Earth Day activities!

     Earth day is Thursday April 22.  Here are a few sites that have activities that engage students and  bring awareness of Earth day and global conservation!

Education. Com

https://www.education.com/resources/earth-day/?msclkid=72ef303863821bc8cebd504f6a6c81cf&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Search%20-%20Spring%20Holidays%20-%20BMM&utm_term=%2Bearth%20%2Bday%20%2Bactivities&utm_content=Earth%20Day

  

  This has some good worksheets and activities for students  to celebrate earth day

Tinkerlab

https://tinkerlab.com/fifty-earth-day-activities/

  Another site using natural materials for students.

Project Learning tree

https://www.plt.org/educator-tips/earth-day-activities/

   Some more interesting activities!

World Read Aloud Day!

     On February  3rd,  there will be a World Read Aloud day with several author volunteers doing a quick virtual read aloud with classrooms around the world to share the joy of reading. 

  Some of the authors are Tracey Baptiste, Debbi Michiko Florence, Hena Khan, Meg Medina, Ellen Oh, Dawn Quigley, Rajanni LaRocca, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Linda Urban, Anne Ursu,  Kate Messner and  Renee Watson. 

  Each  author will  read a five-minute sneak-preview from one of their upcoming books for readers in grades 3-7.  The whole segment will run about an hour.

 The link to the video will be on Kate Messner’s site and she will post it  a day early so that teachers / librarians can embed in Google Classroom if they want . You could also use it in classrooms or share with parents.

The presentations won’t  be long, Kate’s site has the following information.

• 1-2 minutes: Author introduces himself or herself and talks a little about his or her books.

• 3-5 minutes: Author reads aloud a short picture book, or a short excerpt from a chapter book/novel

• 5-10  minutes: Author answers a few questions from students about reading/writing

• 1-2 minutes: Author book-talks about a couple of  other books they love.

https://katemessner.com

Quizizz.com- another tool for library and classroom

   Here is another on line tech tool that students, teachers, and librarians will love to use. It is perfect for virtual learning and compatible with Google classroom.

  There is a lesson and quiz creator. But there are also numerous lessons and quizzes already  created that you can use . Some lessons use power point. The Quizzes are self check. 

    There are tutorials to help you set up lessons , which I did not go all the way through, But the steps seem to be easy. Teachers can assign lessons and quizzes. There seems to be a lot of information to assist teachers in using this with their classes.

 

  There are quizzes in English/ Language arts, Math, Science , Social Studies, World languages,

Creative arts, computer skills, and career/ tech education.

Check this out , I think it will be helpful!

https://quizizz.com/teachers?ref=header_tab

JeopardyLabs- great tool for library & classroom

  You are going to LOVE JeopardyLabs!  The site was created by Matt Johnson, while working on his undergraduate degree at Washington State University, Vancouver. 

  JeopardyLabs makes it easy to create jeopardy games to use with your students. Building one is easy with the template provided. The games can be played online and students will love them!!

  If you don’t want to create your own, you search for games made by others. There are over 2 million games on jeopardylabs. You can also  keep track of points during play, add more than 3 teams if needed, and edit the games to fit your specific needs.

  This is a really useful tool for review, or post/pre testing of  skills, vocabulary, or topics.

  If you go to the site and search for library skills, reading skills, or literature you will find many games that will be useful for you and your students.

https://jeopardylabs.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Free Easy Lesson for GRs. 4-7: Internet versus Print

 I have an easy lesson plan for grades 4-7, that involves students in a completion and shows them the importance of using both books and internet sources for information,
 For the set up , I have  some non-fiction books, a set of encyclopedias, and computers - laptops, desktops, or chrome books.
  Think of some simple questions that students might need the answer to- What year was Lincoln president? When did the civil war start?  Link the question to what the students are doing in Social studies or science so it has some significance.
  For class prep: Go over /ask students to tell the class how to find items in books and encyclopedia quickly/ ) use the table of contents, index, know the Encyc are in alphabetical order.
  Hand out the questions to each group. Students will work together to find answer. One person in each group should be a time keeper, writing down how much time it takes to get the answer. Students write the answer down with the time.
See who gets the correct answer first!! Each group can state the answer , their source, and how much time it took to get  the answer.
 If time permits, students can do another round of questions.
  Exit ticket: Have students determine  what source is best for the quickest answer.
   

Graphic Organizer for Primary Sources      Name  __________________________________________

1.       What kind of document it is ( letter, photograph, newspaper)	2.       Read through document. Make a list of unusual words or phrases.
3.       Is there a date on it? If so, write it down.	4.        If there is not a date, what clues might indicate when it was written?
5.       Is there a location indicted?	6.       Who wrote or created the source?
7.        What is the purpose of the document?	8.        What did you observe?
9.        What did you observe?	10.    What did you observe?
11.   Reflections?	12.   Questions?

Teaching with Primary Sources

     Primary sources offer direct insight to show case history as it was happening. Original photographs, newspaper articles, journals, diaries, speeches and artifacts give details to the time and place of the event.,

      Lesson: 1. Selecta primary source to share with the class (check out The Library of congress American Memory.

  2. Make copies of the document and also a graphic organizer and distribute them to students

 3.  Provide the historical context of the primary source document. Help student fill in the Organizer. Students can work on their own or in groups of 2 to 3 to do this.

4. Students study the document to help them describe what they observe. They can record observations on their organizer. Have students ask questions about elements of the source that seem important. See if students can determine the purpose f the document.

Other questions to ask: 1) how dependable do you think this source is?

2) Would you recommend this source for others to use.

5. Have students rank the document from 1 to 10. 10 being the most dependable. Have them support reasons for their ranking.

Historical Fiction Lesson

   When reading Historical fiction many students have trouble sorting fact from fiction. A graphic organizer can give students a way to organize the elements of a historical fiction book. Students can also analyze how the book presented the true elements of a given time period.

    The process: Describe the elements of a historical fiction book. Remind students that historical fiction is based on a historical event or person and may include fictional events and people to complete the story.  Fictional characters may also drive the plot and give perspective to the event.

     Have students read a historical fiction book that is related to your unit of study. While reading, students can work on completing the organizer. For each chapter, students can note character, events, and compare fact and fiction.  Have students focus on only a few elements, key events and character or plot. Students can keep track of historical accuracy by sorting events and characters into the historical and fictional section.

 They may also use author’s notes, textbooks, online search or other sources to check for accuracy.

Lesson-: 1-2-3 Summary

 Many times we ask students to read and summarize an article or a passage . We want them to be able to present an overview of the article. We need them to tell us what new information they acquired.

   An organizer can help them show what they understanding about the information given. Give then the article and a graphic organizer to the students. In the first section( it can be a bubble, rectangle, or square)  , they will fill in prior knowledge ( what they already know about the subject before reading) .

  While students read have them highlight or underline the important ideas  in the paragraphs Then in the second section ,they can write in 3 or 4 main or most important facts they have discovered.

  In the third space, students can write down a fact or idea that was interesting to them , or a question they had about the topic. Students can then use this to write a short summary if you wish.

  The first time you do this , you may want to model what to do in each section. This can be adapted to almost any grade level.  You could have students do this in pairs.
  

Elementary Librarian- lesson plan resource

  Even though I teach 7th grade Inofrmation Literacy skills, I find that /ElementaryLibrarian.com  is very useful in many cases and also adaptable. Although I am not a subscriber to the entire service, I most likely would be if I were at the elementary level where I had to  plan weekly lessons for   5 or 6 grades.  I did sign  up for their monthly emails , and they come with links to  lessons and the resources needed to go with them.  

  I have used some of the lessons without adapting and some I have changed  just slightly.  The extra resources are printables and also some have power points.     Having just discovered this  I find it very helpful when doing my planning of lessons and it gives me great ideas for things I could include in my lesson rotation.

Netsmartz.org _Parent site for NSTeens

       Netsmartz.org    is the 'parent ' site from the one that I talked about last week. This has lots of  links , ideas, videos, etc for parents and educators   to help  children and students learn more about the safe use of the internet.
  NetSmartz is an interactive and educational program of the National Center for Missing and Exploited children.  It consists of age appropriate resources  for students 5 to 17 to be used by parents, and educators.  There are  many resources here  which include videos, games, lesson plans, activity cards, and presentations.
     The programs are  both educational and entertaining. My students love the NS teens and go back  to replay the games and look at the comics.  If you poke around you will find something you can use with your own children or students.

   Did anyone  find anything similar?  I am constantly on the look out for more sites like this that have excellent content for use with the students.

Recent lessons- April

    During Information Literacy we have been stepping back and doing some literacy type of activities.  Students  listened to the book , The Witches ( Dahl) and  demonstrated their comprehension by  drawing/ writing  about the different components of the story( plot, characters, story arc,)  Students enjoyed this activity and it gave them  a little bit of break from the other activities we had been doing previously.

   Some of the classes  were listening. reading 12 Angry Men (Rose  ) and were  rewriting different scenes  into a play.   We also  wrote some poems for poetry month which most of the students enjoyed.

  This was a little break from the research and information skills that we had been doing .

Inspiration for The Daring School Librarian

 I have been searching for ideas for middle school libraries every since I got this position as a middle school librarian.  I had been a middle school librarian  for 9 years before switching to the elementary level  but a lot has changed since that time.

 One site I have found  is The Daring School Librarian.  It is an awesome site with a lot of content and  great ideas that            has done  on the middle school level.  I am looking at her tech and  lesson ideas and have some solid ideas for lessons and programs.  She has  actual tutorials for her students  that lead them to better understanding of  safe usuage of interent sources, and also a tutorial/ webquest of the steps for

 So if you have not seen this site , I would  greatly suggest you check this out and make it one of your go to places to look!

Shift Happens-2014

I showed this brief youtube video today and we had some really good discussions about technology and how we should us it. I was surprised that some students thought that too much technology was  not good for health and some even said that it was bad.  All in all most classes were good and  took notes on how technology is changing our lives!

  I gave them a list of topics to look for and they were to take  notes.Some found it hard(these are 7th graders)   I also had them thinking about  what careers would require them to know the latest technology.

Look up Do you Know-shift happens 2014- that is the one I used!

FREE Library Lesson!

This lesson will be here FREE for a short time only and then will be for sale on TeacherPayTeachers. Join here at the Organized librarian to be up to date for the next free lesson! Each one I will place for free before I put on TeacherPayTeachers.  

      Library Lessons With The Midnight Librarian

     The Midnight Librarian by Kazuno Kohara (Roaring Book Press, 2014) is a great read aloud for introducing students in Kindergarten and First Grade to the library.   Use it  at the beginning of the year or any time  to review.  

 Read the story  aloud to the students.   Discussion questions can be asked  at the end 0f the story or at occasions where students can use text and illustration cues to answer the questions.

1. What do the animals do in the library? ( p3-4)
2. What was the correct behavior in the reading room? (P5-6)
3. Was there a hole in the roof?
4. Was it raining in the library?
5. Why was the wolf crying?
6. What jobs did the librarian do in the library?
7. What jobs did the owl assistants do in the library?
8. How did the little librarian help the tortoise?
9. How is the library in the book different from our library?
10. What do you think are some good library manners ?

Answer key:

1. read books

2. Correct behavior- being quiet
3. NO there was not a hole in the roof.
4. NO it was not raining
5. The wolf was crying because the book was sad.
6. help animals pick a perfect book, put away books
7. she made him a card so he could borrow books.
8. answers will vary
9. Answers will vary: be quiet, put books away,

Word Puzzle - The Midnight Librarian

Word Bank:  Librarian, Instruments, Yawn, Rain, Assistant, Read, borrow

1. Person who helps find the perfect book   L _ _ r_ _  _ _ _

2.what the squirrels played                            I _ _ t _ _ m_ _ _ _

3.Tortoise was allow to  take book                b _  _ _ o _

4.What  the animals did  in the library           r _ _ d

5.One who helped the librarian                     a _ _ i _ _ _ _

6.when the wolf cried                                      r _ _ _

7, owls did after story & fell asleep               y _ _ n

Answer Key

1. Librarian
2. Instruments
3. Borrow
4. Read
5. Assistant
6. Rain
7. Yawn

Matching ( terms and definitions) The Midnight Librarian

Copy  this page  ( Make several copies)  and  cut apart. Glue onto cards Have two  or three students work together to match terms.  This can be also done during  time when there are students who are finished with book check out or are not checking out books. Make a easy check by  placing on the back  books!  on the cards that go together.

Place where all  the  books are	reads you good books
Library assistants	lets you borrow books
Library behavior	being quiet and respectful

Librarian	Library
Library cards	take a book home and then bring it back.
borrow	Helps put books away

Answer key on back of

place where all the books are - Library               B

library assistant- helps put books away               o  (1)

library behavior- being quiet and respectful      o ( 2)

Librarian- reads  you good books                            k

library cards- lets you borrow books                       s

borrow -take a book home & bring it back            !

The Midnight Librarian

Sequence  Game  : Students can work in pairs to put the following cards or strips of paper in the right order after listening to the story.  After everyone is done,  you can review as a class or have another pair at the table check work.

Animals  come at night to the library to read

                                                           

                                                                                         

The Tortoise can finish his book.

The Little Librarian reads to the owls as they fall asleep.

Little Librarian & her three owl  assistants help find the perfect book.

The Little librarian asks “Please be quiet in the reading room”

The Little Librarian takes the squirrels to the activity room.

The Little Librarian makes the tortoise a  library card.

It starts to rain inside the library.

The little librarians and her assistants read to the wolf.

Bands of squirrels play music looking for a good song.

Other Books Written and Illustrated  by Kazuno Kohara

Here Comes Jack Frost /Roaring Book Press, 2009

Ghosts in the House/ Roaring Book Press,2012

Little Wizard/Pan Macmillan,, 2011

The Haunted House/ Macmillan Children's Books, 2008

Susan Pierce Couture is a career librarian ,  with experience in both public and school libraries.  Currently , she is a branch manager in a public library system.  You can  connect with her at her blog  : TheOrganizedLibrarian. blogspot.com