Monday, May 20, 2013

Weeding the Library

Greetings!
It is time to begin to wind down the school year. Don’t forget to take a look at the library and see where those needs are for next year. Yes, I know we have three weeks left of school, but here’s where you can put some responsible students to work for you and help make your life a bit easier. More on that in a little bit.

It is time to weed the library. I know it is hard to throw out books, so I am going to try to make this easier for you. Think about why you have a library. I would guess that you have a library so students can choose reading material and so you have supplementary material for your curriculum. That would be the main function of a school library. You may have noticed that our SDA curriculum changes as the years go by. It may be that some of the books and materials in your library do not fit the curriculum now or they may even be outdated. If so, then they may not be needed any longer.
Here is a short list of weeding criteria for you to use as you begin to improve your library.

1. BATTERED BOOKS - Weed out any books that are torn, taped, yellowed, missing pages, damaged, shabby, mutilated, marked up, warped covers, or dilapidated in any way. If these books are valuable to you or the school, replace them with newer better copies.

2. OLD BOOKS - Look carefully at the old books in your library.
a. If there are any that aren’t useful to your school, or don’t fit the curriculum, then consider weeding it out. Watch for books that may be valuable to someone else. Those can be sold online or at a used bookstore. BUT – just because a book is old doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good story or a good resource. Think about sending some of these home with students over the summer for them to evaluate. Make out a simple form they can fill out for each book they read.
b. Weed out books with very small print or poor quality pictures.
c. Some books may be old but the information is still valid. Keep these.
d. “Old” is difficult to determine. A science or astronomy book can be ‘old’ after only 5 – 8 years, but information on a career may still be current after 15 years. You get to decide if a book is too old or not.

3. OUTDATED INFORMATION – Repeat after me: “It is better to have NO information rather than FALSE information.” Think technology, science, health, medicine, computers, and space. Enough said.

4. DUPLICATE COPIES
a. How many copies of “Little House on the Prairie” do you need in your library? Is one or two enough? If so, then keep the best one and discard the extra copies. Keep in mind that duplicate copies can also be great to have. Some kids like to read the same book and if each can have his or her own copy, then it’s a good thing.
b. E. G. WHITE BOOKS – Do you need multiple copies of each title? If your school is like many other schools, you likely have many of these. Consider paring down to one good set of the Conflict of the Ages, and Testimonies plus other titles that are useful to your school. Donate the rest to the church library. Keep what you need for your curriculum.

5. ENCYCLOPEDIA – How old is yours? Do you even have one? Encyclopedias are considered outdated if they are more than five years old. Very likely most of your students ‘google’ the information they need or you may use an online encyclopedia which is much cheaper. Consider keeping the newest set for the library and using an online encyclopedia for current information.

6. DONATED BOOKS – These can be tricky. If the donor is in your community and would be offended if you weeded ‘their’ book, then keep it until they leave. It is not worth making an enemy just to have a few inches of shelf space. However, if the book is in bad shape or has incorrect information in it, then you might try to find a way to dispose of the book. (Maybe it can be shelved in a closet!)

Keep in mind that the library should be useful to you and to your students. Keep what works and weed what doesn’t. What doesn’t work for one school might very well be great for another.
Here’s where your students can help. Enlist students to go through the library shelf by shelf and ask them to pull books that look battered and or old and put them in a box for you to check over.

You will still make the decision, but they have helped with the first part of weeding. This will also have the added benefit of giving them a little bit of ‘ownership’ in the library.
If you have books that need repair, don’t forget that there will be a hands on book mending session at the ASDAL School Librarians’ workshop. You will learn how to do some simple repairs then.

Best of luck in your weeding process. Now I need to get busy and do some myself!

Audrey

Monday, May 6, 2013

Virtual Field Trips

Greetings,

Wouldn’t it be great to take your kids to some of the most famous museums? As we are winding down this school year, why not try a virtual field trip? Scholastic has some great ones. Go to http://www.scholastic.com/livewebcasts/webcast_tips.htm and look on the right sidebar for a list of places you can ‘go’ with your class. If you have a smartboard or a computer connected to a projector, just show it like you would a movie. Another way is to let the students bring it up on the computers and watch it individually or in small groups.

Decoding History with The 39 Clues: A Virtual Field Trip to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History for grades 3 and up is the most recent one. It is hosted by David Baldacci who began the 39 Clues books and the reading club. Even if you aren’t interested in the books themselves, it is pretty cool to have the author take you behind the scenes. You can watch the full program which lasts just over 22 minutes, or in segments. Items shown are Lewis and Clark’s compass, restoration of the Star-Spangled Banner, David Drake pottery, and Lincoln’s pocket watch. The whole thing is really very cool.

Immigration (1892 – 1924): A Virtual Field Trip to Ellis Island for grades 3 – 8 shows photographs, maps, and video of items related to Ellis Island. This field trip lasts just over 30 minutes.

Wonderstruck: a Virtual Field Trip to the American Museum of Natural History is narrated by Brian Selznick. Brian Selznick wrote The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Wonderstruck, both enormous sized books, but mostly illustrated rather than text to read. Three parts of the museum are visited – the Wolf Diorama, the Giant Anopheles Mosquito, and the Ahnighito Meteorite. Activities for each of these are included on the website. This presentation lasts for about 15 minutes.

The First Thanksgiving: A Virtual Field Trip to Plimoth Plantation for grades K – 8 lasts almost 20 minutes, but you might want to allow more time to see the other ones listed there. There are virtual field trips for the Mayflower, Pilgrim Village, Wampanoag Homesite, and lots of other videos about Miles Standish and Pilgrim life. This could be a part of a longer unit and bits shown every day.

The Magic School Bus: A Virtual Field Trip to Liberty Science Center for grades 2 – 8 is about the climate challenge. The video lasts for 27 minutes and begins with the cartoons you may be used to seeing in other videos about the Magic School Bus. Then “Mrs. Frizzle” comes on to host the show and it is live action. They use Google Earth to show where the museum is located. There is an activity pack that you can download. This particular presentation was made to celebrate Earth Day on April 20, 2013.

Winter’s Tail: A Virtual Field Trip to Clearwater Marine Aquarium for grades K – 6 is one that we were able to watch live in October of 2009. This is the story of the baby dolphin that lost the end of its tail after it was damaged in a trap. The people who rescued Winter were able to work with specialists to have a prosthetic tail made for her and she learned to swim again. A movie was made in 2011 titled “Dolphin Tale” about Winter and her story. The webcast lasts 35 minutes. If you go to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium you might even get a glimpse of Winter in the webcam. (Note: I tried, but the webcams are being maintenance at this writing. I’ll try later.)

All of these webcasts have Common Core information and are wonderful to watch and share with your students. Below the Virtual Field Trips sidebar are Virtual Author Visits. You might want to watch these ahead of time to decide if any of them are items you want to share. I watched the Dear America one with Lois Lowry, Andrea Pinkney, and Kirby Larson. All three are authors that have written a Dear America book for Scholastic. (Personally, I would avoid the webcasts with Goosebumps and R. L. Stine.)

I hope you have a great week.

Audrey

PS. Just for your information, I checked out the first Kindles this morning. The students are excited. Last Thursday and Friday I let them play on them during their library class period, then I put the parental lock on them to block all but the books. One student was heard commenting, “Where are the games?” I reminded him that they were for reading, not games.