Call Numbers and St. Patrick

Today I talk about the meaning of St. Patrick’s day and read a few Leprechaun-themed storybooks to the Kindergarteners and second graders. I even did parts of the stories in my best Irish brogue, which was little embarrassing, but I’m technically trained to do it (I was in The Cripple of Inishmaan in college and we had a dialect coach). A lot of the books I put up on the March display got checked out, so I found more to put out. I think I’ve touched every single book in the collection related to Ireland, like even books that have nothing to do with Ireland but were just written by Irish people like Roddy Doyle or W.B. Yeats. Here’s a picture of the display (which, I didn’t create, but just filled in with books):

For third grade, I carried out my “Call Numbers Practice Session.” For what I think are obvious reasons, my second class went way better than the first one. The first time you try a new lesson plan is always hard. Each time you do a particular lesson you get exponentially better (until you get bored with it, that is). The first class seemed to think it was too easy for them, but they had plenty of difficulty locating call numbers quickly. I checked all the kids’ notebooks to make sure each of them had answered my basic question (“If you wrote a picture book, what would the call number be?”) correctly. For a few of them I had to track them down during check-out time and point out their mistakes (e.g. one child inexplicably picked random letters for his call number). I took some pictures of the journals, too:

Anecdote: One of the Kindergarten kids asked me, “When is it white-skinned people’s month?” I told her March is actually Women’s History Month and she got so excited. She ran over and threw her arms around her friend and started jumping and chanting “girls’ history, girls’ history, girls’ history.”

Wednesday in Readers’ Advisory:

• Knights (Young Arthur, Young Lancelot)
• Even MORE St. Patrick’s Day stuff (Ireland forever)
• Rapunzel (ran out of picture books, so offered last girl the movie)
• Mexican hairless dogs (one entry in a big dog reference book)
• Star Wars (always)
• Wakko’s America (not a single Animaniacs item is owned by Bush, though)
• Princesses (Paper Bag Princess!)
• Piano (instructional specifically, but we didn’t have anything of that nature)

In between classes today I worked on compiling books for my fifth grade book talks tomorrow. Marcia requested I talk non-fiction picture books. Here is the list I’m working on.

Grading Worksheets & Reading Aloud

The 3rd graders finished up their computer catalog worksheets today, so I spent some time looking over them. To my delight, a lot of them did really well. Now they seem excited to be able to use the catalog–so much so they were lining up to get a shot at the one computer that’s designated for catalog use. (Jody and I had to tell them they could log in and use the other computers, too). I may sound a little crazy saying this, but it both warms and chills my heart to see the little ones going to the catalog instead of casually wandering the shelves. Obviously, it’s good for them to have catalog searching skills, but it also means they’re growing out of their openness to serendipity and caprice. Sigh.

This afternoon I read Toot & Puddle to both 2nd grade classes. I also recommended all the other Holly Hobbie books Bush has and a book by her kids Jocelyn and Nathaniel. (Isn’t it interesting that her kids ended up writing picture books, too?) Theirs is called Priscilla and the Pink Planet. It’s very Dr. Seuss in its illustrations and the rhyming text. I liked it.

Because there was some interest in fractured fairy tales, I pulled John Scieszka’s The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales. Jody also pulled Sleeping Bunny, Kate and the Beanstalk, and some others.  When we were out of fractured fairy tale options, I showed some girls the Tall Tales display I made for the fourth graders and they snatched some book off of that.

Popular right now @ Bush (from my perspective anyway):

• A to Z Mysteries
• Amelia’s Notebook
• Star Wars
• Football
• Ivy and Bean
• Fluffy

Wednesdays

My Wednesdays at the Bush School are spent with Jody, the Lower School Librarian:

The Wednesday schedule includes visits from two Kindergarten classes, two Second Grade classes, and two Third Grade classes–so the day is pretty full.

Last Wednesday, Jody had all the kids introduce themselves to me individually. They each told me one thing about themselves and were allowed to ask me one question. In response, I told them my favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird, my favorite color is blue and my favorite animals are my mom’s Border Collies (Max and Maggie). They also wanted to know how old I am (25) and what I’m learning in school (which was difficult to explain in brief).

Usually after we met in the story room the kids spend time finding books to check out. This is fun because it gives me a chance to exercise my readers’ advisory muscles and helps me get to know the library’s collection.

Today with the Third Graders we started teaching them how to use Bush’s library catalog. Jody taught a brief lesson about the different kinds of searches they could do (keyword, subject, title, author) and then the kids each picked a subject to search for. Some of them had some trouble when they got to the catalog. The big issues are:

1. Typing and spelling
2. Understanding their results
3. Locating specific books on the shelf

(I’ll try to address some of these problems next week when I teach a lesson on using the catalog.)

After the Third Grade classes, Kindergartners come in. Jody had me read them stories today. I picked Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears and The House that Jack Built for the first class. For the second class I did Mosquitoes again and then Epossumondas. Jody praised my story reading, which felt great. Here are some of the things I try to keep in mind when reading aloud to a group:

• Practice before you get up there so you can look away from the book sometimes.
• Looking at the kids regularly is important because it lets you know how you’re doing and keeps them from misbehaving too much.
• Use a clear voice and try to create character voices.
• Involve and engage the kids by asking questions like “What do you think is going to happen next?” or “Why did he do that?”
• Absolutely pick books that have big, dramatic illustrations (so the kids in the back can see them) and not too many words on a page (Mosquitoes is actually pushing the limit for Kindergarteners).

I had so much fun reading to the Kindergarten classes. Before I’m done at the Bush School I’m going to try some storytelling (i.e. telling without books) as well.

When the Second Graders arrived, Jody taught a lesson about classic tales and their variants. To illustrate her point, she showed the kids different versions of I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly and The Three Little Pigs. Then, as usual, I helped the kids find books to check out.

New Study Suggests Students Lack Information Literacy Skills

“A new study overturns the common assumption that the ‘Google Generation’ – youngsters born or brought up in the Internet age – is the most web-literate. The first ever virtual longitudinal study carried out by the CIBER research team at University College London claims that, although young people demonstrate an apparent ease and familiarity with computers, they rely heavily on search engines, view rather than read and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the web.”

I guess this means school librarians are actually pretty important.

For a PDF of the report click here.

For the press release click here.

To sign the Washington State petition to require public schools to have certificated librarians click here.