Day Six - Ahoy Matey!

Day Six began with a fire drill in the freezing morning air - that is one way to get everyone's adrenaline going.  There were a few students in the media center and we escorted them outside to the front of the school.  This was a good reminder that it is important for all school personnel to be aware of the evacuation routes and emergency procedures.

Image from: Grantsburg Chamber

Back inside we met with Lee Anne's 2nd grade reading group.  I had prepared a Pine Pirate Pathfinder to guide the students as they researched famous pirates.  Each student chose one of the four pirates listed and then followed the links to website resources.  I also pulled some print books from the 910s and the biography section for additional reference help.  Two boys worked together on Blackbeard and got the hang of things very quickly.  Next week the group will continue filling in their research templates and will come up with questions about the pirates that they would like to find out more about.  Lee Anne pointed out to me that the Destiny catalog provides quality links through the WebQuest feature.  Next time I will start there when beginning a pathfinder for students!

In preparation for next week's Web 2.0 presentation, I tested some of my chosen Web tools on the library computers.  There were several incompatibility issues, but I hope to work around these technical problems.  My plan is to introduce Animoto, Voki, Tagxedo or Worlde, and more.

I read three SC Book Award titles to a K5 class which was somewhat challenging.  At my home school I know most of the students' names which makes correcting them easier.  At Pine Street I do not know many students' names so discipline can be challenging.  This class was revved up and eager to check out, but some of them followed the stories and they did come up with lots of examples of opposites after hearing Polar Opposites.

A 5th grade teacher approached me about working with her class over the next few weeks.  They are studying the 1920s era and she wants each student to produce a PowerPoint related to their topic.  During the class library time, I will work with small groups of students to introduce PowerPoint creation. 

Lee Anne showed me how to use TitleWave to create reports analyzing the library collection.  This is broken down by Dewey call #s and can get as specific as by 10s.  Amazing!  This is part of my weeding/collection development training and I got some hands-on experience. Weeding operates on the CREW acronym: Continuous Review, Evaluation, and Weeding.  Another popular weeding acronym is MUSTIE:

• Misleading or factually inaccurate
• Ugly (worn beyond repair)
• Superseded by new edition or better book
• Trivial (no discernible literary or scientific value)
• Irrelevant (your collection no longer has a use for the item)
• Elsewhere (available though ILL or branch holds)

(Thanks Lee Anne for reminding me to look up these acronyms!)

What a varied day I had - good preparation for a career as a school librarian.  I am beginning to notice areas I need to work on: cultivating collaborative relationships with teachers, "crowd control" when working with a large group of students, and always being ahead of the game when it comes to technology and web resources.

 One rewarding moment was providing reader's advisory for a 5th grade student.  She had left her Kindle at home and needed some reading material.  She liked The Hunger Games type fiction so I suggested The Giver or Among the Hidden.  She chose the latter and I told her to let me know how she liked it.  I love it when I can successfully match up a reader and a book.

 

Image from: http://edu.glogster.com/blog-thumbs/14/21/75/66/21756632_2/dystopian-fiction.jpg?u=cfffe272ded09e462d8be18e86f73ab1