to see if the book is fiction or nonfiction - and checking to make sure the book is available before finding it on the shelf. 

Some kids liked it so much they wrote a story about it - how cool is that?

Throughout it all, we've been talking a lot about the One Author, One Community project and Jacqueline Woodson's visit. You can check out information about her visit here: 1a1c.northandoverpublicschools.com. All our elementary libraries, as well as the Stevens Library, have copies of her books for kids to read and share!

That's all for now, library detectives! See you soon!

New for 2016-2017

Hello, library detectives! We've got a lot of really fun stuff coming down the pipeline for this year in the North Andover public elementary schools, and we're so excited to get started!

We have two new library media specialists (LMS) joining us this year - if you haven't met Mrs. Mullally yet, check out her introductory blog post here. One more librarian will be joining the team very soon, so stay tuned!

In addition to our staff changes, we've also changed up our library schedule a bit. This year, every student in the elementary schools will get to see their school's LMS on a regular basis - last year, we only had one LMS across five schools so achieving that goal was pretty tricky.

We're also hoping to increase co-taught lessons between the LMS and classroom teachers, which we hope will enhance the already stellar learning happening in the classrooms.

Finally, we'll be re-thinking our library spaces in order to maximize student learning and support all learning styles and abilities.

Are you ready? Library time begins soon, so get excited North Andover!

- Mrs. Ahearn

End of Year Wrap-Up

Well, folks, that's about it for the 2015-2016 school year. It was my very first year here in North Andover, and I think we accomplished quite a bit. Across all five elementary schools, we:

• Reviewed what we already knew about libraries, and busted some "library myths"
• Went on a few scavenger hunts for information in our libraries
• Learned all about the parts of books (inside and out!)
• Sparked new knowledge of computers with the Hour of Code
• Discovered how to properly cite our sources and find quality information
• Explored the magical world of fairy tales
• Organized information with Google Docs & Slides
• Read and wrote amazing, incredible poetry
• Checked out Typing Club and other online resources

...and basically had the best time ever!

I'll be returning next year to North Andover (we're still looking for a few good library media specialists to join our team!) and I can't wait to expand on what we've already learned! In the meantime, I hope everyone has a safe and happy summer, and that everyone - that means you too, parents! - participates in Summer Reading! 

Summer @ The Stevens information, including information regarding
summer reading incentives, can be found here: 

Our school reading list is here: 

If you have any questions regarding summer reading, or would like personalized recommendation lists for your child, please feel free to contact me at ahearnc@northandoverpublicschools.com! 

Thank you, Library Detectives!

Library Fun in the Month of MAY

WOW EVERYBODY CAN YOU BELIEVE IT IS JUNE ALREADY?! This year has flown by, in a whirlwind of stories and activities, and I can't believe we only have a month left of library fun!

Much of this month was spent catching up with classes I'd not had a chance to see for the past few months, so there were lots of scavenger hunts and some fiction vs. nonfiction discussions. With the big, shiny, new changes happening*** to the library program, we'll be able to see many more classes on a more consistent basis starting in the fall.

***Our changes are that the superintendent has added 1.5 new library positions to the schools! We'll be hiring one full-time librarian, and a "shared" librarian that will work partly at the Stevens and partly in one of the schools. Hooray for more library media specialists!

Grades K-2

In many classes, we continued to talk about Fairy Tales this month, exploring both traditional, and fractured, versions of our favorites. In one second grade class, we talked about how the "original" versions of our favorites like Snow White were unexpectedly different - there's no "true love's kiss", the prince drops Snow White's coffin and the apple pops out!

Click here to check this out in the Stevens library catalog!

...the kids also really enjoyed the fact that I gave 6 of the 7 dwarfs a grizzly, Cockney accent (and the 7th a high, squeaky voice).

In some classes we also were able to talk about our favorite Fairy Tale characters along with a reading of my favorite book from my own childhood, The Jolly Postman; Or, Other People's Letters. The kids got a kick out of the fact that the letters are INSIDE the book! 

This is tough to find in libraries, since it has so many added parts that can get lost, but
a few libraries in the MVLC have it available. 

We then wrote letters to our favorite characters (the younger grades used a template), and the characters wrote back! Writing our letters gave us some good practice on what a letter looks like, what to capitalize, what words you use in a letter, etc.

We also used stories from our library to talk about the parts of a story (beginning, middle, end). We'd read a story (any story works!), and then afterwards we'd talk about the "parts" - what was the beginning? Where did the middle start? What happened at the end? Using the SmartBoards, we'd write out each of the three parts, then swirl them around and mix them up - did the story still make sense? Why or why not? 

Grades 3-5

The older grades used a bit of technology this month, either for the first time (as in the case of 3rd Grade and using Google Slides) or as a culmination of activities. 4th and 5th grade classes were introduced to Typing Club, a wonderful bit of free technology on the web that teaches proper typing methods for kids. It works wonderfully with our students's Google accounts, but you can sign in without one and still go through all the typing levels!

We also started talking about Summer Reading (more info on that next month!) and ways to find good books to read over the summer. The big takeaway for them was that the best group of people to recommend good books is their friends! 

Finally, we tasted a bit of a new genre: Short Stories! I read a few selections from Cynthia Rylant's Every Living Thing, and we talked about what you can expect when you pick up a collection of short stories - each story will have different characters, a different plot, and most of the time you can read the whole story in one sitting.

Find it in the Steven's Library's story story collection in the Children's Room!

That's it for the month of May, Library Detectives! SEE YOU IN JUNE!

April & National Poetry Month!

Apologies for the delay in posts - it's been a busy and exciting time in the NAPS libraries! We're almost at the end of the year (yikes!) and I've been focusing quite a bit on making sure our library collections are ready for their long summer's nap between this year and next.

April was National Poetry Month and we celebrated in the schools by holding a poetry contest - students were encouraged to submit poems to the contest, on any subject and in any style, and we chose two winners from each school. Originally, the winners were going to be "selected", but there were so many wonderful entries that we decided to just choose two names randomly. Our winners received poetry books to further inspire their creativity, and everyone who submitted a poem will have their work featured in the Poetry eBook we're currently working on.

Here's a sneak-peek at the cover:

I'll be sure to let everyone know when the book is ready! 

K-2 

In the younger grades, we've been having a lot of fun exploring poetry. In a few kindergarten classes, we brainstormed our own haikus - kids really enjoyed being able to pick out the subject, and sound out the syllables in each line. Here's an example of our work:

We read poems by Jack Prelutsky, Shel Silverstein, and more! We also made sure to make note of where the poetry books are in our libraries (they're in the nonfiction section under 811) to tie-in the lesson to the library space.

Here's a video from the Shel Silverstein official Youtube channel that we were able to watch: 

The 1st and 2nd graders got a chance to write their own haikus, and many of them submitted them to the poetry contest, so be on the lookout for some wonderful haikus! 

3-5

The older grades also had a wonderful time exploring poetry, with works like Hoops by Robert Burleigh and Follow, Follow by Margaret Singer. We talked about how poetry does not have to be about mushy-gushy stuff, and that as long as its about something you feel strongly about, it works! 

Check this out in the MVLC catalog!

Check this out in the MVLC catalog!

In many classes, we also had time to play one of my favorite games - "Exquisite Corpse"! It sounds a lot more gruesome than it is, I promise! The way you play is: 

• Everyone breaks up into groups of 3 or more.
• One person in the group writes a few lines of a poem on a piece of paper.
• After they are done, they fold the paper over so that only the last line that they wrote is visible.
• Then, they pass it along to the next person in the group, who looks at the one line of the poem and writes their own few lines.
• The second person folds the paper over again so only the last line of what they wrote is visible, and then they pass it along. 
• This goes on until the poem is finished and everyone has had a few turns. 

This was a really fun activity that the kids loved, and it definitely got the creative juices flowing! 

That's all for April, Library Detectives! Stay tuned for information about library MAYhem happening this month!

February Library Fun

February was a whirlwind of library excitement, guys! Because it's a short month made even shorter by our February break, I'll be brief with our library re-cap.

K-2nd Grade

Our younger grades starting talking about fairy tales and folk tales in their classes, so we decided to carry on that discussion in the library. We read a lot of wonderful books, and talked about where to find fairy tales and folk tales in our library. The magic number or secret code is 398.2 - any library that uses the Dewey Decimal System will have their books in that section.

Now, a lot of kids asked, "Why are the fairy tales in with the information books? Aren't they made up?" The answer to that is - because fairy tales are so culturally significant, and because they are found across cultures and continents, they impact people in the same way history or geography might. That's why they get their own special section! 

Here are some of the titles we read:

Traditional Fairy/Folk Tales

Puss in Boots by Charles Perrault

Cinderella trans. by Marcia Brown

Why the Crab Has No Head by Barbara Knutson

Nontraditional Fairy/Folk Tales 

The Rough Face Girl by Rafe Martin

Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson

3rd-5th Grade

The older grades and I have been supporting our work using Google Docs and Google Slides to organize our research. We've been using our Online Databases to discover new information, and we're starting to realize that Google might not be all it's cracked up to be! We've also re-opened our Code Studio work to continue learning about computer science and coding.

That's all for now, Library Detectives! Boy, this year is flying by!

January Review!

Wait, January's already over?! How did that happen?! I guess when you're bopping between five schools, time sure flies!

This past month we've been able to coordinate more of what's happening in the library with what's happening in classrooms at various grade levels, which has meant some more effective learning and support for classroom teachers! As always, I try to weave in general library and research skills with what kids are already learning, to provide just in time library instruction instead of just in case instruction.

Kindergarten/1st Grade

Our kindergarten classes are now all experts on the "Secret Code" for picture books ("It's the letter EEEEE!"), so we've begun talking about the other codes in our library. We've taken a look at some nonfiction books, and compared them with picture books about the same subject. For example, here are two books about bears - which one will tell a story, and which will give us information? We then talked about things we already knew about bears, and used the text features in the nonfiction books (the table of contents, the glossary, and the index) to find out what we wanted to know about bears. Aftewards, we read A Visitor for Bear and compared what we'd learned about bears to how the bear acted in the story - what was the same? What was different?

Click to find this in the Stevens Memorial Library catalog!

In some classes, we've also done a lesson on Judging a Book By It's Cover. Even thought most things you shouldn't judge by their appearance (people, burritos, etc.), a picture book's cover can often tell you lots of great information about what the book is going to be about! We read 3-4 books and before each one, we made predictions about what the book would be about, and how it would make us feel; after reading, we'd compare what happened with our predictions. The clear favorite of all the books we read was Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson:

Click to find this in the Stevens Memorial Library catalog!

2nd Grade

The second graders got a chance to try out some old-fashioned library detective work as we used nonfiction books to explore information about animals. Some of the older grades had used the databases to look up information on different kinds of animals, so I figured having the second graders practice with books was a great transition!

Most of our school libraries have animal encyclopedias, so we talked about how an encyclopedia is a different kind of nonfiction book - it's a reference material that we use to quickly look up information, and we don't have to read the whole thing to get what we need! I was very impressed by how excited the kids were about choosing an animal, and using the text features to figure out what that animal ate and where that animal lives.

3rd Grade

The third graders and I have been doing a bit of research online, and that's lead to a discussion about plagiarism. While certainly not a huge problem in grade school, plagiarism is a concept that even high school and college students struggle to understand; therefore, it's important that we get kids thinking early about what it means to give credit to sources, and to make sure they understand the difference between learning and copying information. For this lesson, I used a lot of resources from Common Sense Media, a wonderful website for parents and teachers that includes information on age-appropriate media for kids and digital safety!

4th & 5th Grade

The oldest grades have been working on practicing using our online databases to do research, as well as creating Google Presentations and Organizing our Research. We've also been getting a sneak peak at creating Works Cited pages, something that's required of all 6th graders. The idea is, the more we reinforce the importance of proper citations, the less trouble students will have in middle and high school.

Here's the citation page they use at the middle school:

That's all for now, library detectives! Have a great February break!

October Review!

Woah, we're flying through the school year, with October already behind us! We had a great month in the elementary libraries - we went on scavenger hunts, we read silly stories, and we firmed up what we know about the differences between Fiction and Nonfiction.

Kindergarten - Grade 2

With the youngest library detectives, we're starting the year off with practicing how to use the library and our books. In order to learn how to be responsible for our books, and take care of them properly, we first need to know the Parts of a Book.

First, we read Here Are My Hands by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault.

Click on the picture to find this title in the Stevens Memorial Library catalog!

We got a chance to move our bodies a bit while reading this book - when we heard the word "hands" we waived our hands in the air! When we heard "feet" we stomped our feet!

Afterwards, we talked about the parts of our bodies and how books have parts to them too. We talked about how the covers help protect the insides of the book just like our skin protects us. We talked about how the book's title can tell you what kind of book it's going to be (a happy book! a scary book!) just like a person's face can tell you what kind of mood their in (grumpy! excited!). We talked about how both people and books have spines, and that spines help keep us standing straight and tall. Book spines also have the secret code so it's important that when we put library books back, the spines are always facing out! 

Next, we talked about the rules for the inside of the book, where we learned that you have to read the words on the page...no matter what! That's when we read The Book With No Pictures (click on the link for a recommendation!) by B.J. Novak.

Grades 3-5

In the older grades, we've been making sure we're experts in what constitutes fiction and nonfiction before we move on to how to use both kinds of books in our daily lives. It's challenging, not only because of the language ("non-fiction" sounds a lot like it should mean "not real"), but because it seems like our older grades have trouble distinguishing historical fiction (fiction that uses real facts to tell a made-up story) from non-fiction (real facts, nothing made up).

First, we reviewed what Fiction and Non-fiction mean - what are the parts of a fiction story? What about the parts of a non-fiction book? After a review - including reinforcing what we know about the SECRET CODES - we had our first Fiction & Non-fiction Challenge!

See those piles of books on the tables at Kittredge? They're part of the challenge!

Early in the morning, I covered up the spine labels (a.k.a. the Secret Codes) of a bunch of books, and placed piles in the middle of the tables at each library. After our review, students broke into five different groups, and each group had to make a pile of the books that were fiction, and the books that were non-fiction - all without using the secret code! They had to look inside the books (because you can't judge a book by its cover, after all!) to determine what kind of book they were. It gave us an opportunity to talk about historical fiction, biographies, and a few other genres that were a bit tricky! By the end, the kids were feeling more confident than ever about knowing the difference between fiction and non-fiction.

Next up: Kindergarteners start to learn about authors, younger grades learn all about book care and the "No No Never" Box, 3rd grade starts a discussion about online safety, and the older grades discover all the amazing resources our libraries have online!

See you later, Library Detectives!

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!

September Review!

What a fantastically productive month we've had in the elementary schools! Here's what we've done so far:

Kindergarten through Second Grade

1. We read D.W.'s Library Card by Marc Brown!

Click the picture to find this book in the Stevens Memorial Library Catalog!

This is a great book that illustrates the way young kids learn to use libraries and library materials. D.W. learns how to get a library card, and how to take care of her library books. We use it in the library to talk about some anxieties younger kids might have about borrowing books - 

especially older books.  

2. We talked about what we already know about libraries!

I find sometimes younger children have expectations of the library experience that aren't necessarily in line with what actually happens in the library, so it's good to make sure we're all on the same page as we start out in the library together. For example, we talk about how some libraries have rules about how quiet you have to be, but that because our library is also a classroom, the same classroom rules apply: raise your hand, talk in a normal "inside" voice.

3. We learned "The Secret Code" for Picture Books

Part of the library program curriculum this year is talking about how to find books in the library. We introduce the concept of "the secret code of libraries" this week, and kids learn that Picture books are for EVERYBODY, so their secret code is the letter E!

4. We learned "The Watermelon Song"

This is my absolute favorite song to sing with younger children. I'll be including a YouTube video of it soon so you can sing it at home!

Third through Fifth Grade

1. We busted some "Library Myths"!

With the older grades, who may have had negative experiences in different libraries in the past, I think it's important to start out with a re-invigorated sense of excitement for libraries. We talk about some "myth-conceptions" that people have about libraries, and talk about whether they're true or false:

Myth #1: Librarians are old and mean and will yell at you. FALSE!

Myth #2: If you damage a book, you're banned forever. FALSE!

Myth #3: You must be super-duper quiet when you're in our library. FALSE!

*we talk a bit about how other libraries do follow that rule, but because we're a classroom as well,

we want to feel comfortable using normal inside voices. 

Myth #4: The library is JUST for books. FALSE!

Myth #5: All librarians love cats. TRUE!

2. We read The Librarian from the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler

Click the picture to find this book in the Stevens Memorial Library catalog!

We use this book to start a discussion about the differences between fiction and nonfiction: how do you know this is fiction? What information is on the cover? The spine?

3. We took a look at That's Our Librarian by Ann Morris

Click the picture to find this book in the MVLC catalog!

Usually at this point in the lesson we just don't have time to read another book, so we look at That's Our Librarian and talk about the differences between this book (a nonfiction title) and the one we've just read: how can we tell this is fiction? What's the Dewey number for this title?

4. Exit Tickets

One way for me to gauge whether or not the students have absorbed the material we've been discussing is by passing out "exit tickets" at the end of the lesson. They are usually either multiple choice or open-ended questions, they are completely anonymous, and they aren't graded. I collect them, and analyze how many students were able to answer the question correctly - if too many kids don't quite understand the concept, I'll know to refresh and re-teach the next time they're in the library. So far, the average comprehension rate is a wonderful 93%!

See you in October, Library Detectives!