Many thanks to those who replied! You reminded me how many important
lessons librarians teach young children.
My original question:
If you are a primary librarian (K-2) or work with those grades, could you
please share with me what kind of lessons/skills you teach?
Responses:
PreK-1 we work a long time on care and not feeding of books, almost the
first semester. We work on parts of books, story components, fantasy,
folklore and fairy tales. How to do research beginning. K I usually do a
unit on alphabet. 1-2 we do a unit on alphabetical order, how to shelve
books and using a shelf marker.
The littler they are the better! They are fun and so eager to learn what
you have to teach them. They love puppets, finger plays, singing and
dancing, and a host of other stuff. These are the easiest classes if you
have a procedure and stick to it every week or visit.
****
I have K-5. At the lowerest grades I cover:
authors
illustrators
parts of books
book care
what is a library
librarian
read classics and new literature appropriate for the class
fiction
nonfiction
chapter books
books in series
arrangement of the library
checkout procedures
return procedures
returning items on time
basic research with 2 and a bit with K & 1
we do a very basic research project with two of our first grade classes.
They gather five facts on an animal and write their own nonfiction book. We
only do the research in the library and the remainder of the lesson is done
in the classroom
****
My previous job was in a PK-5 school. With PK and K, I started working on
comparing fiction and nonfiction. First grade continued with this. One
first grade teacher wanted to do some research skills, so we worked in
groups. For five days, I took a different small group and used the simplest
encyclopedias we had. We discussed alphabetical order and guide words as
well as how to find something in the encyclopedia. The topic was maps and
globes, so we also looked at a globe during the lesson. It was a very
successful lesson!
For second grade, we did a map of the library. The map was already created;
we just added the labels. In the next lesson, the students had to use the
map to find specific books in the library. We did this one several years.
The kids really liked it!
****
I am not a librarian but an assistant. Our librarian is only at our school
one day a week and does lessons for 3-5. I handle the lessons for K-2. Some
of the lessons I did last year were:
book care with Mr. Wiggle's Book, Library Dragon and the Shelf Elf
ours is a Great Expectations school so I worked with the teachers on life
principals..
I also intoduce library procedures, how to find a fiction book,
nonfiction book, what is
nonfiction/fiction etc.
I also do a nursery rhyme unit because lots of the children have not
heard them before coming to school.
I usually do an author study on Eric Carle which includes days of week,
persistence, etc.
****
I am the Media Specialist at a K-5 school and work with all the K-2 students
on a regular basis. We work on many skills at that age, some of them are:
- we start the year talking about taking care of the books, organization of
the library (we talk about the way many things in our lives are organized
such as the grocery store, etc. and why...this helps them understand that
the library also is organized in a particular way for a purpose.)
- parts of a book (title page, cover, spine)
- we learn what the author, illustrator and publisher are
- character, setting and plot (sometimes we use story maps)
- we use puppets and other activites to retell stories
- I do a Nursery Rhyme unit with my K/1s
- the five finger rule for selecting books at our reading level
- I do a unit on picture dictionaries with my k's and review picture
dictionaries and talk about "My first Dictionary" (a regular student
dictionary) with the first graders.
- I introduce the thesaurus and atlas to my second and third graders (we are
in multiage school so my second graders travel to specials with third
graders)
- I introduce the concept of biographies (we pair off and introduce one
another and talk about the kind of facts someone must gather in order to be
able to write a book about them). They love this activity.
****
K-2 lessons include, book care; parts of a book, author, illustrator,
copyright date (they like to know how old the book is), publisher; fiction
and nonfiction; how books are arranged in the library; genres and elements
of those genres; end of second grade I introduce the OPAC. I integrate
reading strategies with read alouds. I also like to get them excited about
books and hereby excited about reading. I have a personal collection of pop
ups and everyone loves them. Robert Sabuda's are amazing. We have even
made a very simple pop up from his site. I also have other types of books
(sound, movement etc). Gallop is a scanamation book and again the kids are
amazed. I have used reader's theatre in both first and second grade. I am
careful about what I read that I include the intersts of the boys. they
love the pop ups and adventure books.
****
I teach different skills like comparing fiction/nonfiction. For example, I
might take a book on bears from my nonfiction and share it with the kids
before reading the story of The Three Bears. We talk about the differences
in the text. We talk about facts we did or did not see. We talk, too,
about the fact that many nonfiction books have photos but could have
illustrations. They really automatically key into the illustrations and
assume that illustrations indicate fiction status. We talk, too, about
anthropomorphism and fantasy in comparing the two texts. Depending on the
age group, too, we talk about the features of nonfiction texts versus
fiction (index, table of contents, glossary, section headings, etc.).
Another lesson I taught was about telling time. I did this with my second
graders, since they are moving beyond telling time to the hour to telling
time to the half hour and more. I used some individual student clocks on
which the kids could turn the hands. We talked about the clock, its
features, the marks that indicated minutes, counting patterns (counting by
5's). I then read them Bats Around the Clock by Kathi Appelt. The kids
would adjust their clocks to show the time that I had just read in the
story. We talked, too, about the progressive pattern that was found
throughout the story.
For older kids, I have done lessons about immigration and tied in real
literature with it. For example, Yin's books are beautifully illustrated
and tell a good story. In addition, at the back of the text there is more
historical information. We discuss that the story is written from the
perspective or point of view of someone whose culture has experienced these
issues. We discuss the author's purpose as well. Point of view and
author's purpose are concepts the kids need to know for our state test, the
TAKS. We talk about the discrimination that immigrants in the past endured.
Many of our kids in this Dallas suburb are from groups deeply involved with
our current immigration issues. I use websites, too, to bring home the main
focus of the lesson. PBS has excellent resources that feature the voices of
immigrants--not someone from the outside.
I do booktalks as well. One theme that I explored was stories set in school
(especially featuring fifth graders). Books like Andrew Clements writes are
great for this.
At other times, I might target the genre that the teacher is working on.
For historical fiction I might pull books by Avi or Esther Forbes or Louise
Borden. Those are two for one experiences!
****
Generally with PreK-K, I teach library citizenship, and work with the
teachers doing stories, poems, fingerplays, etc. related to their class
work.
!st grade- Story time, parts of the book (c0ver, tile page, copyright page
and again work with the teachers and what they are doing in the classroom.
2nd grade- Review the parts of a bokk and teach contents page and index.
Last year we also did author studies. The students chose an author, did some
research and wrote a short report. Then they shared it with the class during
library time.
****
I do several lessons on the differences between fiction and nonfiction by
using matching text - meaning, I read a picture book/story about a cow and
then read a nonfiction book about cows. We then look at what is true and not
true about cows in the fiction book based on the true information from our
nonfiction book. The little kids really like these lessons and always try to
second guess the fiction book by the second time we do this lesson.
I also do a lesson on how to tell if a book in nonfiction versus fiction by
looking at the call letters/ numbers. I have students in small groups with
each group having a small stack of mixed books. They are then to regroup the
books according to type - one stack of nonfiction and one stack of fiction.
This is really great for the younger ones as they are learning their letters
and numbers and it helps them differentiate between them.
Those are my two biggest ones. I hope to develop more this year using the
alphabet.
Jen Cepuch
FCS teacher
Greencastle-Antrim HS
Greencastle, PA
jennifercepuch@embarqmail.com
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