Thank you to everyone who sent me their great ideas for activities to do this time
of year. I really appreciate your time and efforts!
Ideas for end of the year in the library:
When I was an elementary school librarian, I used to have a puzzle contest. I would
buy 5 identical puzzles and break the students into groups.
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As I celebrate my 10th year as a Teacher-Librarian these are some of the
things I will be doing at the end of the year with my students.
Reader's theatre! Suzy Kline has some for free on her website and my
third graders LOVE doing this: http://www.suzykline.com/
Kids liked this so much one year they brought in props from home to use!
Other authors have RT too and I think you can get some from professional
books. OR you can make your own.
Sing along with Alan Katz's book: Take Me Out of the Bathtub and Other
Silly Dilly Songs (second graders never want to leave the library when
we do this the last library class of the year)
Wikki Sticks with the book Crictor by Ungerer
Kindergarten: Building with cubes, feathers, toothpicks and buttons
after reading Roxaboxen by McLerran
Safety tips for summer after reading Officer Buckle and Gloria by
Rathman
Singing "Over in the Meadow" by Langstaff and then using pictures of
every animal in the book to explore the math of the book/song (I used
clip art to make one turtle, two foxes, 10 rabbits and extras so they
can manipulate them into graphs, count them, sort them by similarities
and differences, etc. and if you laminate them they last a long while)
Jan Brett has masks you can print and make into stick puppets that go
along with her books: www.janbrett.com
Dewey Match game, available at Upstart (grades 3-5)
Peter Rabbit Survivor: you have them read as many of those tiny books by
Beatrix Potter as possible and then you choose twelve main characters,
then they vote and make arguments as to who gets voted out of the meadow
(fourth grades love this)
Reading alphabet books, (LOVE "A is for Salad" by Mike Lester), then
creating letter rubbing collages (I made two sets of alphabet cards on
large index cards, one uppercase and one lower, by putting colored glue
over a written letter, then after it dries the letter stands up and can
be used underneath copy paper to be rubbed. You could even do spelling
and alphabetizing with this.)
www.wordle.net You can use this free site to have students create word
clouds about authors, favorite books, genre's, summer reading, a review
of the year, character traits, personal goals, etc.
grade one readalouds: The Raft by LeMarche, Axel Annie by Pulver,
Weslandia by Fleischman, The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman by Pattison,
Jack and the Fire Dragon by Gail E. Haley, Actual Size by Jenkins (use
measuring tapes with this one), The Amazing Bone by Steig, Diary of a
Wombat by French compare and contrast with Diary of A Worm (or Spider or
Fly) by Cronin, A Penny a Look by Zemach, Miss Rumphius by Cooney
followed by a certificate of what they will do to make the world a
better place and there's always fractured fairy tales.
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Since I end book check out two weeks before classes end, I like to do the
activities with books or games that I can't do when you also have book
selection because of the time crunch. If your promoting fifth graders
have done anything that was photographed or videotaped over the years
(we have a puppet show from first grade) I show them their old show the
last day. They are IN LOVE with this because they see themselves as
vastly changed and ready to go to middle school and the kids who moved
here over the years see their classmates of today as they were, and also
everyone sees students who have left and they reminisce and/or wax
nostalgic (at the age of 10 or 11!). It's leads to some nice moments of
"remember when..." and is a good way to close six years with me.
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I do reader's theater. I subscribe to Library Sparks, and each month they have a
reader's theater included. If you don't have access to the periodical, I think you
could find some on-line.
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One of my favorite activities, when I was an elementary LMS, was to have
students familiarize themselves with the public library website. We used
to have a kind of online "Scavenger Hunt" where students would try to
find favorite titles, books by favorite authors and on favorite subjects
that they might check out over the summer. They could learn how to make
online requests, how to apply for a public library card if they didn't
have one and about summer programs the PL offers. Many PL's also have
site which includes learning activities, online databases and features
such as NovelList to find read-alikes that students should know about.
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I usually do one of two things. I either have read a book and we'll watch
the movie and compare the two or I pull out the the puzzles, magazines,
encyclopedia, stuffed animals and puppets and let kids have fun. You'd be
surprised at how many kids chose to read an encyclopedia over playing.
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Here's some things I've done:
Listen to an audiobook--39 clues book 1 was a great hit last year.
Done read-alouds/crafts that relate to our public library's theme for the summer
read-aloud
Create book covers for favorite books they've read this year.
Play board games.
Bingo
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Something I always like to do is pass out catalogs to the students and
let them make recommendations to me on what books to buy for the
collection. They LOVE it and it gives me an insight into what they
want.
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With my little guys, we play an alphabetical "recall these stories" game. I make
up letter cards using titles or characters from the books we have read during the
year, i.e., C for Corduroy Bear, or F for Frog and Toad. I use pictures from the
books, but do not put the titles or character names on the cards. For my writers,
I pass out an alphabetical answer sheet, and have them write down as many titles or
characters they can identify, for younger, I hold up the cards and have the whole
class work to identify the books.
I also do story telling at the end of the year. I have created a "story hat", a
hat that has toys dangling from it. The students can select a toy, and then I tell
the story for that toy, i.e. I have a dangling cow for "Click, clack, Moo," and a
rabbit for "Peter Rabbit."
For my older classes, we play some rounds of Cool Chicken, a library skills game,
and Reference Bingo. I have Bingo Cards made up with the names of reference books
we have studied, and ask them questions. They must cover the square with the name
of the best book for answering the reference question.
These activities keep my classes busy at the end of the year. Hope they are helpful
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Last year I did a Jeopardy game with a little bit of everything we did for the
year. It's like a giant review game. I had 2 classes go up against each other.
Students enjoyed it too.
I am currently doing the Cafe Dewey activity too.
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My ideas are somewhat middle school based, but maybe they could be adapted for
older elementary? I had students write book reviews of their favorite books or make
a bookmark that advertises their favorite book. They wrote each review on a
notecard and I filed them by genre in a little recipe-holder. The notecards are
useful all year and help with reader's advisory. I gave out the bookmarks to the
next year's group of students. I also made little scavenger hunts and puzzles for
them and I have them straighten shelves all the time. I was an elementary librarian
for two years and I just dragged out storytimes as long as I could during the last
week of school!
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You can do read alouds in the library and movies are always fun, have a thank you
day for the kids who volunteer (if there are any) pass out some cookies or other
sweets. Maybe have a list of possible acitivities you want to do next year and let
the kids vote on which ones they want to do. Most of all have fun.
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It can be difficult to find activities to fill the time when you stop
check out. I do different things. For first graders I read a book called
"The Best Place to Read" and then have them draw their favorite place to
read. Then we talk about their pictures. I have reading center games that
I do with younger students. You could ask the teachers if they have any
you could borrow if you don't have any. I also have a few movies that
were books first. I show one of these to the older students. I also have
shorter educational videos that I show and then have them do a wordsearch
or activity sheet to go along with it. We play games on the SMART Board
too.
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Yes, close and try to get the 10 or more pages of stuff I HAVE to
accomplish before we leave in less than 11 days. I also try to find
books to give away to the kids, and other stuff to raffle off to kids
who have clear records. I would see if you can make books with them if
you are on rotation. Google staple less book and you should be able to
find several sites. Or use the word Poof to get some of the same sites.
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I'm currently not checking out books and for kinder and first grade I'm
reading beach books and showing them my shell collection.
For the older grades I'm showing them how to look up books and materials at
the local community libraries.
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We have a book swap, in which students bring in up to five books of
their own from home during the second week of June, then I organize
all the donations and the students come down the following week to get
the same number of books from the book swap. I supplement it with
past issues of magazines that I have pulled from the collection. I
also have the public librarian come in to talk about their summer
reading program and I show the older students how to search their
online catalog. I have also read the book "Big Plans" and asked the
students to map out their "big plans" for summer reading.
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During the last week of school, when students are not checking out books, I am
going to read Now What Can I Do? by Margaret Bridges (in anticipation of summer
boredom), and follow that up with a brainstorming session called "If I Ran the
Library" to garner some kid-ideas for next year.
Maria Doss
Orcas Island School Librarian
Orcas Island, Wa
mariaedoss@msn.com
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