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!

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!

Happy New Year, and a December Review!

Happy 2016, NAPS library fans! I can't believe we're already in a brand-new year!

Last month, we completely switched my library schedule in order to free up more time with other classes that aren't scheduled for "check-out time" on the day I'm at each school - with the exception of Kittredge, where I get to see every class already! This change has been amazing - it has allowed me to visit with more classes, and as the year progresses, I'll be able to develop library lessons catered to each grade and their learning objectives.

The Hour of Code!

December was mostly all about chromebooks - for some classes, using the chromebooks during a "library instruction" block was the very first time they'd had a chance to log in, which is awesome! We hosted approximately 42 Hours of Code across all five elementary schools, which means that over 1,000 elementary school students experienced their first taste of computer science instruction! 

@NAPS_Librarian add my 5 and we have 42 classes. That's over 1000 NAPS elementary students who did #hourofcode these 2 weeks!!!

— Kara Larcome (@KaraLarcome) December 22, 2015

Pretty neat, huh?

We are still analyzing the exit ticket data we collected from the Hour of Code, but here's a snapshot of how the kids felt during the process - the larger the word is, the more often kids used it in their description of how they felt during the Hour of Code:

So glad our students are feeling mostly "happy and excited" about computer science!

Other Library Activities 

This month, I also had a chance to share some very fun stories with the younger grades, including my all-time favorite winter-themed picture book, Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett.

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

This cozy read is all about the virtues of being a kind and giving person - and Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen make a truly remarkable team. The pictures tell as much of the story as the words do, and the ending leaves lots of room for creative discussion and literary exploration.

Up Next: databases, using our reference books, computer science, and an exciting project for the 5th Graders! 

NAPS and the "Hour of Code"

Have you heard about the Hour of Code initiative? It's a world-wide movement to attempt to get as many students as possible learning how to code, and it. is. AWESOME!

The idea is that kids spend one hour playing online games provided by Code.org that teach basic coding and computing skills - things like Javascript, commands, etc. These kinds of skills will be absolutely essential in the future, for almost any kind of job in any field. It's important that we give our students a leg-up on the tools they'll need to be successful as 21st century learners.

We have about 21 elementary-age classes across the district signed up to do the Hour of Code, with more being added every day. The great thing is, even though this week is the official Hour of Code Week, the tutorials are up all year round!

Is this something you can try at home? YES!

Head on over to code.org/learn to explore all the different tutorials! For K-2, we recommend starting with Lightbot  - it's a very basic game with easy-to-follow instructions. For the older grades, we're working either with the Star Wars or the Frozen games, which teach kids about commands and coding using drag-and-drop boxes (the way freshmen in college learn!).

We'll be attempting to bring more technology to the library program this year, and I hope part of that is that each student in the district has a chance to try a bit of coding for themselves!

Recommended Title: "Hug Machine" by Scott Campbell

The holidays can be a wonderful time to share books with your kids - but sometimes it can be hard to choose something that everyone will like. Speaking from personal experience, it's also often hard to find seasonally relevant picture books that are non-denominational AND well-written. For me, there's one go-to book that gets to the heart of what this time of year is all about without being too cloying, too sweet, or too specific.

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

Hug Machine by Scott Campbell is a snapshot of the life of a young boy who's on a mission to spread joy and happiness though his hugs. He's excitable, relatable, and enthusiastic about his mission, proclaiming over and over, "I AM THE HUG MACHINE!" He hugs crying babies! Mailboxes! Spiky porcupines! Nothing he encounters is not worth an earnest squeeze.

I like this book for a few reasons. For starters, it's very silly, and uses a lot of active language to help the story feel action-packed. The illustrations are sufficiently detailed to offer new discoveries with every reading. It's also one of the only stories I've read about sharing kindness and affection that has a young boy as its protagonist. Our hero Hug Machine is definitely demonstrating the "E" in "RAISE" throughout this book!

This is Scott Campbell's first work as an author of children's books; previously, he illustrated Kelly DiPucchio's Zombie in Love and Zombie in Love 2+1. I'm a big fan of these books, so if you like his artwork you should definitely check them out - they are, however, decidedly more gruesome than Hug Machine.

Recommendation Snapshot:

Ideal Audience: K-4th grade (it's pretty short but would work as a discussion-starter for older grades).

Ideal Time of Day/Year for Sharing: holidays, Valentine's Day, bedtime

Worth Owning?: The art in this story will stand the test of time, I think, and the story makes for a great gift idea!

Parent Enjoyment Level: On a scale of 1-10, I'd put this at a solid 8 - it's cute without being saccharine, and will probably result in you getting lots of hugs!