We're "Thankful" for November Library Lessons

Hey there, library detectives! We're more than half-way through November, and there's a ton of exciting stuff going on in the school libraries! Over the next few weeks, the grade level lessons will start to change as we get into more grade-specific library learning, but for now we're still making sure that all the grades have the basic foundational knowledge to help them move forward in their learning.

Kindergarteners

The kindergarteners have continued to learn about the basics of books and the library, and we've started to try and coordinate the books we read in library with what's happening in the classroom. In a few kindergarten classes, that's meant talking about what Being an Author means - what is their job? Can anyone be an author? Our first author was Marc Brown, and we read one of his Arthur books!

Click on the image to see this title in the Stevens Memorial Library catalog!

I've mentioned this to a few classes, but! I'm hoping to encourage more kid-author work by letting students know that any book that they write themselves (using a craft book, or even just paper and some staples!) can be put into our libraries. If you know of any kid-authors that would appreciate having their book in an actual library, let them know about this great opportunity!

In some kindergarten classes, they've been talking about animal habitats and informational books. In those classes, we've read an example of Fiction and one Informational Book all about animals!

Younger Grades (K-2)

In the younger grades, we've been talking a lot about what happens in the library - but we haven't talked too much about what happens when you take your books home. It's important to be explicit about the expectations we have about the care and treatment of our library books.

The "NO NO NEVER" Box

Note: this isn't our exact box - ours is a little less "piratical"! 

The "No No Never" box is full of things you should never have around your library books at home - things like water, candy, scissors, glue, markers, a baby (a picture of a baby, that is!) and a puppy (a stuffed animal!). We brainstorm why you'd want to protect your library books from all of these things, and the kids have a lot of fun with it! If there's time, we read one of two books:

Click the image to find this in the Stevens Memorial Library Catalog!

OR

Click the image to find this in the Stevens Memorial Library Catalog!

Older Grades (3-5)

At this point in the school year, it's important that the older grades start to get familiar with using the chromebooks in the library. They'll be using them throughout the year for research and class projects, and the 5th graders will be expected to know how to find online resources once they get to middle school, so starting them on technology early in the year is crucial.

For most classes, we've just practiced logging on using the student ID and password assigned to each student. Then, we practice going to the Elementary Libraries website and finding our Online Databases page.With the 4th and 5th graders, we've explored the Gale databases a bit, and even gotten a chance to do some practice research! 

Using the chromebooks will be something we do throughout the year, so it's important that the students remember their username and password so we can spend less time logging in and more time learning! 

After the students become familiar with using the databases and online encyclopedias for research, we'll begin our discussion about Online Safety and Digital Citizenship. 

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Well, that's all for now, library detectives - see you soon!