Dewey Decimal Game

Hello,

I know that teaching the Dewey Decimal System is probably not on your top three things to teach this year. However, you may have students that could learn to shelve books and be a help to you.
I have mentioned that I have a Library Club. The members of my Library Club give up two lunch recesses each week to come and work in the library. They shelve the books they have learned to shelve, straighten the books on the shelves, dust in the library, pick up trash, help with displays, and help with anything that I need them to do. I begin teaching them to shelve books by using small cards with Dewey numbers on them. They put the cards in order and I check for accuracy. If there is a problem, I tell them that they have made a mistake and they look for it. When one set of cards is complete correctly, they go on to another set of cards. I have about ten sets of cards with increasing difficulty.

I have some students that have completed all the cards and are now shelving books. When a student shelves a book, she shelves the book with the spine facing up and sticking out a bit and she slips in a marker beside the book with her name on it. One of us checks the book and we know how well the Library Club member is doing with shelving.

One more thing I will start doing is to have them work on a Dewey Decimal Shelving game that is online. You can search the internet for ‘order in the library’ or ‘dewey decimal shelving game’. Students click ‘Play’ and sign in with their name. If you are concerned that they have their name online, they can use just a first name or a fake name. Progress isn’t saved, so I made a bookmark for my girls to use as they complete each section. It actually gets fairly difficult in the last few levels, so is a challenge for most students.

Students can do this game from home or in spare time at school. If others see them working on this, they might also want to ‘play’ and the more people you have that have a basic knowledge of shelving, the fewer mistakes you will have in the library.

I hope you have a great week.

Audrey