[LM_NET] Hit: Elem Suggestions Needed (Long)

[Katie Farrington <kmfarrington@GMAIL.COM>]

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!

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