HIT: Library Lessons

[bjorkholm <mbb@internetconnections.com>]

Thanks for all of the helpful suggestions!  There really is a lot of
encouragement in your responses.  This is my first attempt at a HIT so hope
it's not too wordy...I just put it all in there!


If you have any training in cooperative learning activities, this is a good
place to use it. I work in a school where around half of each classroom is
in
learning support, so I am always pairing them up to do activities. Second
graders can: locate books in fiction, nonfiction, easy and biography by call
number, do simple card catalog searches and copy call numbers, locate
subjects
in the encyclopedia, locate information such as the state tree for a given
state
in an encyclopedia, copy facts from fact boxes or short articles in
encyclopedias (such as the name of the state tree), use the facts to
construct
brief sentences (such as "The state tree of Pennsylvania is the eastern
hemlock.").
First graders are capable of finding books in the easy section on their
own. With help they can also do a little work with Dewey. For instance, my
first graders are occasionally reminded that 5 stands for science and 59 is
animals. It at least gets them looking at spine labels.
3rd graders do research on cultures. There's a neat pattern book out there
with heads and feet of children from various cultures. They hold brief
reports. I have students locate information such as foods, clothing,
language,
religion, homes and record info on a fact sheet. I tell them to leave out
all
verbs and unimportant words so they aren't copying. Then we construct the
reports as a group using a set format for each fact. For instance: In
Mexico,
the people eat tamales, enchiladas, etc.

Start now with both. As I read a book I talk to students about title,
author, publisher, all the way through barcode. As I go on I add title
page, index, table of contents, etc.
As for social studies, find out what the teacher's are teaching. When
first grade does farm, read a book that talks about farm animals, make
a graph of mother, father, and baby animal names. Students attach cards
to the graph filling in the blanks. Example: Goose: Mother: goose
Father: gander baby: gosling. In this way you have taught an
information skill, parts of the book, and a social studies skill which
they have filled in the blank like a giant bingo game.

My former school district had some similar problems; low reading scores,
over-all test scores low. I don't think they've been solved to date. I was
stymied by having 5 schools with 2,500 students total and being at each
school one day per week. However, I found that whenever I read a book to the
kids, it got checked out later, particularly if we had some fun with it.
Then I saw another result; the classes ordered the same book from Troll or
Scholastic Book Club. Kids need models of reading and that reading is fun.
I usually tried to tie a story into a lesson...Frog and Toad are Friends
with a non-fiction book Frogs and Toads to illustrate the differences
between fiction and non-fiction. I also used as many senses as
possible...touch, smell, movement, hearing, seeing. The kids enjoyed any
lesson they could color or glue. We did a lesson about non-fiction using the
book Corn is Maize and then ate popcorn. Since most of the kids were
Spanish-speakers only; I'm sure they think the English word for "palomitas"
or popcorn is "non-fiction."
There are a lot of books you can use effectively with social studies...Me
and the Globe, Who Came Down that Road, Home Place, 1929. For older
kids...Jane Yolen's Encounter is the most powerful children's book I've ever
read. See if you can get hold of a current A to Zoo a subject listing of
kids books.
If you can ever attend one of Peggy Sharp's or Anthony Fredericks workshops
(I attended through BERS) run don't walk to attend. They have a wealth
information about incorporating kids lit into teaching both library skills
and across the curriculum. Peggy's book categorizes books by subject is
worth the cost of the workshop alone (which she updates annually).
Since you will be seeing the kids weekly, you have a perfect opportunity to
build rapport with the kids, have some fun and sneak in some learning while
they're not looking. I used story aprons from "Book Props." The story apron
allowed me to demo the pattern in If you Give a Mouse a Cookie by Numeroff.
I also had them repeat a lot back to me and then incorporated the repeating
of information in following lessons. Sometimes I didn't know if a lesson
"took" until a year or so later when I heard kids ask questions of my clerks
using phrases I had had them repeat.
You can also go through Dewey class by class and read an example of each
hundred from 000 to 900. A fun one is the drawing books in the 700's..using
Ed Emberley's Thumbprint Art and let them make art. You'll need blank paper,
red stamp pads and refill ink, black markers, and baby wipes for dirty
hands. My 4th graders loved it and teachers asked for repeats the next year.

Thanks to all who responded.
1. Scattergories Jr. for categorizing! The kids love it! We do whole class
version
sometimes, have to adjust a little, but very effective!
2. 57 games to play in the library and classroom by Carol K. Lee and Fay
Edwards. Alleyside Press 1-57950-014-5. The games require a lot of work on
your
part, making them, but they are good. It has both skill specific games as
well as
open-ended games that can be used to reinforce any skill. This is a
paperback
book and the last time I looked it was available from Upstart or maybe
Demco.
(Five folks suggested this title.)
3. Highsmith carries a few in their catalog. I haven't tried them, so I
don't
know if they are good or not.
4. How about Where in the World is Carmen Santiago? I remember helping my
son and his friend on all sorts of atlas and geography questions.
5. "Basic Media Skills through Games" It is an older book so I don't know if
it is
still in print. Here is the info. on it: (2 folks suggested this title.)
Basic Media Skills through Games by Irene Wood Bell and Jeanne E. Wieckert
Libraries Unlimited, Inc.
P.O. Box 263
Littleton, CO. 80160
Published in 1979
6. Just received a packet of ads from:
Center for Applied Research
PO Box 11071
Des Moines, Iowa 50380-1071
They offer a variety of resources for librarians.
--
I am a natural social studies lover. As a school librarian last year, I
participated in Tony Pope's Book Bear Project. He sent along about 35
trivia questions about various states. I started playing book bear trivia
with all my 3 -5th graders. THEY LOVED it!! The key was, maybe they got
answer 3 one week, but they had to remember all the answers each week!
They had to do research to get the answers. I could send the questions to
you. We had a big bulletin board in the hall, and each class competed
against one another. It was a blast.
In the spring, I did another one on European history. I had about 50
questions, started with Great Britain, and traveled on to France. Those
kids still remember the answers a year later. I had weird facts in like
Which wife of Henry VIII was beheaded? Etc.
This year, I am collecting license plates from all over the country, within
my military based school. We review the states we have, locate them on the
map. They are enjoying this as well. If you would like any of my
questions, please e-mail me

Marsha - I would suggest incorporating maps, charts, globes, atlases,
almanacs, reference books into whatever unit the teachers are presently
concentrating on. My second and third grades have been so good about
integrating skills this year. Try reading literature about the subject
(Egypt
- Temple Cat, Egyptian Cinderella,
China - Lon Po Po, Five Chinese Brothers, etc.) Use the Va. section to
incorporate Dewey Decimal System - I usually point out different sections
and/or display books from the sections when I do a lesson. Weather - display
55ls, plants - display 582s, etc. It's tough when you have a set schedule, I
know.

I would like to comment on your library lessons involving Social
Studies. Teaching any type of skills along an academic subject in
isolation is a very frustrating job. If you can plan your lessons to
enrich what the teacher is already teaching, your lessons will have
meaning and purpose. An excellent book for instruction is the
Complete Library Skills Activities Program by Arden Bruce. I
purchased this book from The Center for Applied research in
Education. I use this book for short and simple lessons for the
younger grades.
There is a book available from The Center for Applied Research in Education,
Inc. called Ready-to-Use Library Skills Games - Reproducible Activities for
Building Location and Literature Skills. It's written by Ruth Snodden. In
it, there is a trivia game and a bingo type game called Dewey Dooby. My
kids love it ! ISBN 0-87628721-6

Have you done a map activity yet? I have a basic map of my LRC, with some
spots marked and then the kids have to answer questions and put the question
#
on the correct spot on the map. Simple things (our kids are below grade
level
too) like "Here is where you check out books". "If you like to draw the
books
are here".
It gets the kids up and walking around and map reading is a social studies
skill!

Yes, library lessons are deadly unless incorporated into classroom
activity.
You could get good ideas from the books written by M. Ellen Jay. Titles:
Library/Computer lab/Classroom Connection: Linking Content Thinking
Writing, Motivation and the School Library Media Teacher, Designing
Instruction for Diverse Abilities; Building Reference Skills in the
Elementary School. These are some of them.
One of the favorite games both I and the fourth graders enjoy I call
"Guinness Game." You need to have four or five copies of the Guinness Book
of World Records from the same year. Actually, the older versions are
easier to use because the book are more compact and the indexes more
straight forward but use what you have. Beforehand, I go through the book
and prepare about 40 or 50 questions that can be answered using the index
to locate the answer and write the question, page found on and answer on my
key. The day of the game, I assemble the chairs into four or five rows
(depending on how many copies of the book I have--If I only have 4 books,
and 24 students, I make 4 rows with six chairs in each row, etc.) The
students come in a find a seat and I hand the first person in each row a
Guinness book. The rules are:
The student must hold the book up in the air with their hand on the spine
while I read the question. That way no one is flipping to the index before
the question is finished.
Once the question is asked they are to determine what the key word would be
to look up, go to the index and locate the page the answer would be on.
They turn to that page and scan it for the correct answer. When they have
the answer, they are to stand up and say it aloud. If it is correct, they
come out and stand with me and everyone rotates--the person who has just
had the book goes to the back seat and everyone moves up one. The first
team to get all of their members "out" (standing with me) wins! It is also
helpful to have some additional books for the standing people to use while
waiting for answers.
No one can help the person with the Guinness book in any way. If someone
calls out an answer they must also be able to tell me the page the answer
is on if I think it is simply a guess.
The kids love this game and it gives them good practice in scanning and
using the index of a book.

Could you use picture books to incorporate Social Studies. I love When
Jessie Came Across the Sea by Hest which deals with immigration. The look
on the girl's face when she sees the Statue of Liberty for the first time
is incredible. I also like Train to Somewhere by Eve Bunting about a group
of orphans traveling to the Midwest to be adopted. There are many others.
I think picture books are such valuable tools.
I am no longer in the elementary but our students loved the bingo that I
had. It is no longer available but you could make it yourself. The
bingo cards had library type terms such as: circulation desk, fiction,
almanac. I called out the definition and the students had to figure out
the correct term on their card. I swear they learned more this way!
Game formats always worked real well with my kids. For example, I would
do a short lesson on fiction shelving. Then I would have titles they
needed to find with a call number. They would work in teams one at a
time going to find their books. The team that finished first and was
quiet won. I would give out stickers. Then we would do the reverse,
re-shelve them with a table by table swap first. They had to put a
marker where they shelved so we could check them. I would have the
teams check other teams. I also did it with bios, reference and
non-fiction.
Another good one is to briefly go over a variety of reference materials
then ask the teams to identify which would be the best source for the
answer to a question (atlas, almanac, biographical dictionary,
encyclopedia, etc.
I did a lot of picture book read alouds to the 4th and 5th graders so
they could get the meaning and enjoy reading.
My favorite activity was reading The Mitten and making sequence cards
that the students had to put in order. They loved doing it (I think it
was 1st and 2nd) The author has a great web site and she will send you
graphics you can use.

Marsha Bjorkholm, LMS
E.D. Redd Elementary School
Richmond, VA
mbb@internetconnections.com
"Outside of a dog there is nothing like a good book.  Inside a dog it is too
dark to read."

Groucho Marx

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