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I was asked to post a hit to the following questions. The answers aren't grouped by question since some of them address more than one. Any other suggestions are still very much welcomed! And thanks to those that responded. Enjoy! 1. What types of things are normally done the first week of school? My first day with the students is a Friday and I don't want to do anything that day that will throw the whole next week off. But I'm looking for ideas for that first full week also. 2. Does anyone do book check-out at the beginning of class? I have 50 minute periods and right now book check out falls in the middle. Also, any suggestions for keeping the students quiet while they wait for the rest of their classmates to check out books? 3. At what grade level should the class be more lesson based and less story-time? As it was in the past, both 2nd and 3rd grade were read to each class period (schedule: lesson, book check-out, story time). 4. Any good program ideas that anyone could offer that can be used for 300 or so students? I would really like to do craft projects, but I'm not sure what can be done when each grade level has so many students. Responses Please post hit!!!!! Personally, I would prefer doing a more detailed lesson or story time for 30 minutes, then letting them have 20 minutes for checkout... I have only 2 sections of each grade in my very small rural school, but here is what I do those first weeks. My class time is only 30 minutes. Week 1: Students create and decorate a shelfmarker to use for the rest of the year. We use 4"x17" strips of tagboard--different color for each class. Then I put on the student's barcode. These are kept in color coordinated gallon cans and use whenever students look for books. This is also how I determine who can check out books or has overdues---just scan the class batch of shelfmarkers before class begins and divide into piles---can get 3 books, 1 overdue so can get 2, 2 overdue so can get 1book, 3 + overdue so no new books. We do laminate these and they do last the entire school year. Week 2-4: Introduction, review, practice with online catalog. Since we start AR in gr. 2 I usually do week 2 for introducing and practicing AR and then move on to the OPAC. I do book check out at the end of class. Doing it earlier makes it difficult to get everyone done, settled down and ready for either a lesson or story. By doing it at the end, the student who dawdles has a set time when s/he simply has to be done. Sometimes I have a color page or a maze or word find related to the story or lesson of the week. Otherwise I require the students to sit down and read silently---usually is only 2-5 minutes at most. I still read to both gr. 2 & 3 most weeks. Gr. 3 I use longer books---takes 2-3 weeks to complete or 40-60 minutes. I cover several genre's with Gr. 3. First Day: I just go over the rules, give assigned seats (a must, although I just assign kids to tables and let them sit where they want at the table) and have book checkout. Of course, you have 10 more minutes than I do, so you might want to do rules, seats, story and checkout. Use the same rules that are typical to your school. Perhaps the second grade teachers all use the same ones. But keep them simple...you might want to look in LM_Net archives for this. For example, we used to use this at our school on a daily basis... AT WES, we pause to be respectful be responsible be safe be kind I always check out the books LAST. If the kids are not acting good during class, the lost time comes out of their time. That seems to work well to keep kids on task. I try to check in the books as the kids come in the door and get seated. I usually talk to the kids and zap books at the same time. But in grade 3, I can often do that as kids are doing assignments (depends on the class!) During book exchange we color a lot in grade 2 (or do easy crafts) and in grade 3 we sometimes color, mostly do work (and then the kids can get books after they are done and work is turned in) or something that is a type of craft (for example, I have a cowboy and horse that goes with an old story that I like; kids color it and cut out pieces, etc. The busier, the better, although it just depends. My grade 2 classes were right after lunch/play which meant they were never on time and the 40 minutes became 30 minutes. I am cataloging the misc items that I never get to during the school year (at home on my dining room table.) One of the books sounds very useful (to me, too, even after 31 years!) It is called Working with Students: Discipline Strategies for the Classroom, by Ruby Payne, who is a guru among the administrators in my county school district. You might want to look for it. Ruby Payne has a website. And if I have any advice, it is to stick with LM_Net no matter how far behind you get with the posts. I know that it is easier to communicate with library colleagues these days in my county (14 elementary schools) so I am not as isolated anymore due to IM and e-mail, but in your building, you are the only media specialist and often your colleagues don't understand the pressures of your job. (You will find the the art, music, p.e. teacher will...) So when you read the posts, you will get ideas and support. I have middle school now but I started at elementary and the 2nd through 5th did research projects- just wrote a question or two or three to answer and made a cover with wordart and printed a picture. All the steps but very simple. If I can find the worksheets I will attach them. Also I have a worksheet to keep the MS kids busy at check-out which relates to learning the process good readers use to find a book and it could be simplified. Attached is the sort of simplified for special ed. I give 10 points if they used a complete heading after I ask them to at the beginning, 20 for the signature, they have to have an adult in the room listen to them read a sentence or two, and ten each for the rest, makes 100, easy to grade and then I grade it for the teachers and tape on little prizes, like cute pencils from the 99 cent store or Big Lots, for perfect papers. You can ask for complete sentences from the older kids. I would have book checkout last as then the students can return to the tables and "read" quietly. At all ages it is possible to do more than the storytime ides. You can do parts of the book, abc order and shelf order. I like to pair a easy/fiction book with a non fiction book. Then you can add table of contents, index, glossary etc lessons, text features, finding important facts and retellings of any of these. You could have kids make "storyboard" of events or facts learned and retell the stories. My students have learned to face a partner, eye to eye and knee to knee then talk about..........related to the story, retell it, share facts etc. Then share out to the group. This helps address the fact that almost all kids want to talk about the story of facts, but there is never time. Later, you can have them move to tables and write about these things. Just a few ideas. for just that one day, I'd do a story about the first day of school, talk about things that you will be doing in that grade or the Book Fair date, AR celebrations if you do AR or do a scavenger hunt with Third Grade. Then with pre-cut oak tag and colored pencils (not crayons), let them make their first bookmark. I'm doing bookmarks the first week along with reviewing expectations for behavior in the library, letting them make up their rule list on the white board and every student sign the "contract". Then take a picture of the board and use it for a bulletin board later if you do Library Manners board. Summary: my first week is review of library manners, book care, check out procedures, expectations and making a bookmark. Yes I let the kids check out their first book and we make a celebration out of the FIRST book of the year. Regarding your schedule, have you thought about using the story to introduce your lesson? For example: Read And the Dish Ran Away With the Spoon, then do a mapping lesson on N,S,E,W from the book (pre-atlas skill and SS tie), then do book exchange. It works for me when I use the literature to teach my lesson. Sometimes after reading, we discuss the characters and if they changed from the beginning of the book to the end of the book or we look for the elements of that genre in the story to help students why it is in that genre. You know, just library stuff! :-) But the literature is my springboard for my lesson. I think it also helps the students think about the story rather than zone out and be entertained. I always spend the first few days of classes with a tour of the library, library rules and expectations, basic book care, check-out procedures, etc. I let them check out books the first day. If a child finds a book to check out before the rest of the class is done, the expectation is that they sit and read the book quietly. I always do checkout during the last 15 minutes of class. Otherwise, you will run out of time for your lesson. I am in a prek-8 school, so I do storytime through 3rd grade. The older grades have library lessons then checkout time. By the end of the year, I begin to incorporate lessons into the 3rd grade classes. My classes are small, but I still don't try crafts. I incorporate lots of book talks (by both the students and myself), we learn Dewey, research skills. 2nd grade studies Caldecott Award books, and 3rd studies Bluebonnet (the Texas State award). I do a separate reading program for each grade level. I would be happy to share more details of them if you like. A suggestion that has worked for me - change your format to storytime, lesson/activity, book exchange. I currently have students for 45 mins. and this format works great. Students come in and sit at tables until attendance is taken, I show students the book that will be read, we generate questions from the book cover using a beach ball marked with who, what, when, where, how, and I think this will happen, then go to the story corner, and either from there discuss the questions after the story or return to our seats and answer the questions. If there's an activity sheet based on the story, the students work on it then. With 10 mins left, it's book exchange time. I do not check out books until week 3. We do book care/rules for the first 2 weeks. There's a series with the Library Elf that is good for this age group, as well as Stella Louella's Runaway book. Enjoy! Have you thought about centers? They could be based on library skills, on- going research projects or problem areas in the grade level. They should be fun, but help with some sort of learning. Listening stations, buddy reading, puzzles (logic), plays (perform and write), matching (Dewey to item), internet search races, dictionary races, encyclopedia races, etc. Get out some of those math logic scenarios and mind benders. Anything for GT can be used in a center, too. Forget worksheets - use hands on. Good luck and HAVE FUN! I would strongly recommend that your first week or two, all of your classes have an orientation, including some "getting to know you" type activities. Have each class develop a list of positive rules for the library and then post the compiled/edited version for all to see. For example, we walk in the library, we keep our hands to ourselves, we use school voices, one person talks while everyone else listens. I prefer to have the students word the rules in this positive manner, rather than say "no running", "no yelling", "no touching", etc. and having the students help create the rules will give them a sense of ownership - after all, it is their library ! I'm not quite understanding the 50 minute period with bookcheck in the middle, but I will tell you this. When I first started in a K-5 school, I was worried I'd run out of time for bookcheck (I didn't have an aide), so I was doing bookcheck first and then doing the lesson. My principal observed me one day and her only suggestion was to flip those 2 activities around. In her opinion, the lesson is so much more important than the book check and she felt that by limiting the amount of time at the end of the period to do book check, the whole period would be more effective and efficient. I took her advice and she was right ! During bookcheck, students should be sitting quietly, whether you require them to be at their tables, or simply somewhere in the library. Students who aren't doing bookcheck can browse books or magazines. I'm not sure how the previous librarian managed to do a full lesson, bookcheck AND storytime all in a 50 minute period, but I will tell you that, in my opinion, while it is nice to read aloud to all age groups, by 2nd and 3rd grade they really should be having lessons that take about 30-35 minutes to complete, which would leave you with 15-20 minutes for bookcheck. Sometimes your lesson can be storytime, but in general, I don't think it's in the students' best interest for them to be read to during their library time week after week after week. How and when would they learn how to use the library ? This is an awesome site: (for lesson plans and ideas) http://hcps2.hanover.k12.va.us/instruction/media/LessonPlanBook.htm (for the district's actual library curriculum" http://hanover.k12.va.us/instruction/media/librarycurriculum.pdf One thing I would suggest is that you develop a simple chart that shows what the grade level lesson is for each specific week, and perhaps color-code it (for storytime lessons, library skills lessons, technology lessons, etc) so that you can keep an eye on how often you do a certain type of lesson, etc. Because you will have 10-12 sections of each grade, I would STRONGLY ADVISE that you only do lessons that really excite you, because other wise, by the end of the week you will HATE the lesson and it will show !!! I wish you good luck and try to find time to keep active on this listserv. I still find it so useful and wish I had known about it when I first started in this profession ! I have my classes, "trained" to enter the library and the first 15 minutes, give or take is decicated to checkout and browsing. If they are not checking out a book then they are expected to BE PRODUCTIVE, as in browsing a magazine, reading a book. I also have a selection of books that are not for checkout they enjoy looking at such as I Spy and that type book, Books of World Records, you get the idea. I give a 3 minute warning and when I signal it is time to be at the tables and they have not checked out thier book, they they must move to the table without a book. That doesn't happen often. If they are not productive I instruct them to stand by Winnie the Pooh until they decide what they are going to do. This works well for grades 2 up. Have and question, just ask! Jo, Oh by the way I have a big Winnie the Pooh that is in a section of my library that I can see from everywhere in the library and when I say go stand by Winnie the pooh they know what to do. It takes repetition but if you are CONSISTANT it will go smoothely. *The first week I do a library tour and read Marion the Librarian, The Library Lion, The Librarian from the Black Lagoon, etc for the younger kids, and they make a bookmark time permitting. The older ones do a powerpoint tutorial re: library rules and explore the library. The second week all grades get shown how to pull a book off the shelf and check out. There are so many class changes I put the classes into the computer the second week because the first week is so crazy i don't want to redo everything! After that, they get mini lessons on the online catalog (only 3-6), genres, Dewey, etc *If you want to do something different on that first Friday, you might do a "what did you do over the summer" activity. Maybe you could find (or create) a mad-libs type story that you could fill out as a class together about summer break along with reading the story How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Mark Teague. I usually spend the first week of classes establishing rules and expectations for the year. Reading The Library Dragon by Carmen Deedy is a good setup for such a discussion. I have magazines, puzzle type books (such as I Spy, Where's Waldo), and other fun books for students to read during check out time. I tell students that their ONLY choices during this time are to be quietly looking for a book or quietly reading. It works very well as long as I stay on top of them and REALLY mean it. I believe that second and third grades are the perfect time to introduce library location skills. I spend all of second grade introducing the sections of the library, teaching them how to use call numbers/letters, using the OPAC, and introducing the Dewey Decimal System. I believe all library students need story time so I follow a schedule similar to the one you mentioned: story, lesson, check-out (approximately 15 minutes each) OK--take a deep breath and tell yourself that you will be fine and you will be. Honest. I know how it is to face a crop of new kids, but the one nice thing about those below the age of 5th grace or so (in my experience) is that reading and books are still pretty special and the library is a really "fun" place to be so they will make life much easier for you. As far as your questions... In my experience "storytime" usually ends with about 2nd grade. By then I am doing more simple chapter books with them. "Flat Stanley" is of course popular as is Geronimo Stilton. I also do a lot of Dick King-Smith animal books with this level and they love him. Books checkouts are done at the end of the period here. I do things differently than you though in that I have the kids for 2 different 25 minute periods each week. Therefore, the first period of the week I have a lesson for them, while the 2nd period we read some of the book and also do book checkouts. That would be up to you. I find that a few "fun" type big reference books placed on the tables keep most of the kids interested while others are checking out. The popular ones around here are the Ripley's Believe it or Not type--they know they can't take them home, but they love to look at the pictures and will sit and discuss it semi-quietly with their friends while I am doing the checking out. As far as the first lesson--I have had great success with using "Who's afraid of the Big Bad Book?" by Lauren Child as my first book with the kids each year. It talks enough about book care and how to care for them as "friends" and not scribble, stash food, cut, etc. while still doing it in a humerous way that the kids like. 1. At least in our school, the first week of school starts on a Wednesday. The kids don't start having their scheduled classes until the next Monday, but those three days are usually to introduce the new kids at school to the library, I do a patron's updating, and some planning too. We also start collecting the reading panflets from the summer programs we have and we start planning and arranging the little party we have for the participants. 2. We do our check outs 10 or 15 min. before the class leaves. We have bean bags in our library so we make kids sit down and read what they already checked out, while the other kids are in line. 3. In our school PreK3-5th gets to listen to a story or a non-fiction book [related to the curriculum if necessary] But sometimes it's a way to introduce them to an activity. 4.When I have a little more time to write I'll send some more ideas. Best of lucks on this school year! -------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. 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