Bingo Book Tasting

Here's a quick and fun way to ensure students are actually reviewing the titles we put out for them to sample: Combine a book tasting with a bingo board.

Grade 9 is coming to see our collection of books about WWII - and we have a ton! 

Fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, true survival stories, true rescue stories, DK books with engaging timelines and maps - it's fabulous but....

it can be overwhelming.

To help students focus, I create a Bingo Board that has lots of possible answers for each block. This helps students review the stack at their table with a sense of purpose.

They rotate around to different tables, gathering ideas of what to read and filling in their board. The ones with the most complete sheets get a mini Snickers.

To start, I show slides with the books and do quick booktalks about a few of them.

I create visual lists of the books for them to browse in our display.

Each student gets a bingo board and a pencil and then it's free time to explore the books!

Grade 9 LibGuide that highlights WWII books in our collection

Canva Template to the Bingo Board (I kept it simple for B&W printing)

Canva WWII Visual Book Lists (template) or public view

Extension Activity: Nicky & Vera

It's important to highlight the heroes amongst the everyday people who resisted the efforts of the Nazi party. 

The picture book Nicky & Vera, by Peter Sis, is a short and moving account of the Englishman, Nicholas Winton, who saved over 600 children from Prague by arranging foster families, train tickets, and documents to bring them alone on trains to London. 

After reading the story, I showed a clip from the British TV show "That's Life". 

In the show, we see the elderly Sir Winton surprised to meet some of the children he rescued all those years ago. It's an emotional moment for the students to see the characters in the picture book in "real life".

Book Tasting Cafe: Gathering anecdotal evidence about student reading behaviors

The idea of the "Book Tasting Cafe" was sparked in 2008 when Jennie Scott-McKenzie posted about her activity, "Chez Dewey" on LM_Net. She had designed an activity to engage students in learning about the Dewey Decimal System by "ordering" books using a menu, but spin-offs quickly emerged. 

Today, the most common iteration is to set up the library like restaurant with books to "taste" as a way to hook students on choosing pleasure reading titles. The special touches of a place setting, placemat, tablecloths, menus, and other details create an ambiance conducive to reading and a feeling of ownership over one's book choices.

I've done variations of Book Tastings over the years because it's a great way to promote books, encourage students to take time to read into a book, and make reading feel like a special activity.  

But what I REALLY love about Book Tasting is the anecdotal evidence I gather while the students are busy reading.

While the students read silently at their tables, I watch them like a mama hawk. 

I'm watching to gather evidence about each one as a reader. What I learn about each child during the Book Tasting helps me connect him or her with books throughout the school year.

I learn...

• which students can get into the flow of reading quickly
• who struggles to keep their focus
• which students flip right to the end
• which students drift from the page quickly
• which genres grab their attention
• which students like lots of white space
• which students are willing to take a risk on an usual book
• which ones like a challenge
• which ones read fast 

Book choosing behaviors I see...

• starting in the middle
• smelling the pages
• reading the first page and looking at the cover again
• reading the blurb and moving on to something else
• reading the blurb and telling a friend about it
• flipping to the end to read the last page

These little bits of personal information about students' reading behaviors and preferences go into my mental file. When a child comes to the library, I pull up my memories of the Book Tasting and use the information I gathered to suggest books that will fit with what I saw that day. 

December Book Tastings in our library at

Oberoi International School in Mumbai

"Tasting" Notes

One genre per table

Students choose where to sit

They can move or stay where they are, depending on

how much they are enjoying the book. 

Five minutes per table.

Soup to Nuts: The entire research process in 70 minutes

I initially balked at the idea.

Model the entire research process in one lesson? With students producing a paragraph with sources, cited in-text (!) by the end of the block? 

Absolute craziness. 

But, when a teacher approached me with the idea, I said YES. I figured I would come up with something. 

Was it do-able? Kind of.

https://imgflip.com/tag/soup+nuts

Here's how it went down:

The preparation for the lesson consisted of me actually doing  the task: "Find information about Planarian and Light" (grade 9 Science).

By crafting my guiding questions, selecting sources, searching, note-taking, organizing, writing, and citing, I experienced the task as if I were the student. Along the way, I documented my thinking and my solutions to the obstacles I encountered and these became my "talking points" for the lesson.

I created a guide with the process & resources we'd use in class and a shortened version of my work for students to type into as we did the task together.

This was a "listening" and "doing" kind of a class. 

I told them to work with their eyes glued to my large screen and their laptop screen like a tennis match - my screen/your screen - are we in sync?

Their document had the following key steps:

Guiding Questions to gather background information

Source Selection for background 

• Where do YOU like to go to learn something new?

Brief notes for background 

• Probably won't be used or cited in the paper - just to get a sense of what we're talking about

I knew ZERO about the topic, so my background information was extremely basic. The students had done a lab with these little flatworms, so they were way ahead of me. I just briefly narrated my thought process of getting familiar with the topic.

Focused Guiding Questions 

• Narrower questions based on learnings from the background information

Source Selection 

• What types of sources do we need for our new questions - experts? articles?

Here, I explained that I chose targeted databases for them, based on the teacher's request that they find "scholarly" science articles. 

Search for & Gather Information (the meatiest part of the process)

I showed them how to...

• Navigate database filters: "full-text", subject, search within
• Use quotation marks in notes to indicate text cut/pasted from a source
• Use a source number in notes to track sources
• Grab pre-formatted citations
• Paraphrase (they practiced paraphrasing one of my quoted facts)

Organize Information 

• Read over the information gathered
• Determine categories
• Make an outline with the source codes next to the facts/evidence

Write the paragraph 

• Copy the outline and add sentences around the headings and facts, keeping the source numbers intact

This was a revelation to them - to see how I didn't bother to retype any of the evidence from the outline and how the source numbers stayed with the facts.

Create Citations in Noodletools 

• Pre-formatted citations are easy! Copy/paste into the manual section and add the source number in the annotation section - this keeps the sources with the coded source numbers

Create Works Cited and copy/paste it below the paragraph

Add in-text citations to the paragraph 

• Replace the source number in parenthesis with whatever comes first in the full citation

It was a MAD RUSH but somehow we completed a lot of this - but, not all. 

The students did not have time to...

• Take extra notes on their own 
• Organize their information 
• Write it into a paragraph 
• Complete their citations in Noodletools

But, they saw me do these last bits and clicked into how it all fits together.

Here is the teacher version of the document (my full notes) and the student template (forced copy).

For max efficiency, all tabs I planned to show were open to the exact right spot in an incognito window (research guide, student template, my notes, each site, noodletools).

Will I do this again? 

YES but with a much easier topic with two sources only. 

I liked that they saw how one document could contain everything, and that lightbulbs went off when they saw how my red "source numbers" acted as a code that made the in-text citations very easy at the end.

Before I left, I asked the teacher to promise to invite me back to teach about steps we skipped: 

• source evaluation
• strategies for reading scholarly articles
• more database tips and tricks
• more note-taking options
• more practice with paraphrasing
• more question generation techniques 
• (and so forth!) 

She said ok :)

Clifford, Spot, and the power of reading

Week 5

PreK 3 & 4: Guiding Question - Who is Clifford?

PreK is learning about the color red this week, so who better to read about than Clifford the Big Red Dog?! We began with the first in the series and the age 4 students also heard Clifford and the Big Storm. Afterward, each child took a Clifford book and practiced turning pages from the corners.

For more fun with Clifford, try Scholastic's Interactive Clifford stories here and on the Early Childhood page of the library website.

Kindergarten: Guiding Question - What is a series?

We continued to talk about how a series of books has a common element, usually the character.

Where's Spot? by Eric Hill

The first in the Spot series, this classic lift-the-flap book makes a great review of prepositions (under? in? behind?) and engages readers by asking direct questions as we try to find Spot's hiding place.

It makes a fun flannel story, too! Download the clip art here, glue on felt backing, and you're ready to go!

After we told the flannel story, we each took a Spot book and practiced our corner-turning. Fun times!

For more fun with Spot, try the games here or on the Early Childhood tab of the library website.

We Love Spot!

Grade 1: Guiding Question - Why is knowing the alphabet important in the library?

We are moving on to an awareness of how the library materials are organized. We notice that many of our favorite books are in alphabetical order by author's last name. Over the next few weeks, we'll read fun alphabet books, play different games, and do activities that reinforce our understanding of alphabetical order.

Alphabet Mystery, Audrey Wood

Kids love this book!  Little "x" has gone missing and all of the other letters have to find him.  As they solve the mystery there are lots of details to notice and clues to find. The illustrations are computer-generated, with a Pixar feel. This is very appealing for kiddos.

Grade 2: Guiding Question - What is a personal narrative?

In their classrooms, students are beginning to learn about writing personal narratives. In library class, we will read many examples of personal narrative picture books. 

We define a personal narrative as a focused account of a particular time in a person's life. They are like a snapshot of an important moment and often include vivid details that help us visualize the scene. 

The stories we'll read during library class may be realistic fiction or nonfiction, but they all focus on a significant moment in a character's life. After each reading, we talk about why the story fits the definition of a personal narrative.

The Wednesday Surprise, by Eve Bunting

A girl and her grandmother meet every week to plan a special surprise for Father's birthday. We are privy to their preparations but never guess the gift. It is among the most beautiful we could imagine: Grandmother learned to read from her seven year-old granddaughter.

More Than Anything Else, by Marie Bradby

A young boy wants only one thing in the world: to be able to read. As he and his father and brothers toil at a salt factory, he holds his dream close and eventually meets a learned man who can help him. This simple snapshot of the joy he feels when the dream begins to become real is even more meaningful to adults who will recognize his name: Booker (T. Washington).

Grade 3: Guiding Question - How can we map out the library to mark its sections and our favorite spots?

Library Map sample

Students worked in pairs to create a map of the library. They labeled and color-coded each section and added details and small drawings to show their favorite spots. 

How will they show their special spots? 

A spider web where the Spiderman magazines are found? 

A lightning bolt where the Harry Potter books are? 

This is a two-session activity since we are doing very careful and thoughtful work.

Grade 4 & 5: Guiding Question - What can we do with our Destiny accounts?

Grades 4 and 5 created accounts in our catalog system so they can use some of its personalized features. For example, students may log in and save titles they are interested in to their own list. They can print the list or just use it to keep track of books they are interested in.

Students in grades 4 and 5 may also hold books. They will know the book is ready by watching the list we post daily on Miss Kathy's desk or by checking the "Holds Ready" link on the library home page. 


In the next few weeks, Grade 5 students will also learn about how to use other features of Quest, such as posting book reviews, rating books, and recommending books.

Grade 4: 
1) Change the background
2) Save books to a list (add to My List)
3) See status of books checked out (My Info)
4) Hold books


Grade 5:
1) Change the background
2) Save books to a list (add to My List)
3) See status of books checked out (My Info)
4) Hold books
5) Recommend books to friends
6) Rate and review books (after approval)

Series Solutions & Reading to a Friend

Week 4

PreK 3, PreK 4: Guiding Question - How do we read to ourselves?

For pre-readers, the time after checking out books can be a challenge. Looking at the pictures in a book can be a short activity, and we need some other strategies to keep the book-love going.

This week, we heard a story about a boy who reads to a tiger. After we checked-out books to take home, children selected a small stuffed animal to share their books with. We modeled how to tell the story to our "friend": we talk about the pictures and about what is happening in the story.

Read to Tiger, by S. J. Fore
When a little boy settles down to read his book, a tiger behind his couch keeps interrupting his concentration with lots of noise. He does karate kicks (hi-ya!), makes choo-choo train sounds, and noisily chomps on gum.

Even though the boy keeps asking him to be quiet, the tiger just can't settle down. Finally, the boy asks tiger to sit next to him and then he gets results. Turns out tiger just wanted to hear the story!

Colored pencil illustrations show the tiger's antics: he appears large when misbehaving as contrasted with the small size of the boy trying to read cozily.  

Kindergarten: Guiding Questions - What is a series? What is a character?

To encourage kinders to take home books that they can start to read themselves, we highlight I-Can-Read series books. We talk about how series books are often identified by their main character.

Biscuit, by Alyssa Capucilli

Biscuit is a little pup who's always getting into trouble. "Woof Woof"' is the refrain throughout the story as his new owner tries to get him to fall asleep. 


We read two Biscuit stories with a Biscuit plush toy, barked along with Biscuit, and watched a Tumblebooks version as well. 


By the time we finished, everyone could recognize the words "Woof, Woof!"

Find Tumblebooks on the "Stories" tab of the library website. (For AISB families: The username and password for home access are found on the bookmark sent home with your parking sticker)

Grade 1: Guiding Question - What are some of the jobs we need to do in a library?

Dewey: There's a Cat in the Library, by Vicki Myron
One morning, a librarian finds a kitten left in the book return bin after a cold night. She takes him into the library, bathes him, and names him "Dewey." (True story!)

He becomes the library's cat: playing and being rambunctious at first, then learning to "help" by greeting people, keeping readers company, and playing with the children. As he learns about helping in the library, we talk about these and other tasks that librarians do.


Soft watercolor illustrations and the true factor make this an appealing read for young children.

Grade 2: Guiding Question - How can one book get us hooked? What is a Text-to-Text connection?

Shrek, by William Steig
Most kiddos are familiar with Shrek from Disney movies, but the "real" Shrek is completely different. He's nowhere near as endearing - he's just really gross! As in the movie, he's on a quest to find his perfectly ugly bride, and he encounters various creepy creatures along the way (none of whom are as creepy as he is.) A witch who eats


This makes a great read-aloud due to lots of chunky vocabulary. In true Steig form, he doesn't shy away from using the perfect word: Shrek has "horny warts" and the dragon is "irascible."


Steig's illustrations accentuate the ogre's rough warty features with scribbly-formed line drawings and a fantastical color palette.

Miss Brooks Loves Books (and I don't!), by Barbara Bottner
A youngster is chagrined to hear from her librarian (Miss Brooks) that "Book Week" is coming up and she'll need to present a favorite book to the class. She has no favorites! 
In fact, she finds fault with every book she's ever heard (too kissy, too pink, and so on). 


Even after reading armloads of books sent home by Miss Brooks, no favorite seems to appear. Mother says she's as stubborn as a wart, and suddenly, the perfect topic arises: warts! Well, if we think of a book about warts, the first that comes to mind MUST be Shrek! (especially since we just read it! Text-to-Text connection!). 


We librarians love a happy ending, especially when it's about a child falling in love with books!


Grade 3: Guiding Question - What would a fellow third grader like to know about us?

Mr. F's class hides behind their peaches

This week we continued with sending our peach-grams. We are including a note about ourselves for the recipient to keep. We brainstormed ideas about what other third graders might like to hear about us, then used our best handwriting and sentence skills to create our notes.

The batch of peach-grams that were sent from Iowa are now headed to New Hampshire, USA. 

Grade 4 & 5: Guiding Question - Can we find books on our own?

Grade 4 is finished with Library Boot Camp (whoo hoo!) and Grade 5 is heading for the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Good job all. And now....go find those books INDEPENDENTLY!  

Insert evil laugh here: Waaa haaa haaa haaaa! 

The Library? What's it good for?

Week 2

Guiding Question for all: "What good is a library anyway?" 

Our youngest students learned words such as: librarian, check-in, return, and borrow. Our older students learned about ways they can find books on their own.

Here's the run-down of what we read together this week.

PreK 3 & 4

It's Library Day, by Janet Morgan Stoek

This is an early childhood book that explains the basics of the library: how to get there, why we go, what we do there, and how much we love it! Simple illustrations and text make this an excellent entry point into a discussion of how the library connects us to the books we love.

I Like Books, by Anthony Browne

This simple book is a terrific way to give children an idea of the variety of books in the library. It's simple and clear. The monkey likes lots of kind of books: "funny books and scary books"..."comic books and coloring books." As he gives examples of the books he likes, we raise our hands to show which are our favorites. Sweet watercolor and pencil illustrations and a crisp clean layout make this a pleasing way to introduce children to the wonderful world of books.

Kindergarten

I.Q. Goes to the Library, by Mary Ann Fraser

I.Q. (a mouse) gets to go to the library to choose a book for the first time. He learns all about the wonders of the library (puppets! computers!) and learns how books are organized and how to take care of them. But what he really cares about is finding the funny book the librarian read so he can take it home. We're all cheering when he finally gets the book and takes it home to read "until his eyes water and his tail curls." 

Baby Bear's Books, by Jane Yolen

Baby Bear loves to be read to, anytime, anywhere - he loves books! When he wakes up, he asks his mom to read to him, when it's nap time he wants to hear a story, at dinner time, and bedtime, and all the while he's so excited about that cozy feeling of snuggling up with a book. This sweet story with adorable watercolor illustrations of the bear family and their woodland home is good modeling for our little ones to read, read, read!

Grades 1 and 2 had another guiding question: "Do you think Mrs. Ducharme could be a library dragon?" 

Answer: Yes, she can.... if you RUN in the library! 

Grade 1

The Library Dragon, by Carmen Agra Deedy

Sunrise Elementary School has a dragon for a librarian. Whenever the kids come into the library she breathes fire on them! But when a little near-sighted girl comes in and starts READING out loud, even the dragon lady librarian's heart melts.

This is great as a read-aloud IF you create a super-mean voice for the library dragon.

Wild About Books, by Judy Sierra

In this story, a librarian drives her bookmobile (new concept there!) into a zoo. Imagine the fun that follows when all of the animals become 'wild' about books! This rhyming story is fun to read aloud because there are lots of details to talk about in the drawings and because many different types of books, characters, and titles are mentioned. For example, the otters "can't go to bed without their Harry Potters." Illustrations by Marc Brown add to the silliness.

Grade 2 

The Librarian From the Black Lagoon, by Mike Thaler (with DVD afterwards)

Everyone is deathly afraid of the school librarian - she's so evil, no one wants to go to the library. Creepy, heartless, and ugly as sin, Mrs. Beamster is a character we're not likely to forget. She's so mean, if she hears you whispering in the library you get LAMINATED. The DVD is even better, so we watch it after getting the gist of the story and it really comes alive for students.

Grade 3: A Peachy Project! 

Grade threes made "peach-grams" in preparation for a world-wide celebration of the publication of James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl. 

We will send our peaches to third graders at the Van Meter School in Iowa. The students there have already sent theirs to us, and they should arrive soon! We hope our peaches will travel to five different schools in the US!

We will track our peaches, share photos, and "meet" our peachy friends via a shared blog created by the lead librarian of the project, Shannon Miller. 

While students cut and pasted their peach-grams, I read "Hairy Faces" from The Twits, by Dahl. Students listened for details that helped them visualize the gross and disgusting scene. Students are working on the reading strategy of visualization in their classrooms, reading Roald Dahl books with their teachers, and writing about Dahl.

Next week, students will practice reading their own "revolting" passages from various Dahl stories. PDF files of the passages are found on my wiki under "Authors."

Grade 4

Library Boot Camp! 

Three sessions to cover the basics of finding books. 

(That's 120 minutes total, soldier. Yes Ma'am!)

Session 1: Finding fiction

We used a Powerpoint presentation with a "quiz" to  identify the three types of fiction call numbers in our library. 

E = Everybody picture books

I = I-Can-Read beginning chapter books

jF/F = Junior Fiction chapter books.

Students practiced alphabetizing to the third letter, found books matching the three types of call numbers, and mastered identifying the three types of fiction books and their locations in our library. 

The powerpoint, quiz, and practice worksheet are found on my wiki under "How to Find Books."

Session 2: Destiny Quest basics. 

We reviewed some of the basic features of Destiny Quest: Resource Lists, helpful narrowing tools, the purpose of Title Peek, the "you might also like" feature, and "my list". Students applied why they had learned by using the catalog to answer several questions on this google form.

Session 3: Dewey!

We watched "Dewey Rap" to refresh our memory about the Dewey system. Then completed activities at two stations. At one, students practiced putting Dewey books in order using the online game Order in the Library. At the other, students practiced by using stacks of our own library books. Once they thought they were correct, they found the post-it notes in the back to check their answer.

Grade 5 will have their library boot camp next week. This week they used the library to browse for books and have reading workshop time with their teacher.

Rotation Five

Welcome back from Winter Break!

We talked about our vacations and especially about how much we'd love to see some more snow!

Grade Pre K 3 through grade 2

Guiding Topics: Snow and drawing hopes for the new year on a January calendar.

We learned a "snow chant" in the hope that we'll get some snow to play in, and we read a story about a girl who made a big huge snowman.

"Snow, please come, snow (looking up to the sky with fingers sprinkling down)

Snow, please come, snow.

We want to pack a big snowball (throw!)

We want to sled (zoom!)

We want to build a great big snowman (hands packing three tall snowballs)

Snow, please come snow.

Pleeeeease?" (hands together, pleading)

The Biggest, Best Snowman, by Margery Cuyler

Little Nell's mom and sisters always tell her "No, you can't help. You're too SMALL!" But when Little Nell's friends, Reindeer, Bear Cub, and Hare, ask her to make a snowman, their group effort results in the BIGGEST, BEST, snowman that ever was! Now, her mother and sisters say that yes, she can help!

Grade 3

Guiding Question: How to other countries celebrate the New Year?

Students heard about customs from various countries, then took an online quiz to show what they remembered.  For example, in Spain everyone eats twelve grapes as the bell chimes twelve strokes at midnight.  In Colombia, families make a doll stuffed with old clothes, objects that bring sad memories, and firecrackers - then they burn it! 

They also used the website "Earth Calendar" to learn about what holidays are celebrated around the world on any date.  Students searched by date and by country.

Grade 4

Guiding Question: What is a perpetual calendar and how is it used?

We learned that a perpetual calendar allows us to find the day of the week for any date - historical dates as well as future dates.  We used two calendars: a 100 year and a 10,000 year.  On what day of the week did the volcano Mt. Etna explode on January 11, 1693?  Why it was a Sunday!  What day of the week will your birthday be on in ten years?  Perhaps your grade 4 child can figure out it!

Grade 5

Guiding Question: What types of stories are included in the genre "Traditional Literature"?

We talked about the differences between the following types of stories, gave examples of each, and gave students browsing time to select a book in this genre.

Rhymes (such as Mother Goose)

Folktales

Fairy Tales

Trickster Tales

Tall Tales

Fables

Myths

Legends