Lately, we have hit the pause button on our library sleuthing skills and tuned into our tech problem-solving skills to participate in the Hour of Code! Our library classrooms have been transformed into computer labs and our students into programmers. Using Chromebooks in our classes, we are able to get students engaged in coding games available from code.org. Students are now getting programming experience through special games available on the Hour of Code site that emphasize sequencing and order, conditional statements, and other habits of mind used when designing code.
Our kindergarten, first, and second grade classes are having fun with the game Kodable available on code.org. They get to tell the Smee character the right steps to navigate his way through the path in order to get to the next level. Each level requires students to provide step-by-step ordered instructions to the Smees, with each level getting progressively more complex.
In third, fourth, and fifth grade, students are challenging themselves to complete code in the Minecraft and Moana games. There are many opportunities to be creative and silly in Minecraft Designer, the code.org game where students are in charge of designing how their chickens and other characters will behave and what they will do. The Moana game, also available from code.org, has been a timely hit with many students as well, and provides students the opportunity to practice spatial skill-building by completing action-oriented and specific tasks.
Code.org/learn is a free site that you can use at home and has a wide range of games that introduce coding skills in a fun learning environment. Check it out!
November was by far the biggest month yet for our library program here in the North Andover Public Schools! Not only did we have lots of fun in the library with our lessons, but we also had Jacqueline Woodson come to speak to the entire school district!
It was so exciting, and lots of students have been requesting books by Ms. Woodson since the visit.
November was a combination of traditional library lessons and technology lessons, which made it a very dynamic month! The first weeks of library lessons had kids participating in Scavenger Hunts - the kindergarteners went on a hunt for monkeys in the library after reading Monkey and Me by Emily Gravett, which got them familiar with all of the different sections of the library.
The first and second graders found monkeys in the library too, but they had to use clues to find specific monkeys - this scavenger hunt tested their knowledge of the sections of the library, and we found it to be trickier than we thought!
The 3-5th graders participated in a scavenger hunt that mimicked their lesson on using the catalog - we ran a keyword search in the catalog, cut out the titles, and broke up into teams to try and find as many of the titles in the library as we could! We've noticed that the older kids are much more comfortable finding books in the library on their own now, since they now fully understand the information from the catalog.
December has been all about the Hour of Code - check out our post to find out more!
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!
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 Rulefor 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!
Hello Library Detectives!
What an exciting month it's been in the NAPS libraries! We've switched some spaces around, added some fun new activities...
...oh and WE HAVE TWO BRAND-NEW LIBRARIANS!
Here's what we've been up to in the schools:
Mrs. Ahearn has been having a blast at Sargent and Thomson and so has Mrs. Mullally at Franklin and Kittredge though we only had a chance to squeeze in a few library lessons before the month was over. In the younger grade classes, we read Red Knit Cap Girl and the Reading Tree by Naoko Stoop. It's a delightful picture book that Mrs. Ahearn first heard about through the legendary Mrs. S at the Stevens Memorial Library. In classes, we used the book to start a conversation about what we know about libraries. We talked about things that are the same between our library and Red Knit Cap Girls, and things that are different.
In the middle grades, we read Miss Brooks Loves Books (and I don't) by Barbara Bottner. We talked about why reading is important, and how the library is a place for kids to explore different genres to find the book that is just right for them.
For the older grades, we took a look at another "Miss" book - this one was a picture book biography of one of Mrs. Ahearn's personal heroes, Anne Carroll Moore. Miss Moore Thought Otherwise by Jan Pinborough is the story of the first librarian to advocate for libraries designed for children. We talked about things we take for granted when going to the library, and things we'd like to learn more about as we go through our library lessons.
In all of our classes, we listened to one another as we organized our ideas about what we know about libraries into a class list. Students in one third grade class at Kittredge wrote down their ideas and practiced their presentation skills with the class using our new iPevo projector - we had lots of fun sharing things we know and building a common set of goals for this year's learning. Technology helped us organize and display our ideas at both schools.
Some of Mrs. Mullally's students talked about the amount and variety of library materials and others shared their ideas about how libraries work, how books are checked out, and how library spaces are used. Many shared information about genres and series, described fiction and non-fiction books, and what kinds of technology are found in libraries.
We are ready to move forward in our upcoming lessons during the year's quest to be amazing library detectives!
