Book Care and Library Expectations

At the start of the year, we take a lot of time to talk with our kindergartner and 1st grade students about book care and library expectations. Out of our "bag of tricks," we pulled items that would be good to use with our library books, as well as items we should probably keep away from our books.

Kindergarteners listened to No, David! by David Shannon as a way to reinforce making good and not-so-good decisions. We completed a handout about those decisions with our library books, too!

Our first graders took a look at several videos that featured our book friends as they shared their library expectations and book care suggestions. We heard from Al the Alligator, Scaredy Squirrel, and Skippyjon Jones!

After each video, students wrote about or drew a picture for one main idea about book care or library expectations--check out a few below:

Never Let a Ghost Borrow Your Library Book!

To start of the year, we talked with students about how to take good care of their library books. We read the book Never Let a Ghost Borrow Your Library Book by Karen Casale.

After reading the book, we asked students to consider themselves "deputized" as members of the Library Secret Service, and as such, we needed them to reinforce any of the Very Official Guidelines (VOGs) from the book.

Here are some of the students' book care suggestions:

Several of them are now on display with our LSS agent:

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Back-to-School Displays

There are several new displays in our libraries to welcome students back to our spaces. At Dallas Center, new books are spotted! :)

And new displays aren't just on the walls. Using new baskets, series books, graphic novels, and popular character books are on display on bookshelves and counters for easy access. 

Some of our book character friends are joining them on the shelves!

Symbaloo Featuring PBS's Math Games

Symbaloo is a web tool that allows the creator to group websites for easy access and use. One Symbaloo features PBS math games, and students can click on any of the squares to play.

Want to try it out? CLICK HERE to access PBS Math Games and play! You can also find the link on the K-2 Online Learning Fun and Gr. 3-5 Online Learning Fun tabs at the of the home page.

August: A Great Time to Prepare Our Library Centers

We have been talking a lot about what new centers we'd like to try in our elementary libraries this year, which ones we'd like to keep, and which ones we'd like to toss. We've been working on a master list and a rotation chart, both of which will be available soon! One center that was successful last year was the ICCA and Goldfinch Award Popsicle Stick Puzzles--you can read about it here.

Puzzles organized!

Goldfinch Award Puzzles

I work in a 3rd - 4th grade building for part of my day. For those kids, I took all 20-something ICCA covers, mod podged them onto Popsicle sticks, and put all of them in ONE large gallon Ziploc bag. I have the book covers displayed in my library if the kids need a visual while they are working.

For my younger K-2 kids, I separated the puzzles into smaller bags. This year, I decided to be a little more organized.

I put 4 Goldfinch puzzles in each Ziploc bag, along with small pictures of the book covers. Not only that, but I put the bag number on the popsicle stick--why didn't I do this last year?! Hopefully, this will save time AND let the kids help keep the center organized, too!

Centers planning at Dallas Center Elementary is underway as well. The centers poster was trimmed and laminated--the first quarter rotations are already in place! Once students have checked out their books, they will participate in a center based on their table numbers.

Two new centers are in the rotation this fall: the Dinosaur Puppet Center and What Happens Next? Center.

The center includes several dinosaur books from our collection, as well as a finger puppet to cut out and color should the student choose. With their puppets, students are encouraged to make up a story to share at their tables. The finger puppet is available from esterstorytimes; CLICK HERE to access it.

The What Happens Next? Center uses the book The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg as a starting point. Students will look at the book, and after choosing one of the pictures, they will tell what they think is the next part of the story. You can access the pdf from http://librarycentersblogspot.com when you CLICK HERE.