Week Eight: Non fiction search and Pete the Cat!

This week in the library flew by!  This week student's are becoming more familiar with the library and how to locate materials on their own.  Mrs. Jennings has created note cards with call numbers and asked students to locate the book which matches the call number.  Students are assessed by presenting the note card and book to myself or Mrs. Jennings to verify call numbers.  Students really seem to enjoy this game and I like to see students get excited to find items.  We do this game with 4th, 5th, and 3rd grade classes.

It was interesting and actually a bit frustrating.  I came face to face with the Fred Jones' 'the helpless hand raiser.'  I would start to help in big general terms, for example if they asked where 941.2 was I'd say 'the 900s should be on the last shelves of the non fiction.'  But some of them would come back five, ten minutes later with the same card saying they were still not able to locate the item.  It was definitely a test of patience.  Whether the student wasn't trying, was legitimately struggling, or just didn't want to try was hard to distinguish.  I want every student to succeed so I helped as best as I could, often times going through title by title with a student helping them understand how to search for a Dewey Decimal number.  Fred Jones would say to help the student and move along quickly so that you are not lingering and presenting them with an opportunity to continue to ask for help.

Some students had no problem locating materials, zipping through many index cards before the time was over.

Eric Litwin, author of the wildly popular Pete the Cat books was the topic of the 1st graders as they continued on their author study.  We read Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons and then watched a quick version of the story found online.

CEBS Dispositions:

Values diversity - Willingly works with others from different ability, race, gender, or ethnic groups. Welcomes feedback and interaction with others. Listens carefully to others and respects the views of those perceived as different from self.