No need to have watched or read Marie Kondo's "Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up". I have a hoarder for a husband, and I LOVE to purge stuff. I've begun weeding our "E" for everybody picture book section. It's astonishing how many of our books from 2002-2003 are still on the shelves, having never been checked out, even once, or less than once a year over the past 16 years our school has been open. Our County Head of Media Specialists, Kristen Deuschle, shared about a local charity, Reaping Nature, which will donate our weeded materials to needy schools in our county. Perfect!
As I've been consulting the Historical Report and looking through each story to decide its fate, I've had more ideas churn up. Definitely planning on beginning to genrify the fiction section next year, but WHAT IF I also made an "Upper Elementary" picture book section??? I already started the "ECH" Early Chapter books section and "Easy Readers" series shelves for K and 1st students who are ready for chapters but not quite ready for longer chapter books or novels. What about picture books targeted at reluctant readers who still want pictures to look at on each page, but who need exposure to more difficult reading? This could be a great section for students in Special Education too, right? I also thought about making a section within the "E" section for wordless picture books, too. Thoughts?
Another product of trying to weed books, is to remember a VERY IMPORTANT lesson for teachers to remember too: Just because it was a favorite childhood book of ours, doesn't mean it should be a favorite book for our students. Yes, showing them that we love to read and re-read and read deeply is very important, but so is teaching students to self-select a book that sparks joy for them; to choose a book that will eventually become their favorite book from childhood. I have copies of my favorites at home, in my personal, library. Moy Moy by Leo Politi, Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina, and The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. I also still have all of my Babysitter Club books. But what resonates for students today will be different, because there are different authors! Yes, we should definitely continue to share stories with students that have proven to be classics, because they continue to be checked out over and over, but we should definitely not keep books that no one is gravitating toward.
And on that note, I shall leave you with some images of what else I've been up to in the library these last couple of months:
Kindergarten: Author Studies on Denise Fleming, David Shannon, Mo Willems, Dev Petty, Amy Dyckman, and Bill Martin Jr. We recently did a review of how to use Destiny Media Catalog,too.
Fourth Grade: Digital Citizenship lessons on citing sources, internet search techniques; Reviewed Nonfiction Text Structures (in collaboration with 4th grade teachers) - taught how to hyperlink texts with permalinks to different eBooks; Periodicals; More practice citing sources in a bibliography
Fifth Grade: Reference materials review; Searching online databases with practice citing sources; Nearpod quiz to assess what students needed to review before state testing = bibiography, citations, and periodicals; Practice cross-referencing facts and including a bibliography with citations
Other Work:
As I've been consulting the Historical Report and looking through each story to decide its fate, I've had more ideas churn up. Definitely planning on beginning to genrify the fiction section next year, but WHAT IF I also made an "Upper Elementary" picture book section??? I already started the "ECH" Early Chapter books section and "Easy Readers" series shelves for K and 1st students who are ready for chapters but not quite ready for longer chapter books or novels. What about picture books targeted at reluctant readers who still want pictures to look at on each page, but who need exposure to more difficult reading? This could be a great section for students in Special Education too, right? I also thought about making a section within the "E" section for wordless picture books, too. Thoughts?
Another product of trying to weed books, is to remember a VERY IMPORTANT lesson for teachers to remember too: Just because it was a favorite childhood book of ours, doesn't mean it should be a favorite book for our students. Yes, showing them that we love to read and re-read and read deeply is very important, but so is teaching students to self-select a book that sparks joy for them; to choose a book that will eventually become their favorite book from childhood. I have copies of my favorites at home, in my personal, library. Moy Moy by Leo Politi, Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina, and The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. I also still have all of my Babysitter Club books. But what resonates for students today will be different, because there are different authors! Yes, we should definitely continue to share stories with students that have proven to be classics, because they continue to be checked out over and over, but we should definitely not keep books that no one is gravitating toward.
And on that note, I shall leave you with some images of what else I've been up to in the library these last couple of months:
Kindergarten: Author Studies on Denise Fleming, David Shannon, Mo Willems, Dev Petty, Amy Dyckman, and Bill Martin Jr. We recently did a review of how to use Destiny Media Catalog,too.
First Grade: Story Elements; Early Chapter Books; Author Studies on: Cynthia Rylant, Eve Bunting, and Mike Thaler; Review using Destiny Media Catalog and check-in on Biblionasium
Second Grade: Digital Citizenship on Copyright and Keyword searches; Dewey Decimal lessons; Stop Motion movies and Toontastic story arc movies
Third Grade: Digital Citizenship: Evaluating online sources; Searching online databases; Creating a Destiny Collection; Cross-referencing facts and including citations in a bibliography; Review reference materials; Make a BrainPop movie on a topic you've learned about in 3rd grade
Fifth Grade: Reference materials review; Searching online databases with practice citing sources; Nearpod quiz to assess what students needed to review before state testing = bibiography, citations, and periodicals; Practice cross-referencing facts and including a bibliography with citations
I decided, based on my formative feedback from quizzes given to 3rd and 5th grades, that I will ditch the end-of-year research projects for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders, and instead, add in more repetition of information literacy and digital citizenship skills in order to scaffold and reinforce learning, so as to improve retention and carry-over. I'll also add in more book and author talks to highlight what is on our library bookshelves!
 |
| Unboxed new Follett books! |
 |
| Chinese New Year display! Year of the Pig! |
 |
| World Read Aloud Day treats for our volunteers! |
 |
| Student-designed February bulletin board! |
 |
| Biography Book Challenge for February! |
Comments
Post a Comment