Hello,
If you need to do a quick weeding in your library, start with these criteria.
1. Weed out books that are torn, taped, yellowed, missing pages, damaged in some way, or dilapidated.
2. Look at the old books. Weed out those that aren’t useful to your library. Think about weeding books that were written for adults. Look at each and ask yourself if you are interested in that book and would your students want to grab it to use. Is it appropriate for your curriculum? Can you get another newer better copy that would actually be used? Decide if it is shelf-worthy.
3. E. G. White books – do you need multiples of each copy? Have they been donated to you? Consider keeping one of each copy that you feel is needed for school purposes. Fill in any missing copies that are needed. Donate others to the church library. If you need multiple copies, then keep what will be used and is needed.
4. Check the paperbacks. How beat up are they? Are they being used? Are they shabby, warped, mutilated, marked up? If a paperback book is actually being used, but is in poor shape, that is a clue to replace it with a hardcover or better paperback copy.
5. Weed out books with very small print or poor quality pictures.
6. Weed out outdated and obsolete information. Think about technology, science, health, medicine, computers, space. These things change quickly and it is possible that your library needs to weed these out. I usually use Jupiter as a guide. If the book on Jupiter says that Jupiter has 17 moons, that needs to go.
7. Inaccurate or false information. Librarians say that no information is better than wrong information.
8. Duplicate copies. Do you need duplicates of the title? If not, then keep the best one.
9. Encyclopedia – How old is yours? Do you have one? If it is five years old or older, it is outdated. Use an online encyclopedia instead for current information. Some schools like to keep one print encyclopedia to have for basic information and to teach students how to look up information in a book, but they use the internet for any information that might need to be updated.
10. Donated books can be tricky. Is the donor in your community and would they be offended if you weeded the book?
Remember that if a book is something that your students and your patrons use, then feel free to keep it even if it fits into some of the weeding criteria above. You don’t have to get rid of it unless you want to. Some old books may be valuable, so check online at a source such as Amazon.com before putting it in a dumpster. Get a parent to help with this part if you like. Anything you can sell will bring in money to help improve your library.
Have a great week,
Audrey
Monday, January 26, 2015
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Virtual Field Trips
Hello,
How many of you take field trips with your kids? Probably all of you. BUT, how many of you take your students to visit Ellis Island or the Smithsonian museum? Probably none of you since money, time, and distance prohibit this. However, you can take them on virtual field trips to these places and more. A couple of years ago I found a website from Scholastic with virtual field trips.
Here’s the link: http://www.scholastic.com/livewebcasts/webcast_tips.htm
I know you. You don’t have time right now to browse the site and see what’s there. You’ll do it later. But when ‘later’ comes, you will forget all about this site or you won’t remember what the site was and this information will just fly right out the window. So, just to help you remember, I’ll list the information quickly here and that may help a bit.
VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS
Grades 3 and up Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
Grades 3 – 8 Ellis Island
Grades 3 – 8 The American Museum of Natural History (NYC)
Grades K – 8 The First Thanksgiving: Plimoth Plantation
Grades 2 – 8 Magic School Bus: Liberty Science Center
Grades K – 6 Winter’s Tail: Clearwater Marine Aquarium
VIRTUAL AUTHOR VISITS
I’m not going to list all of the authors, but I notice in the listings, that a number of the author visits have multiple authors. I would suggest that you preview these first to familiarize yourself with the authors and their books. R. L. Stine writes the Goosebumps series and I doubt that his books are in your libraries. J. K. Rowling writes Harry Potter, and Rick Riordan writes high fantasy. It may be that these authors are speaking about the writing process rather than promoting their books, but that is why I suggest you watch it first to decide if the particular episode is what you want.
LITERACY EVENTS – There are a number of events for all ages from Clifford’s Birthday Party for K – 2 to the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for grades 7 and up.
These virtual field trips are great if only for the reason that they can be paused and returned to at a later time rather than a live event that must be viewed in one sitting or you miss it.
I hope you are able to visit the website and find out for yourself what is available for FREE from the Internet.
Audrey
How many of you take field trips with your kids? Probably all of you. BUT, how many of you take your students to visit Ellis Island or the Smithsonian museum? Probably none of you since money, time, and distance prohibit this. However, you can take them on virtual field trips to these places and more. A couple of years ago I found a website from Scholastic with virtual field trips.
Here’s the link: http://www.scholastic.com/livewebcasts/webcast_tips.htm
I know you. You don’t have time right now to browse the site and see what’s there. You’ll do it later. But when ‘later’ comes, you will forget all about this site or you won’t remember what the site was and this information will just fly right out the window. So, just to help you remember, I’ll list the information quickly here and that may help a bit.
VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS
Grades 3 and up Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
Grades 3 – 8 Ellis Island
Grades 3 – 8 The American Museum of Natural History (NYC)
Grades K – 8 The First Thanksgiving: Plimoth Plantation
Grades 2 – 8 Magic School Bus: Liberty Science Center
Grades K – 6 Winter’s Tail: Clearwater Marine Aquarium
VIRTUAL AUTHOR VISITS
I’m not going to list all of the authors, but I notice in the listings, that a number of the author visits have multiple authors. I would suggest that you preview these first to familiarize yourself with the authors and their books. R. L. Stine writes the Goosebumps series and I doubt that his books are in your libraries. J. K. Rowling writes Harry Potter, and Rick Riordan writes high fantasy. It may be that these authors are speaking about the writing process rather than promoting their books, but that is why I suggest you watch it first to decide if the particular episode is what you want.
LITERACY EVENTS – There are a number of events for all ages from Clifford’s Birthday Party for K – 2 to the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for grades 7 and up.
These virtual field trips are great if only for the reason that they can be paused and returned to at a later time rather than a live event that must be viewed in one sitting or you miss it.
I hope you are able to visit the website and find out for yourself what is available for FREE from the Internet.
Audrey
Monday, January 12, 2015
Easy Chapter Books
Hello!
I received a question this past week from a teacher who wanted some ideas for short easy chapter books for the primary grades. He commented that the children don’t really have a lot to read during a silent reading period and wanted to know of some quality books for them to have.
I LOVE that you are doing silent reading. I truly believe that it is the best thing to make a lifelong reader. If you combine a daily silent reading period with reading aloud to children of all ages, you have the makings of super readers. I know that you’ve read about this from me before, and I will stop with just this short paragraph!
Let’s look at books for this age reader. It can be difficult to use chapter books because they can be intimidating to the younger children. Also, many of the chapter books that ARE available might not appear as though they are worthwhile.
The first idea that pops into my head is the Horrible Harry series by Suzy Kline. If you haven’t read a Horrible Harry book, please don’t dismiss him simply because of the title. In the first book – Horrible Harry in Room 2B, Sidney meets Harry and they become friends. Harry is usually asked to help sweep the classroom and he picks up all the little junk that one finds on the floor and makes ‘Stub People’ with them. When he has enough, he tells Sidney that the Stub People will bring ‘doom to our room’. He puts the little creatures on the teacher’s desk, waits, and is miffed that the teacher thinks they are cute. I read this book to my class years ago and we all made stub people with items that would normally be trashed. Harry is not really horrible, he is just a normal 2nd grade boy. There are many more in this particular series.
Barbara Park’s Junie B. Jones fills a similar role that Horrible Harry does. She gets herself into comical situations and kids just love her. Again, there are many books in this series.
An older series of easier chapter books is The Jigsaw Jones books. These are mysteries for younger readers by James Preller. These books say that the reading level is 2nd grade.
The Arthur books by Marc Brown are also available in a chapter book form. The same characters you find in the single stories are also in the chapter books. The stories are a little longer and a bit higher reading level.
If your students like Arthur the Aardvark, check your library and see if you have Berenstain Bears and Franklin the Turtle. These books do have talking animals, but if you don’t have a problem with that, they also have great moral lessons. The recent Berenstain Bears books are also focusing on Christian values. Prayer, the Golden Rule, kindness, honesty, forgiveness, and more. These are part of the Living Lights section that Mike and Jan Berenstain are now publishing.
Jean Craighead George wrote some great nature books in chapter form. There are four in the series. One Day in the Woods, One Day in the Prairie, One Day in the Alpine Tundra, and One Day in the Tropical Rain Forest all are on a 3rd grade reading level.
Another series that is a bit higher reading level would be Beverly Lewis’s Cul-de-sac Kids set. A few titles include No Grown-ups Allowed, The Chicken Pox Panic, Frog Power, and The Double Dabble Surprise. I’m sure you can find more if you look. These books are published by Bethany House which is a Christian publishing house.
Another author that publishes through Bethany House and other Christian publishers is Elspeth Campbell Murphy. She has written a series called Three Cousins Detective Club, The Ten Commandments Mysteries, The Beatitudes Mysteries, and probably others. These three sets are ones that we have in our library. They are very skinny chapter books with usually fewer than 60 pages, so not too intimidating to the little ones.
One genre that is difficult to find for this age level is historical fiction. There is a little set of books by Marianne Kendrick Hering called the White House Adventures. The Silver Suspect takes place during the James Madison presidency, The Mockingbird Mystery is during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, and The Secret of the Missing Teacup takes place during John Adams’ presidency. These books also have a Christian focus and is published by a Christian publisher.
One very old series is the B is for Betsy books by Carolyn Haywood. These books are actually quite thick and students don’t realize that they are pretty easy to read. The stories are old-fashioned and you may choose to weed them out, but if you have any books by Haywood, at least give them a try first. See if the children like them or not before you discard them.
Patricia Reilly Giff is quite prolific in her writing and she has a short chapter book series called The Kids of the Polk Street School that is fairly old, but fun. The stories are realistic about things that happen to students in school.
I hope these help you find what you are looking for. If you don’t have chapter books for your beginning readers, start looking around and stock your library with a few for those children. We need to catch them young.
Audrey
I received a question this past week from a teacher who wanted some ideas for short easy chapter books for the primary grades. He commented that the children don’t really have a lot to read during a silent reading period and wanted to know of some quality books for them to have.
I LOVE that you are doing silent reading. I truly believe that it is the best thing to make a lifelong reader. If you combine a daily silent reading period with reading aloud to children of all ages, you have the makings of super readers. I know that you’ve read about this from me before, and I will stop with just this short paragraph!
Let’s look at books for this age reader. It can be difficult to use chapter books because they can be intimidating to the younger children. Also, many of the chapter books that ARE available might not appear as though they are worthwhile.
The first idea that pops into my head is the Horrible Harry series by Suzy Kline. If you haven’t read a Horrible Harry book, please don’t dismiss him simply because of the title. In the first book – Horrible Harry in Room 2B, Sidney meets Harry and they become friends. Harry is usually asked to help sweep the classroom and he picks up all the little junk that one finds on the floor and makes ‘Stub People’ with them. When he has enough, he tells Sidney that the Stub People will bring ‘doom to our room’. He puts the little creatures on the teacher’s desk, waits, and is miffed that the teacher thinks they are cute. I read this book to my class years ago and we all made stub people with items that would normally be trashed. Harry is not really horrible, he is just a normal 2nd grade boy. There are many more in this particular series.
Barbara Park’s Junie B. Jones fills a similar role that Horrible Harry does. She gets herself into comical situations and kids just love her. Again, there are many books in this series.
An older series of easier chapter books is The Jigsaw Jones books. These are mysteries for younger readers by James Preller. These books say that the reading level is 2nd grade.
The Arthur books by Marc Brown are also available in a chapter book form. The same characters you find in the single stories are also in the chapter books. The stories are a little longer and a bit higher reading level.
If your students like Arthur the Aardvark, check your library and see if you have Berenstain Bears and Franklin the Turtle. These books do have talking animals, but if you don’t have a problem with that, they also have great moral lessons. The recent Berenstain Bears books are also focusing on Christian values. Prayer, the Golden Rule, kindness, honesty, forgiveness, and more. These are part of the Living Lights section that Mike and Jan Berenstain are now publishing.
Jean Craighead George wrote some great nature books in chapter form. There are four in the series. One Day in the Woods, One Day in the Prairie, One Day in the Alpine Tundra, and One Day in the Tropical Rain Forest all are on a 3rd grade reading level.
Another series that is a bit higher reading level would be Beverly Lewis’s Cul-de-sac Kids set. A few titles include No Grown-ups Allowed, The Chicken Pox Panic, Frog Power, and The Double Dabble Surprise. I’m sure you can find more if you look. These books are published by Bethany House which is a Christian publishing house.
Another author that publishes through Bethany House and other Christian publishers is Elspeth Campbell Murphy. She has written a series called Three Cousins Detective Club, The Ten Commandments Mysteries, The Beatitudes Mysteries, and probably others. These three sets are ones that we have in our library. They are very skinny chapter books with usually fewer than 60 pages, so not too intimidating to the little ones.
One genre that is difficult to find for this age level is historical fiction. There is a little set of books by Marianne Kendrick Hering called the White House Adventures. The Silver Suspect takes place during the James Madison presidency, The Mockingbird Mystery is during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, and The Secret of the Missing Teacup takes place during John Adams’ presidency. These books also have a Christian focus and is published by a Christian publisher.
One very old series is the B is for Betsy books by Carolyn Haywood. These books are actually quite thick and students don’t realize that they are pretty easy to read. The stories are old-fashioned and you may choose to weed them out, but if you have any books by Haywood, at least give them a try first. See if the children like them or not before you discard them.
Patricia Reilly Giff is quite prolific in her writing and she has a short chapter book series called The Kids of the Polk Street School that is fairly old, but fun. The stories are realistic about things that happen to students in school.
I hope these help you find what you are looking for. If you don’t have chapter books for your beginning readers, start looking around and stock your library with a few for those children. We need to catch them young.
Audrey
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
How Can I Promote Old Books?
Happy New Year!
If you are like me, you have a number of older books in your library. You probably haven’t read them and don’t know if they are worth keeping or not. I have some ideas for you. Enlist the help of your students. Set up a display on a table or counter or wherever and put up a sign. Some options could be as follows:
Endangered Books!
Lonely Books
Save the Books!
Tell your students that you are considering deleting these books from the library, but you don’t know if the story is good or not. Ask them to read the book or at least a few chapters of the book to determine if it is worthy of staying in the library. When they bring the book back to you, have a little discussion with him and ask about the story. Ask why he liked it or why she didn’t enjoy it. Ask their opinion as to whether the book should stay in the library or if they think it should be discarded.
Some other ideas are to put a post it or note or golden ticket inside a rarely used book and when the student brings the item to you, they get some kind of reward. I wouldn’t announce this, or you will have students mauling through the books to try to find the ticket. I occasionally do this and it is fun to have the student so excited to earn a prize.
Another very simple idea is to put just a few books near the check-out counter with a sign that says, “Check These Out”. You might be surprised to see them actually being checked out.
If students who have read the book really like it, try making a really great book jacket to attract children to read the book. It may be that once one or two have read it, the word will get around.
You could also put a post it with lines just inside the front cover and have students who have read the book write their names. Lots of times just knowing that Bobby read the book and liked it will encourage others to read it, too.
If you decide to discard the book or books from your library, there are some options for you.
1. Go to Amazon.com and see how much people are asking for used copies of your book. You might be surprised to find that you could sell it and make a little money.
2. Take your books to a used book store. They probably won’t give you cash, but you can start a credit with the store. You can find some really interesting books that are much more appropriate for your library and buy them with your credit.
3. Put them on a special shelf and sell them to your kids for a dime or a quarter or whatever really low price you want. Selling thirty old books for fifty cents each will get you just about enough for a brand new book. (You can even GIVE them away at some point if you want.)
4. If all else fails, take them to a dumpster.
Yes, I hear you. You are shocked and just cannot even imagine throwing away books! Don’t worry. Just try it once and you will be able to do it again and again. Remember that this is your last resort. You have already tried to sell the book and found that NO ONE ELSE wants it either! This makes it OK to throw away.
Well, I’m feeling a need to throw away a few books!
Audrey
If you are like me, you have a number of older books in your library. You probably haven’t read them and don’t know if they are worth keeping or not. I have some ideas for you. Enlist the help of your students. Set up a display on a table or counter or wherever and put up a sign. Some options could be as follows:
Endangered Books!
Lonely Books
Save the Books!
Tell your students that you are considering deleting these books from the library, but you don’t know if the story is good or not. Ask them to read the book or at least a few chapters of the book to determine if it is worthy of staying in the library. When they bring the book back to you, have a little discussion with him and ask about the story. Ask why he liked it or why she didn’t enjoy it. Ask their opinion as to whether the book should stay in the library or if they think it should be discarded.
Some other ideas are to put a post it or note or golden ticket inside a rarely used book and when the student brings the item to you, they get some kind of reward. I wouldn’t announce this, or you will have students mauling through the books to try to find the ticket. I occasionally do this and it is fun to have the student so excited to earn a prize.
Another very simple idea is to put just a few books near the check-out counter with a sign that says, “Check These Out”. You might be surprised to see them actually being checked out.
If students who have read the book really like it, try making a really great book jacket to attract children to read the book. It may be that once one or two have read it, the word will get around.
You could also put a post it with lines just inside the front cover and have students who have read the book write their names. Lots of times just knowing that Bobby read the book and liked it will encourage others to read it, too.
If you decide to discard the book or books from your library, there are some options for you.
1. Go to Amazon.com and see how much people are asking for used copies of your book. You might be surprised to find that you could sell it and make a little money.
2. Take your books to a used book store. They probably won’t give you cash, but you can start a credit with the store. You can find some really interesting books that are much more appropriate for your library and buy them with your credit.
3. Put them on a special shelf and sell them to your kids for a dime or a quarter or whatever really low price you want. Selling thirty old books for fifty cents each will get you just about enough for a brand new book. (You can even GIVE them away at some point if you want.)
4. If all else fails, take them to a dumpster.
Yes, I hear you. You are shocked and just cannot even imagine throwing away books! Don’t worry. Just try it once and you will be able to do it again and again. Remember that this is your last resort. You have already tried to sell the book and found that NO ONE ELSE wants it either! This makes it OK to throw away.
Well, I’m feeling a need to throw away a few books!
Audrey
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