February Fun in the Libraries

Though February is the shortest month of the year - made even shorter by all those snow days and the vacation week! - we still packed in a lot of fun to our library lessons!

The general theme for the month was Nonfiction, as we spent a good amount of time in January talking about Fiction and its elements. However, we still made room for some fun read-alouds!

K-2nd Grade

The younger grades celebrated World Read Aloud Day (February 16th) by working on pieces of art depicting their favorite scenes from a story. Some classes read works by our favorite author, Jacqueline Woodson; other classes listened to Chicken Big by Keith Graves. To spice things up, some classes were able to check out TumbleBooks - an amazing resource hosted by the Stevens Memorial Library. Did you know there's an entire online library of books - chapter books, as well as picture books that can be read to you - available to you 24/7, as long as you've got your Stevens Library card? It's an awesome website, perfect for hosting your own storytimes at home!

Click here to find the TumbleBook library in the Stevens Online Databases!

The art the students made after reading the stories is being turned into story quilts that will be displayed in Central Office - here's a sneak peek at what they'll look like!

We also did some work with KWL Charts. KWL stands for "Know/Want (or Wonder)/Learned". The chart is a way for kids to organize their information, and to visually represent the learning they do when they read a work of nonfiction. 

We practiced with nonfiction books, and we noticed that it was a whole lot easier to come up with things we wondered about than things we knew about certain topics! It was fun to see our "Learned" columns fill up after reading nonfiction titles! 

3-4th Grade

The 3rd and 4th graders started discussing the ways in which they can develop their own research topics from essential questions. We talked about Pre-Search - a similar concept to our "what I know" column for the younger kiddos - and how it's important to brainstorm everything you already know about a topic as a guideline for discovering new information. From one essential question about animals and camouflage, students were asked to use the Encyclopedias (the book ones!) to look up the keywords they brainstormed in order to find more information about the topic. Finally, they were asked to develop Thick and Thin Research Questions. A thick research question is robust, requiring a lot of in-depth research. A thin question is a question that can be easily answered in a few words. We talked about why those questions might be helpful in our research. During one class, students were so engrossed in the research and question-writing that they didn't realize a full hour had passed! 

Sharing resources, brainstorming, and researching using the encyclopedias! 

5th Grade

The 5th graders started a discussion on Evaluating Sources of information. One lesson focused in on evaluating text/book sources. We talked about how you need to really look over a book before you decide it's going to be helpful for your research. Things like age, condition, illustrations/images and readability all play a role in determining if a source is the best possible source for use in projects. We worked in groups to evaluate three different books to determine which would be the most helpful to us in a project. It was a hit! 

In our discussion surrounding the Evaluation of Websites (which can be significantly trickier!) we talked about what might be the most memorable acronym to ever appear in the library curriculum: The F.A.R.T Test! 

This acronym is helpful for everyone who goes on the internet - kids and grownups! 

We put a few websites to the test - specifically, a fake website about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus!

That's all for now, library detectives!

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!

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!

March Madness!

March was another banner month for our libraries here in North Andover! I can't believe the month went by so fast! We're fast approaching our last few months of school, and we're still rolling out super fun and exciting library lessons for all grades!

Kindergarten - 1st Grade

Since many of the classes and schools have been focusing on Fairy Tales and retellings, we've continued our work with fairy tale books in the younger grades. We've focused a lot of our discussions on what the essential components or ingredients of each fairy tale are (for example, the essential components of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" are that someone sneaks into someone else's house and tries all their stuff!). Then, we've started talking about ways that some authors change some of the ingredients to make a new, fractured fairy tale! A new favorite story we've read has been The Frog Prince Continued by Jon Scieszka.

Click here to find this title in the Stevens Library collection! 

We talk about all the fairy tales that are mentioned in this book, and characters we recognize. It's been a big hit with kids and teachers!

With the 1st Graders, we've talked about those ingredients and used a graphic organizer to try and start using fairy tale ingredients to write their own fairytales - so far, it's going really well!

In some classes, we've also talked about Story Elements - what makes up the parts of a story? We read a story and map out the setting, characters, problem and solution. Understanding the components of a story is the first step towards being able to construct a new story!

2nd Grade

Our second graders have been working on finding Nonfiction Books in the Library using a fun scavenger hunt designed to help familiarize them with the information presented in our Online Catalog. Occasionally, we've been able to tie-in the books they're looking for with the subjects they're working on in class; other times, it's a general scavenger hunt for books about every second graders favorite thing: ANIMALS!

We've also begun using the chromebooks a bit more in the last half of the year with the second grade classes, with many teachers requesting either practice logging in or coding, or researching using the databases.

3rd Grade

Third graders got a taste of what April will be all about: poetry! We've been reading Hoops by Robert Burleigh, Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems by Marilyn Singer, and a few selections from the Bill Martin Jr. Big Book of Poetry. After we talk about how poetry can be about anything that makes you feel, we got a chance to write a few of my personal favorite kind of poems - HAIKU! Some of the poems have been really wonderful - and hopefully will inspire some future poets to enter into our Poetry Contest happening this April!

4th-5th Grade

Our older grades have continued to use our online resources to help discover new information to help with research projects. Many classes are working on persuasive writing, so we talked about how using Kids InfoBits and the magazine and newspaper results will help them find opinion pieces to help them persuade one way or the other about a particular topic.

We've also continued exploring our Google software programs, with many classes either creating brochures using Google Docs or creating presentations using Google Slides.

Not to get too tech-heavy, we've also tried to incorporate a few read-alouds in there, and will be focusing a lot of our work on poetry in April to tie-in to National Poetry Month.

That's all for now, Library Detectives! See you soon!

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!