21st Century Librarian: January 2024

Sunday, January 28, 2024

Mittens, Jan Brett, Parts of a Book, Research Skills and Intro to Dewey

12:10 PM

Welcome to another Blog post! I skipped last week, becuase we had two days with two hour delays and one day off due to winter storms. On our delay days, I only see students for book checkout.

New Makerspace

This week I added a Makerspace to our space. I have been a huge Makerspace fan for many years now. My experience has included creating a makerspace at the middle, high school and middle school level. I firmly believe that a makerspace can be a very small area, as well as a large area. The most important thing is how students are using the tools in your space. Our current area consists of about ten different building toys/tools (Keva Planks, K'nex, Brain Flakes, Tynker Toys, Magnatiles, Plus Plus Blocks, Lego Duplo, Snap Circuits, Gears, and Legos with a Lego Wall). My students have really loved using this space. I plan to add more as time goes on. Some of these things were in the space prior to starting in the position. Many of the other things I had purchased in the past second hand. I allow students to use the materials after we are finished the lesson and they have checked out library books. My district is even promoting it on their website!

Lessons For The Week

This week our library lessons focused on many different topics. I love the variety I get to include because of all the different grade levels (K-5) I get to see. As usual, the slides for most of my lessons are linked below

Kindergarten and Autistic Support - This week our theme was Mittens. We read some great books with the mittens theme and even sang a song about mittens.

Grade 1 - We finished up our Jan Brett unit this week by reading the Snowy Nap.

Grade 2 - We discussed the Parts of a book. I used a lesson from Mrs. ReaderPants. That lesson is linked.

Grade 3 - I did not see this group this week

Grade 4 - We finished up the research process. I started this a couple of weeks ago. This was a lesson I purchased from Staying Cool in the Library. Linked. I was able to show students World Book Encyclopedia and PebbleGo. We had a great discussion about finding reliable sources and why databases are a superior choice.

Grade 5 - We did a really cool lesson I found on TPT by Mrs. ReaderPants on the Dewey Decimal System where students were given cards of zoo animals and they had to decide how to organize the animals. This will serve as an intro to Dewey. We will do a full lesson on Dewey next week.

Bulldog Packs

My school's mascot is a bulldog - We are the Bulldogs! Once a month we take 45 minutes and have a fun time making, creating, or doing something. Our classes become a mix of many grades K-5. The older students work with the younger students. This month our focus was on games. I love to see my students working together and having a great time!

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Saturday, January 13, 2024

A Fun But Tiring Week

6:59 PM

This week proved to be a fun but tiring week. After a little over a week off for Winter Break and a four day week following that, five days straight felt very long. Like most elementary librarians, my schedule is filled with 5-6 classes a day. I am lucky to be given two preps per day, as well as time each morning, so my schedule seems to be steady but busy.

Mindfulness Night

On Wednesday evening, our school had a Mindfulness Night. This evening was all about SEL (Social Emotional Learning) and invited students and their parents to take part in various activities. In the media center, we put SEL related books out on tables and parents read to their children. As a new employee of the district, this was a wonderful opportunity to meet parents and families and encourage reading.

My Lessons This Week

My favorite part of the day is seeing my students smiling faces and placing books into their hands. Below you will find links to the slides for each lesson (unless a lesson was borrowed from someone else and would break copyright to share). In my school, I also teach 3-5 Gifted and Talented classes so I have included my plans for those classes.

Kindergarten - Hibernation Theme - In kindergarten I have been doing a theme each week. This week our theme was Hibernation. We read the story The Bear Snores On and a Loud Winter's Nap. We also sang the song Bear Is Sleeping to the tune of Frere Jacques and added it other animals who hibernate in the winter. This was so much fun! I really love adding songs to our storytime.

Grade 1 - We continued our Jan Brett unit by reading the story The Three Snow Bears. This seemed to be one of my students' favorites of the books we read by her so far. They enjoyed pointing out the differences between Goldilocks and the Three Bears and this version. To end our lesson we viewed a short National Geographic video about polar bears.

Grade 2 - This week we learned about the 5 finger rule. We read the story Goldisocks and the Three Libearians. My students really enjoyed this story. After reading, I demonstrated the 5 finger rule to my students and provided each student with a bookmark they could take home with them.

Grade 3 - This week we learned about parts of a book. I read my students the book A Book Is Just Like You. This is a perfect book to illustrate the parts of a book. After reading the story, my students completed a coloring sheet where they identified the title, author, illustrator, spine, and cover.

Grade 4 - This week I collaborated with my 4th grade teachers on a research project. I found an excellent research plan on Teachers Pay Teachers that really broke the research process down for students. We picked a topic and worked on filling the first part of the slides together. If you are interested in these slides, I have provided a link to the TPT product.

Grade 5 - This week we reviewed Nonfiction Call Numbers. I also used slides for this created on TPT and the link to the slides product is available above. Next, week I plan on creating various stations for students to practice what we have learned about fiction and nonfiction call numbers.

TAG (Gifted and Talented) - I see my TAG students two times a week. In 3rd grade, we learned about Codes and Ciphers, and are just about to start creating a project in Scratch. Did you know that as a teacher, you can get an educators Scratch account? This allows you to create accounts for all your students. In 4th grade, we started learning about Space Archeology. Students were able to view several videos, and respond in a Padlet to what they have learned about space archeology. They will then create a Google Slides presentation demonstrating knowledge of space archeology. In 5th grade, we continued researching our energy sources. Students had to research their energy source and are creating posters based on their energy source. We will complete this next week, and present on our findings.

This was a fun week! I am excited to continue some of these great units next week and am thankful for a long weekend filled with family and friends.

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Friday, January 5, 2024

First Week Back After Break 1/2/24 - 1/5/24

5:49 PM

Over Winter Break I did some serious thinking about my blog, and decided to keep more of a running log of my weeks. This will be a great resource that I can look back on in the future, and will also allow me to share lessons and slides.

My first day back started with an assembly. My principal put together a New Year, Better Behavior assembly. We noticed that our students were not doing a great job at following our school rules, and thought we needed to revamp this. Our school mascot is a bulldog, so we do a behavior incentive call Pawsitive Paw Prints. Teachers nominate students who are doing an excellent job to receive a paw print, and they receive an incentive. After 500 paw prints are earned, a schoolwide reward is given. In December, our students received a Rockin' Recess (an extra recess time). Our principal reminded students about this, and let our student body know we are resetting for the new year and trying to earn a brand new incentive. It was great to get the entire student body together

I had a lot of fun planning my lessons for the week. (Links to slides can be found below)

Kindergarten and Autistic Support - We did a snow storytime. I have adopted a storytime similar to a storytime the public library might offer for preschool/K. I always create the storytime around a theme. Usually I include two books and at least one fingerplay or song. Sometimes I include the flannel board. This week we read Winter is For Snow and Bunny Slopes. We did a snowflake finger play "Five Little Snowflakes" I found some cute images online and printed them out on my printer. Next, I laminated them, and added velcro. I had students take turns adding the snowflakes to my flannel board. We also sang the song Snowflakes, Snowflakes Falling Downs. This was to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
Grade 1 - Prior to break we started a Jan Brett Unit. Since I only have 30 minutes with my K-2 classes, I decided to skip a story this week and show students how to draw a hedgehog Jan Brett style. I showed them step by step how to draw a hedgehog, using my smartboard and my students followed along. After we finished they colored in their hedgehogs and choose their weekly llibrary books. I plan to hang these up in our hallway.
Grade 2 - We reviewed book care. I introduced this topic by reading the story "What Happened to Marion's Book". As I read I asked students comprehension questions, and we discussed why some of the choices Marion was making in the book were not wise. Afterwards, we played a short smartboard game where students had to decide if a book care scenario was something they agree with or disagree. I found this on TPT, so I am unable to share those slides.
Grade 3 - I did not see them this week, due to the day off.
Grade 4/5 - I did a lesson on Fiction Call Numbers. I spent quite a bit of time introducing this topic, and showing students how our Fiction books are arranged. I found a really great Google Slides activity on TPT to teach this skill. I was able to share an online activity with students where they could fill in answers on a slide by clicking and dragging.
TAG Grade 3 - I am still getting a grip on TAG (Talented and Gifted), but I think its going pretty good so far. We are doing a unit right now in Grade 3 TAG called Break the Code. We are learning about different types of codes (morse code, semaphore code, Braille, and next week ciphers). This week we learned about the history of communication. We watched a video together and then students were able to choose 2 different types of communication and watch a quick Brainpop video on each.
TAG Grade 4 - Grade 4 TAG is in the middle of an archeology unit. This week we learned about the National Parks and students were able to complete four separate tasks online. Now that they finished this, we are able to send a form into the National Parks and they will receive a Jr. Park Ranger badge. I can't wait to present them with their badges!
TAG Grade 5- Grade 5 TAG is in the middle of a Sustainable Solutions unit. This week I introduced them to different forms of energy. They are working in groups of 2-3 students to research a certain energy. Once they finish, their research, they will create a poster and present it to the class. Here is a copy of the page I created for students to write their notes.

First Grade Creating Hedgehog Pictures!

As you can see I had a very full week. In addition to teaching lessons, my big project this week was reorganizing my Nonfiction section. My goal was to add more shelves to my Fiction shelves. Since my shelves are mostly on wheels, its easy to move things around. I was able to add 2 shelving units (front and back) to my Fiction section. To accomplish this I condensed my Nonfiction section a bit.

Thanks for reading!