Week 1 Officially Over

This year I am going to use my blog to talk about my lessons, ideas I have found and used and what worked and didn't work. I plan to blog once a week about my experiences as I begin my second year in the library!

My school officially started last Wednesday the 14th. I have now seen all of my classes for the first time. This was the hands down best first day I have had in my 5 years of teaching (I previously taught 3rd grade.)

Can I tell you I love PINTEREST!!! http://swerstysswapshop.blogspot.com/ is the best....and I got this idea from her! This year my theme for the library is WILD FOR BOOKS!! It is a jungle in here! I found 5 huge stuffed animals a giraffe, a panda, an elephant, a lion and a monkey. I started my lesson with K5-2nd graders by talking about how these animals had come in and destroyed my library this summer. They didn't know any of my rules and they were taking over. Each animal had a slight problem we had to solve. The giraffe had been running in my library and his baby ran off into the jungle. We had to search for his baby and we found him in the biography section. My panda was busy looking for bamboo and lost his baby. We found him at my circulation desk and talked about how this is where we would check out books for the year. My elephant's big floppy ears got in the way and we found his baby in my nonfiction section. My lion was busy roaring and we found his baby in my picture book section. Last but not least my monkey was busy swinging through my jungle looking for bananas and we found his baby in my chapter book (Junior Fiction/Fiction section). The kids had so much fun learning the rules. The babies had small Mr. Potato Head body parts attached to them and in the end Mr. Potato head was put together and we learned all the rules of the library. My students had so much fun moving around and learning the parts of the library. It is going to be a wild year but we are reading to start the adventure in the JUNGLE!

For my 3rd-5th graders we talked about basic rules and procedures and then went on a QR code scavenger hunt around my library. If you want me to attach the file just let me know. I would be more than glad to. We have a class set of 10 iPads in my library so my students had to share. They loved going around the library searching for clues as they remembered the sections of the library and my rules.

I am ready for the second week to begin. We will be learning about our author of the month David Shannon and making puppets. My older kids are making an author book this year as we learn about authors each month.

Stay tuned for next week. I will upload pictures from week 1 and talk about week 2. I hope some of these ideas where helpful! Thanks to  http://swerstysswapshop.blogspot.com/ for the ideas!