Dear LM-NET colleagues:
Original request: I requested fun ideas to help teach information skills to
middle school . Here is the hit. Thanks to everyone for all the super
ideas. It's nice to know there are so many of you willing to go the extra
mile to make learning fun! I know your students love you for it.
I hope you enjoy these. Wendy
1. Check with the teachers and see what they want the kids to know. They
might know of skill areas their students are lacking in. Try a pre-test and
see how many kids can answer the questions you think they should know. I am
often amazed at the lack of knowledge some of the kids have. Try using
almanacs in a variety of ways. Compare a kid's almanac and a regular one.
Give them a trivia sheet and have them use the almanac to answer it. A
library directory told me that if you had a phone book, an an almanac, you
could answer most reference questions asked a public librarian. Have them
make up a trivia test for the other students. Explain how indexes are set
up, then have them search for a variety of topics, with X number of sources
(1 magazine, 1 valid internet page 3 books, 1 encyclopedia, etc.) Teach them
how to make out a bibliography card. Make a bibiliography listing the
sources you could use from your library for 1 subject.
Teach them how to brainstorm topic ideas or good topics for a variety of
subjects. (your teacher wants you to do a report on _____________ What
would be a good topic? (not too broad, not too limited, etc. ) Have them
come up with things they should know as they research something...types of
questions to ask about a subject, how to use an encyclopedia index to find
more information beyond the volume with the same letter. Teach them a
search strategy (KWL, Big 6, etc.) Teach them mind mapping, or some other
note taking procedure. Teach them how to scan for needed information. Use
newspapers and have them highlight certain words in a paragraph. Teach them
webbing as a way to brainstorm. Give them topics and let them web, then
make a list of 4 or 5 sources they could use in the library to research that
topic. Give them some general curriculum topics (Revolutionary War, Civil
War, etc.) and have them list 10 different sub headings that could be more
easily handled topics.
Set up a grid. Have them list questions they want answered at the top of
it. Along the left side, list types of sources needed (magazine, book,
internet, encyclopedia, etc.) In the corresponding box, list the information
found in that source. Show them how this could be used to set upa paper or
easily compare information. We've also used phone books to teach research
skills. They have table of contents, indexes, maps, alternative words
(automobiles for car, physicians for doctor, etc. )
Teach them how to use the databases available to your school. Teach them
what resources are best for what type of information. Teach them about the
Internet....how to search, how to document, how to recognize a poor source,
etc.
2. From: Linda Lucke
We have worked very hard to develop active, hands-on and fun type lessons
for our upper grade students. We do a lot of things with crossword puzzles,
where they have to locate answers to the clues in specific sources and then
fill the answers in on crosswords. We have lessons for dictionaries,
encyclopedias, the guiness book of records, and the atlas all done in
crosswords. We also have a crossword where the clue is a dewey number , and
the answer is the subject of the number. I am pasting in a sample of
another type lesson that we do, where the answers are mostly puns called
Riddles from Deweyville, and one for the atlas, where the answers all have
something to do with food, call gastronomic geography. However, this type
of lesson has to be pretty specific to your collection, and designed for
your library. These can serve as ideas and inspirations, but you have to
develop the lesson sheets for your own collection.
Riddles from Deweyville.
Now that you are familiar with the Dewey categories, use the Dewey numbers
to answer the following riddles. Look at the books in each section to help
you answer the questions.
1. what 523.7 subject rises every morning, but never goes to
work?____________(sun)
2.What 912 book has road, towns, and cities but never any houses?
__________(maps or atlas)
3. What kind of witch lives in 641.8?
_______(sandwich)
4. What 523.3 subject doesn't eat, but is often full?_________(the moon)
5. What 419 subject talks, but makes no noise?
(sign language)
Gastronomical Geography!
Test your tastebuds with the following exercise. Below are clues to various
geographic places_countries, cities, rivers, and more_but all the names are
food-related. Be careful! Some are pretty funny! You need to use an atlas
or other resource!
1. A country in central Europe whose capital is
Budapest_________(hungary
2A reservation on the border of Washington and Idaho.__________________
3. The capital city of Peru.______(Lima)
4. A city in north eastern Maine.
_____________(caribou)
5. A country on the Mediterranean Sea whose
capital is Athens. _______(Greece)
6. A bay off the east coast of Massachusetts.
(Cape Cod)
3. From: Terry Snodgrass, Librarian
Marysville Middle School Library
My favorite thing to do with kids is a bingo game called SKOOB. We use it
to make sure the kids know the difference between atlas, almanac,
dictionary, encyclopedia, etc. The boards were a bit of a pain to make but
can be tailored to your library vocabulary list (things you want the kids to
know). I included "verso" and "opaque projector" just to add a little fun.
Make up definition cards with the word on one side and the definition on the
other. You read the defn. to the kids and they decide what the answer is,
check it out with me and then put markers on the boards on the matching
squares. The real fun one is the Blowout game at the end where the kids are
given only the definitions-anybody opens their mouth loses their board.
Winner gets a brand new pencil along with a chocolate kiss. ( prizes for
games before this one only get a chocolate kiss).
The other game the kids like to do is the scavenger hunt . It helps them to
locate things in the library. In some cases they have to find the fourth
word on page 200 of a certain book, for others, they have to collect
something from library personnel. When we've been working with Dewey
numbers, I make them get books on general topics, but don't give them the
Dewey numbers. They look up the number and then find a book. The group to
get all of their books first gets a hershey kiss.
3. From M.S. Preissner, LMS
Rockville,MD
Click on ENTER HERE<then on the instructional projects link on school
website. Look at projects: Time, Japan, Africa.
4. From:Alisa Keleher, Missouri
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - I did this activity with a fifth grade and
sixth grade class. I taught a lesson which included skimming, scanning,
trash/treasure, and citations. For my anticipatory set, I had all of the
tables decked out in cloth tablecloths, flowers in vases, I had classical
music playing, and the lights turned down loww. I seated the students to
their tables in about groups of five and gave them menus which stated the
"specials of the day" (topics teaching) also a history of the restaurant,
and library/restaurant rules. I even had a bill for them at the end of the
class. I spend 1-2 days with the power point, teaching skills. The
students were writing biographies and I created a graphic organizer for them
to take information on. The main activity they did was to write a story.
The activity Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was a writing project in which the
students were placed in random groups and had to write a story in which the
people they researched for their biography came to dinner at their house
during a certain day - which they randomly drew out of a hat. They spent a
day in the library researching the year the event took place and a certain
event- such as the day Lincoln was shot, etc. The students really loved the
activity and it provided a chance for me to work closely with some teachers
who would not have normally brought their students to the library for
research.
I also created a reference game for teaching students how to use reference
books. This activity is really fun, the students to group research for two
days and try to answer as many questions as they can and they we play a game
in the end to see which team wins. It teaches them citing sources, because
any anwers they had that didn't agree, I made them prove where they found it
so I could decide whether or not I would take the answer. This game takes a
lot of preparation, but is really fun and teaches a lot of different
sources! I'm going to do it with a 4th grade class in the next few weeks,
only we are going to focus on U.S. History.
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