Library Lessons: Feb 4-8, 2019

Y’all.  I made that Anna & Elsa post the other day…and this week, they decided to visit the PNW.  Snow, ice, and temps in the teens – things not typical to the PNW – have been in our forecast & lives for the last week.  We had no school Monday and Tuesday of this week and a delay on Wednesday due to over 8″ of snow (which then froze – see temps in the teens).  THEN – just as things were starting to thaw – Snowpocolypse 2019 hit, with schools closing early as the snow forecast was 100% right and the flakes starting falling hard and fast at 1pm.

Given the snowy forecast, it was the right time to pull all the snow-themed books and send a “just-in-time” email to teachers, inviting them to stop in and grab a snowy read.

 

But that doesn’t mean that specialists were cancelled for the week.  Far from it!  Here’s what I pulled out of the magic hat to keep students engaged this week.

Kindergarten:

This year, I teach 6 K classes – 5 on Monday afternoon, and 1 on Thursday afternoon.  Guess how many Mondays we’ve missed in 2019?  FOUR.  The Thursday class is so far ahead of Monday – and with the end of our Ezra Jack Keats unit upon us – AND with the snow forecast – that they earned a movie week.  The movie of choice?  EJK’s THE SNOWY DAY on  Amazon Prime. Students watched half as we compared the movie to the book.

 

 

 

Grade 1:

Only one of five grade 1 classes had library this week.  Eep!  They voted in our Guessing the Geisel mock book award, selecting I LOST MY TOOTH! by Mo Willems as their favorite.  With 4 other classes still to vote, though, it’s still any book’s award to win.

Next week, as the other classes need to catch up, this group will listen to the Geisel winner & an honor title.

Grade 2/3/4/5:

New Book Look!  Having recently received the big fall/winter book order of over 300 books (valued at over $4000!) from Follett, this was the week to let all grade 2/3/4/5 students get their hands on as many as they could so they could truly see what new books we had in our library.  And they LOVED it.  There were some students who were ambivalent about looking at new books,  mumbling under their breath, “there’s nothing here l like” – but most found something among the piles that they liked.  This order was heavy on graphic novels and short chapter books (transitional readers), as our collection in those areas was extremely thin.  The next big order will focus on nonfiction.

 

What worked for me?

1. no student could check out the books. Why? Because the hottest books would only be seen by the first class.  i wanted ALL students to get their hands on these titles – holding them is different than seeing pictures.  Bonus: the books weren’t in Destiny yet, which made this easier.
2. no holds on any books.  For the most part, I don’t do holds in the elementary library anymore – too much hassle and work and not enough students looking and discovering what IS there. Plus: no titles were in Destiny, so holds couldn’t be placed.
3. grades 4&5 could write sticky notes of titles they really wanted to read.  With only 20 minutes to do the New Book Look, I wanted maximum LOOKING time for grades 2/3.
4. Spread out the books! I mostly kept series together (there were a lot of short chapter book series), but each of the 8 tables had a variety of books: GN’s, MG fiction, picture books, short chapter books, and a sprinkling of nonfiction.
5. when I do this again, I’ll have music playing.

All teachers in the building were also invited to come down to see the new books.  Those who stopped in left knowing what the library has purchased to meet the needs of their readers, and most left with a new read-aloud idea in mind (they couldn’t take the books yet, as the students need to see them!).

ALSO! Since M/T classes have missed so much library, those teachers were invited to stop in with their students for a 15min check out.  There isn’t much time in the fixed schedule, but a handful of teachers made the times available work and popped in for a quick visit.  It didn’t matter that they hadn’t brought books back – they NEEDED books, especially as the forecast shows more snow for next Monday/Tuesday!

 

Cheers, y’all! –arika