Change in plans this week due to some 5th graders being gone. Moved map reading and WWII front-loading back a week or two and worked on encyclopedias instead... plus some CYRM reading for a few classes. Interesting work with the groups. Older groups got a worksheet to do on which volume to use to look up words, then got an actual volume to look up one of the words in a team. Although most were successful, there was quite a bit of administrative to-do with kids arguing over who got to get the book, who should handle the paper, etc. Need to solve this by assigning numbers and roles per table, I think. Results in a lot of wasted time.
For younger kids, I walked them through, having various kids come up to either hold a volume or look something up. This seemed pretty effective as the kids were quite attentive to the others who got to be involved.
The goal of both sessions was active participation. Seems like for most of the kids, guided active participation was more effective than being given instructions and then left to work on their own. The exception, not surprisingly, were the high classes who found this method quite satisfactory and were very happy to report out on the facts they found in their encyclopedia topic.
I'd like to move the 5th graders on to understanding how an encyclopedia can help them narrow an inquriy topic by providing headings that divide a subject but this is a tough concept for them. As always, it needs to be broken down and shown very specifically.
On another note, I found a TERRIFIC resource this week that provides research-oriented library ideas that are correlated to Open Court. Although there aren't any specific lessons, it still provides a lot of help for giving kids critical information literacy skills within a learning context.
Cool.
Active participation.
No red ink. (Oh... wait.... that's someone else's mantra!)
Yikes! This was the week of NOISE! It's amazing how kids just don't seem to be bothered by it. Not sure if it was because of 2 three-day weekends or what. Whew!
Still progressing with CYRM books. The Monday kids will be a couple of weeks behind so I'll have to catch them up quickly in order to get the voting done and sent in by April 1.
Mostly checkout this week but some work on I, Doko talking about treatment of elders and a compare and contrast lesson for the younger students on the 3 different stories they've heard. Very interesting to see how their minds work. Some come up with insights that I wouldn't have thought of where others are totally off base. It will be interesting to do a final wrap-up with all 5 books to see what they're able to pull together.
Next week - lesson on map reading and coordinates for olders students in preparation for reading The Cats of Krasinski Square. Also some front-loading information on WWII and the Warsaw Ghetto. Found a great picture to show them that the drawing in the book was probably taken from. Hopefully, this will help them to realize that this is real stuff.
Still going through the CYRM books. Lesson was ok but needs more active participation. A few kids had great insights, though. One actually figured out that the basket was the narrator because it represented multiple generations. Wow! For the older kids, I need to come up with a lesson that uses active participation and helps them to learn about WWII and the Warsaw ghetto to go along with The Cats in Krashinski Square. Fortunarly, with the LCD, I'll be able to show them some actual photographs and tie it in with Anne Frank.
It'll be interesting to see which books win. So far, My Lucky Day seems the most popular for younger kids. Other LMT's seem to think it's because it's a familiar type story (3 little pigs-ish). The next book, The Best Pet of All, doesn't appeal to me much but, sometimes, kids are delighted by things that don't resonate with adults at all. I'll be interested to see what their reaction is.
Book checkout next week so not much time for a lesson but I'll at least be able to intro the next books and work on some background information.
Monday kids are behind due to holidays. Even though a couple of classes switched with Tuesday or Wednesday groups, they're still mostly behind by 2 or 3 weeks. Sigh.
Another week. How quickly they fly! Still in the middle of CYRM stuff. This week was checkout. The process went generally more smoothly. Using kids to do the checkout works well as long as they know what they're doing. Even though it would be easier on me to just pick a couple kids per class and train them to do it, it just seems so much more fair to give all the kids a shot at doing it. It's fun for them plus it helps them better understand technology and how computers keep track of things.
Having the computer down for most of Tuesday was a nightmare but it did give me a chance to explain to the kids about their student id and how it's assigned uniquely to them. Too bad about all the data entry I need to get done to actually check their books out to them. Aargh!
Spent last week continuing to tie reference lessons to CYRM books - dictionary this week along with an online dictionary for the older kids. Discussion on luck vs. skill with younger ones tied to My Lucky Day. Good opportunity to help them understand that by preparing and practicing, we greatly increase the likelihood of success.
Need to spend time this next week actually reading the stories so we get done in time to vote. I'll also try some small group discussion with the older kids about the theme of I, Doko and see how that goes.
Movin' on - Combined lesson on CYRM book with reference lesson. Concept was good but all I didn't do as good a job on connecting the reason for researching Nepal with the setting for the book as I might have. Should have used a better intro to engage them and connect it back. Fifth graders, though, were mostly able to locate information in the sources. Some 4th did ok. Others had lots of difficulty due to lack of information access skills (fancy words for "doesn't know how to look things in ABC order up!). Good exercise, though, in using the actual sources rather than worksheets.
Next trick - get them to realize that The World Book is only ONE of the encyclopedias in the universe.
