Library Orientation - Book V & VI

Books #5 & 6
Whose Afraid of the Big Bad Book? by Lauren Child
Beware of the Storybook Wolves by Lauren Child
Second Grade, Lessons Two and Three

These books are hidden gems! 

The main character Herb does NOT know how to take care of his books and one night he tumbles into his story when he falls asleep with the book on his head. The fairy tale characters aren’t happy to see him. Will he be able to escape this nightmare and fix his mistakes? I tie this book in with library book care for my second graders. They should know how to treat a library book but this book serves as a good reminder. I will end the story by going back and identifying fairy tale characters in the book.

What I love about these books
- That the characters are easily recognizable from favorite fairy tales.
- Lauren Child created her book with pages upside down and holes in the pages. The kids are in awe!
- I can use a variety of voices to really create the mood. You should too!
- That I can follow up this story the next week with Beware of the Storybook Wolves. The little wolf plays a major role in this book and you’ll have to go back and point him out to the students when he makes a cameo in Whose Afraid of the Big Bad Book. Here’s a hint; check the ball room dancing page. The kids love seeing him again because they probably didn’t notice him the first time.

Library Orientation - Book IV

Book #4
Miss Smith’s Incredible Storybook by Michael Garland
Third Grade, Lesson One

A magical storybook where the characters come out of the book? That’s Miss Smith’s Incredible Storybook. Miss Smith isn’t like any other teacher Zack has had before. When she reads from her magical storybook the characters come out of the story and come to life. The kids enjoy seeing familiar fairy tale characters take over the school when Miss Smith is running late and Principal Rittenrotten is left to read to the class from the book.

There are more books in the series so it’s easy to continue to excite your students with another Miss Smith book. As a lover of a good scary story you might be able to figure out which one is my favorite. You can consider bringing that title out in October. We always have that crazy week before Halloween when the kids are overly excited.
Miss Smith Reads Again!
Miss Smith and the Haunted Library
Miss Smith Under the Ocean

Library Orientation - Book III

Book #3
Stella Louella’s Runaway Book by Lisa Campbell Ernst
Second Grade, Lesson One

Meet Stella Louella. A young book lover who reads her library book everywhere, which leads her to lose it one Saturday morning.

I always start off telling the kids that this is a book about a little girl who loses her book. I love to hear the collective gasp! I tell them that I hope what happened to Stella never happens to them.

Author and Illustrator Lisa Campbell Ernst did such a good job leaving clues in the text that will tell the children the name of the book Stella lost. I admit that I read this book for a year and never noticed until one day a student pointed out the clues. My mind was blown! Since it is our first story I review what I expect to see the kids doing while I am reading. I tell them that if they are listening they might be able to pick up on the clothes that will reveal the book title. When I am done I always ask someone to tell us the title.

Lisa Campbell Ernst also doubles as the illustrator so she drops clues in the book illustrations too. After the story is over I always flip back through some of the pages and point out clues. At the end of the book you see the crowd of people each leaving the library with a book of their own. I love to tell the kids some of the book titles that the characters checked out. It always gives my students the giggles.

To end the activity, I repeat the same Yes/No activity that I did with my first grade. You can read more about that in my previous blog post.

Library Orientation - Book II

Book #2
Penelope Popper, Book Doctor by Toni Buzzeo and Jana Christy
First Grade, Lesson One

This book has a more recent publication date than my other books. It was co-written by a fellow school librarian so you know the book will cover the topic of library book care well.

Penelope dreams of becoming a doctor but most of her classmates don’t like it when Penelope practices patient care on them. On a visit to the library she is told there are many different types of doctors, including a book doctor. Penelope is excited to become Ms. Brisco’s first resident. As Penelope discovers damaged books she learns how to care for them in the Book Hospital. All of the repair procedures she learns to perform comes in handy one day when the class dictionary falls behind the radiator. Can she save her patient?

Although this book is a little lengthy for my wiggly first graders they do a pretty good job listening to it. After we are done with the story I do the “Yes/No” activity on the SMART Board. I have two categories posted on the screen; Yes and No. I have a bunch of pictures at the bottom of the screen. We discuss each one and I move it into the correct category. 

Don’t have a SMART Board? When I first started teaching and this kind of technology didn’t exist I used two shoe boxes and pictures. I wrapped one in green paper and wrote YES on the top and I wrapped the other in red paper and wrote NO on the top. I found pictures of items, like a dog, a drink, a baby that show things that we don’t want to happen to our library books. I also included pictures of good things. Another option is to include the actual item, like scissors, along with the pictures. Once I had some damaged books I tore one apart and did various things to the book. I put dirty finger prints on a page, on another page I poked holes in it. Once I had a class set of items I could pass out an item to every child in my class. I would then call each child up, we would discuss their item/picture, and they would place it in the correct box.

I purchased the book from Upstart. You can find some lessons HERE

Library Orientation - Book I

It’s that time of year and I’m digging out my beginning of library books. Over the years I have fallen in love with these books and repeatedly use them. I find that my students are captivated by them. I use a specific book for a specific grade level to ensure that my students haven’t heard the story before.

Book #1
The Library Dragon by Carmen Agra Deedy
Kindergarten, Lesson One

 Practice your dragon voice and get ready to entrance the kindergarten students. I start off by warning them that the first book I am going to read to them is a scary book. I tell them it’s about a fire breathing dragon and then ask them to raise their hand if they are afraid of dragons. I then inform them that the dragon in the story lives in a school library.

I will admit that over the years I have omitted certain parts of the story and added my own text in places. The story has a lot of puns that I don’t think the kindergarten students will pick up on them. One change I make is using my schools name and the name of the kindergarten teacher’s class that I am reading to. Some kids pick up on it, some don’t.

After reading the story I introduce the students to my sidekick Shelly. She is a sleepy, silly, chocolate loving snail puppet I bought from Folkmanis HERE when I first became a librarian back in 2002. Shelly comes out of her bag screaming and telling the kids I am really a dragon. I try to tell her not to scare the new students but she keeps insisting I am a dragon and pointing out how I am like a dragon.

I have found a library dragon coloring sheet HERE.

I also found this Teacher's Guide in the Resource section of Carmen Agra Deedy's website HERE.

I can follow up next week’s lesson with Return of the Library Dragon the following week. Mike Krochip and his eReaders better watch out in this sequel!

A new school year begins

A new school year started for me on July 31st.

We ended summer in style with a trip to Mammoth Cave National Park. It was the furthest trip we have taken our camper on so far.  It's hard to believe that two weeks has already gone by since we went on that trip. We're back to school activities, soccer games, and stressful jobs.

My 7-year-old son told me one day last week, "Mom, it was a really long time ago that we went camping". I had to break the news to him that it hadn't even been a week. It's comments like that that reinforces our decision to buy a camper.

We don't have another trip planned until the first week of October. We're going to take the camper to Pigeon Forge for Fall Break. I'm not sure I can make it that long.