Month #4

I really can't believe it's already December! It doesn't always feel like it day-to-day, but this school year is flying by. This week's activities, in a nutshell:

Kindergarten kicked off a gingerbread unit that will take them through the rest of the month. We started today with the Gingerbread Man (so many versions out there, but I chose this one by Eric Kimmel). Students first brainstormed what they knew about this story and then we added to our list after we finished the story. 

Genres and nonfiction text features and websites, oh my!

We are about 1/3 of the way through the school year and I do feel like I am getting into a groove. I know (most) kids' names and have made some connections with what they are interested in and what they like to read. This was a busy week really diving into to some of the core material I want each grade to be competent in by the end of the year.

Kindergartners heard After the Fall, which is a new book that explores what happened to Humpty Dumpty after he fell off the wall. It's a beautifully illustrated book by a Caldecott honoree and tells a great story about not letting adversity get you down.

My Student Learning Goal this year is for 1st grade and it centers on knowing the difference between fiction and nonfiction. While we have covered some of the basics, I want to spend a few weeks diving deeper into nonfiction text features and how they can help you understand nonfiction. Eventually, there are 6 text features I want them to feel comfortable with, but we started off with 3 today: bold print, headings and captions. Using the document camera and some handouts I made, we walked through what each of these features means, and then they did a matching activity at the tables. Nearly every student completed the activity successfully - I am very hopeful that this will be rote by the end of the year.

2nd grade continued our study into genres. I chose to take a segment of folktales, and focused on the fairly tale subset. We brainstormed some of the common characteristics of fairy tales and used 3 Little Pigs as a mentor text to see if we could see some of these elements reflected in the story. We then read a fractured fairy tale - The True Story of the Three Little Pigs! - by Jon Scieszka, and compared what we heard with the traditional story. I truly love the fractured fairy tale sub-genre - I'd like to think of more ways to explore this next year.

3rd grade also took a detour into folktales, but I plan to take a few weeks to review all the different types of folktales. I'll be honest - this isn't my favorite genre, so I am going to need to get creative so they don't pick up on my feelings! This week we tackled fables - we filled out a graphic organizer as a class about The City Mouse and Country Mouse, and then in small groups, students analyzed a fable in the same way. They did a great job picking apart the nuances of this sub-genre.

4th grade kicked off a multi-week unit on Author's Purpose. We did an overview of the 3 main purposes - Persuade, Inform and Entertain (or PIE, for short), and read one of my recent favorite picture books, The Day the Crayons Quit, to analyze what makes an argument persuasive. As if the PIE acronym wasn't enough, students used OREO (Opinion, Reason, Example, Opinion restated), to break down each crayon's letter and decide if they were persuasive or not.

Last, but never least, 5th grade had one last library lesson on research before setting them loose to freely research their Passion Projects. I don't feel extremely confident that they have had a lot of experience evaluating websites, so that is what we did today. I adapted this lesson from Common Sense Media with pretty good success. I don't harbor any illusions that they are going to fully go through the checklist for every website they visit, but if they at least check a few of the criteria, I'll feel ok!

Gobble, Gobble

Another Thanksgiving-themed week in the library...

Thank You, Sarah, is a nonfiction book by Laurie Halse Anderson that tells the story of Sarah Hale, the woman credited with getting Thanksgiving to be recognized as a national holiday. I am always drawn to nonfiction books that a) tell a good story and b) highlight something I previously knew nothing about and this book delivers on both counts. In fact, I got quite a bit of mileage out of this book this week, using it in some capacity for 2nd, 4th and 5th grades!

Kindergarten and 1st grade once again shared the same read aloud, A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting (glad I have this blog to refer to, so I don't repeat next year!), but with different post-story activities. If you haven't read this one, it has a surprise ending, so it's a great story to use for practicing prediction. We began the read aloud and then I stopped the story about 2/3 of the way through (before the surprise is revealed). 1st graders divided into groups and drew on chart paper what they predicted was going to happen next. We shared our predictions and then finished the story. Kindergarten students had a more straightforward activity sheet, where they drew a picture of something surprising that might happen at their house.

This group's drawing included so many details from the text - yay for paying attention!

Global Read Aloud Collaboration

I've alluded to the 4th Global Read Aloud postcard project over the past couple of weeks so now that we finished our postcards, I thought it deserved its own post.

The Global Read Aloud is a program our 4th grades participated in this fall where they read a book as a class and shared their experience with the book with other classrooms across the world. Using Padlet, they were able to connect with each other and share thoughts about the book. 

Separately, I had attended a webinar on Britannica School and as part of the webinar, we were asked to create a lesson using Britannica. One feature I really liked in Britannica was the World Atlas, so the 4th grade teachers helped me make a connection with the GRA and the postcard idea was born. 

Each class created a postcard to share with their GRA schools, using photos from interesting places in Boston. It was a great learning experience for both them and me! Although it ended up taking me a little longer than I thought it would, the postcards did finally come together. 

Without further adieu...

Postcard #1

Postcard #2

November is for...

Veterans and Turkeys!

Looking ahead to the rest of the month, both November holidays gave me inspiration for my lessons this week.

As I was putting up my Thanksgiving book display (who knew we had so many picture books about Thanksgiving?!?), I came across some new-to-me books as well as some old favorites to share with students this week.

Kindergarten and 1st grade both heard Arthur's Thanksgiving, a classic by Marc Brown. With kindergartners, we continued using the 5 W's to better understand the elements of the story. 1st graders practiced sequencing by drawing a picture of something that happened at the beginning, middle and end of the story.

2nd grade dove into their first genre: Mystery. I recycled the genre dudes from last week and we brainstormed the elements of the mystery genre to watch out for in our read aloud this week. I found an unknown-to-me Jane Yolen book, Piggins, which was a great story to illustrate the elements of the genre, including identifying witnesses, suspects and detectives and noting which clues were important to figuring out the mystery.

3rd grade diverged from genres to do an activity around a favorite Veterans Day book of mine, Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine and a Miracle. We heard the story, and then used the iPads and Brittanica school to learn some facts about Iraq and Jordan, 2 of the countries Nubs visited on his journey to America.

4th grade continued to make progress on their postcards for their Global Read Aloud schools.

I loved one of the new-to-me books so much, that I added an additional week of thick/thin questions to my 5th grade lessons this week so that I could take advantage of reading this book. Balloons Over Broadway tells the story of Tony Sarg, the puppeteer behind the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. We continued with thick/thin questioning about the book and segued to thinking up thick questions to guide our research.

Two Weeks for the Price of One...

Life is busy! I just sat down to blog about the PD I attended today and realized I am 2 weeks behind with my weekly updates. So, first things first!

Week of October 25

For the most part, we stuck with the silly/scary theme of last week.

I took a page from last week's 1st grade success stories, and did a repeat for my Kindergartners - The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. This one is definitely a classic for a reason - so much fun and one to keep in my repertoire for next year.

1st grade heard The Perfect Pumpkin Pie by Denys Cazet. I brought in a little STEAM by creating a class graph of their favorite kinds of pie. The finished product came out pretty cute, and the kids were pretty engaged with helping plot out their index cards.

Apple the big winner!

Spooktacular

With Halloween just around the corner, I searched for some silly/spooky stories to read aloud. Between my own collection and the one at my local public library, I had a full bag of books, and I had fun reading through them all to find the ones that would work best with each grade level.

Since I had 4th and 5th graders help out with my last display, I wanted to have different students help me out with a new display. I found the perfect tie-in with one of my recent favorites for this time of year, Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds.

Holidays = Prep Time

It was perfect timing to have a day off for the Columbus Day holiday. After chatting with my colleagues last week, I was really excited to have the extra day to do some thoughtful planning for the rest of the month. I felt incredibly refreshed going into the week this week, confident in my plans for the rest of the month.

New Display: National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month

I love the challenge of coming up with new and different book displays for the library. I remembered that October was National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month, and thought this would be a great way to showcase books about this important and relevant cause.

I did a mix of chapter books and picture books and added in some books about acceptance in addition to stories specifically about bullies. I incorporated books from this section into my K and 1 classes (Llama Llama and the Bully Goat and One), and mentioned them to the other grades in advance of their checkout time.

It's probably not likely that students would have come in specifically asking about a book about bullying but by having them presented to them in an easy-to-browse way, they flew off the shelf. It was a very powerful reminder for me about the importance of providing students with meaningful, relevant, timely displays of library resources.

October!

I've made it through my first month, phew! I'm getting into the groove, though I wish I were learning names more quickly. I keep thinking how much easier it will be next year when I only have to learn one grade's names!

I had a few challenges this week with some particularly chatty/active classes and it made me so grateful to have seasoned librarians in my district to lean on for support/ideas. I met with both of them, who offered me excellent advice on structuring my lessons and managing my classes.

One of the biggest pieces of advice was to keep it simple, which I don't think I have totally been doing. Some of my classes earlier in the week didn't flow as well as they could have, and I think simplifying the activities and my expectations might be wise, especially until I have more experience working with each class. But like my blog title suggests, becoming the LMS I want to be is very much a work in progress - what would the challenge be if everything was easy peasy right off the bat?

On to the week's activities...

Getting a baseline

Being new to the school and to the profession is doubly challenging - I am both figuring out what students have learned in previous years in library class, while also trying to figure out what works for me in teaching library skills (and what each age level is ready for).

This week, my lessons centered on getting a baseline of some library skills that I think students should know by the end of the year, except for kindergarten, who had one.last.book care lesson before finally getting to check out a book. 

Kindergartners heard We are Going on a Book Hunt and then received a practice library book to complete and take care of. If the majority of students bring their book back next week, the whole class will get to have their first check out. Exciting stuff! 

One of the tasks in the practice book was to draw a picture of me. These are a few of my favorites!

1st graders heard Abuela by Arthur Dorros, in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. Before beginning the book, we reviewed key parts of book in preparation for end-of-class library activity, a matching exercise. 

2nd and 3rd graders heard Biblioburro by Jeanette Winter and then watched a short YouTube clip of the real-life Luis Soriano. 2nd graders located the author and illustrator for 3 books that were on their table, and 3rd grade did a call number ordering activity

4th graders heard Our Librarian Doesn't Tell Us Anything by librarian-turned-bestselling author Toni Buzzeo. They had a chance to show off their Destiny searching skills through a number of task cards that they brainstormed in pairs and shared with the class. I hope all our 4th graders will be library success stories by the end of the year! 

I switched up the format for 5th grade and introduced a short research project utilizing Biography in Context, a database that our students have free access to through via multiple Massachusetts agencies. We did a sample search for an author and then students paired up and chose an author to research on their own. My hope is that the fun facts that they uncover about their authors will help populate my author displays over the course of the year.  

Lessons on Library Rules

In week 1, I tried to think of a fun vehicle for delivering the rules message, but in week 2, I wanted to actually make sure that the message had gotten across.

Regardless of which video students watched (Pigeon for K-1, Despicable Me for 2-5), we started off class reviewing some of the rules that had been featured. Students did a great job remembering what we had talked about, even a week later.

But how to really reinforce the message? I devised games for the older classes, and continued with read-alouds for the younger grades.

Kindergartners heard an adorable book, Read it, Don't Eat It, by Ian Schoenherr. It's a simple story, but offers lots of natural pauses for students to understand the rule and talk about why it is important in the library. Bonus: HarperCollins provided several reproducible extension activities. We worked on the matching worksheet together, using my document scanner.

1st Grade heard Shelf Elf, a library classic by Jackie Mims Hopkins. We practiced using shelf markers, and being good library helpers when we are browsing for books. 1st graders got their first chance to check out books, which they were very excited about.

2nd and 3rd Grades demonstrated their knowledge of library rules and book care with a game of library bingo (loved this site for helping me create customized bingo sheets for free!)

4th and 5th Grades played Library Jeopardy! Each class was grouped in 4 teams and they were able to work through all the clues to show that they had paid attention last week. Some students were a smidge more competitive than others, but everyone seemed to get into it. Was grateful to the folks over at Elementary Librarian (this has certainly been a useful subscription thus far) for the idea, which I was able to tweak to fit my library's needs.

Play at home and test your knowledge!

FALL into a good book

It's not feeling too much like fall yet in New England, but I still love looking at the display my 4th and 5th grade students helped create during their first week of library class this year. I supplied the tree, and they added leaves with their book recommendations on them. Students often head to this area after they've checked out their books, so hopefully some of the suggestions will inspire a new book check out!

A New School Year Begins...

It was a busy first week in the Loker Library!

Kindergartners visited with a familiar feathered friend and watched a funny spoof on a favorite story. The video helped open up discussions on how we should take care of our library books.

1st Grade read Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen. This story helped introduce some of our library rules (and let them have a ROARING good time).

2nd - 5th Grades had some despicable help remembering our library rules. We brainstormed what they liked about library class year and what they hope to do in library this year. Younger grades played Library Rules Bingo to reinforce what they saw in the video, and older grades visited a number of stations to get them back into the library state of mind. 

Drumroll, please...

It's been a while since my I updated my blog, but the big news is that I am now a certified school librarian! After finishing my practicum last fall, and then my LAST class in the spring, I began my search for jobs, and ended up landing an awesome role at the Loker School in Wayland.

As part of my new role, I wanted to create a blog to share what's happening in my library and wrestled with whether or not to resurrect this one, or start anew.

Ultimately, I think the blog title still holds. Being a school librarian (or any type of teacher, for that matter), is a constant work in progress. There is always some element of "becoming" as you hone your craft and find new ways to reach your students. Especially through my experience of being an older student, I hope that I'll always aspire to keep on learning and becoming the best LMS I can be.