Pumpkins, good books, information literacy: Week of October 31-November 4

The themes this week included pumpkins, finding good books, and finding out what students know about information literacy skills.

Kindergarten:  I read the Kindergarten students Mousekin's Golden House to support their field trip to the pumpkin farm.  It concerns a mouse who finds a discarded jack o'lantern in the woods and decides to make it his winter home.  The language is engaging for the listeners and it connects with the idea we discussed last week in Pumpkin Circle about the life cycle of a pumpkin.

1st grade:  Read Superdog by Mark and Caralyn Buehner, focusing on the ideas of bullying and how to respect and forgive others.  This theme connects with our Ridgecrest Way themes of respect, responsibility, kindness and safety.

2nd grade:  We read Pumpkin Cat in honor of the season.

3rd grade:  We continued our individual practice in the lab about library shelf order, and I noted down how many games students completed at 100% as an assessment.  All but two students completed at least two games, which was my goal.

4th grade:  I gave the 4th grade classes the TRAILS (Tool for Real-Time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills) assessment to help me focus on specific areas of need over the course of the 35 library classes they have over the school year.  There are five main topic areas tested, including developing topics, identifying sources, developing and using search strategies, evaluating sources, and using information responsibly and ethically.  I will devise my class lesson plans and collaboration with teachers based on the results of this assessment.

5th grade:  We had a long checkout period today to allow me to connect with more students individually. Both 5th grade classes come to the library at the same time, so managing to connect with 60 students in 30 minutes is difficult, if not impossible.

6th grade:  I booktalked titles from the classics genre this week to the 6th grade classes.  The 6th grade HiCap class has it as one of their choices for their monthly projects, and all the 6th grade students gravitate towards the latest books, rather than classics.  I discussed the definition of a classic with the students and showed them some titles, including books by Twain, Kipling, Stevenson, Alcott, Travers, etc.