It just sounds spookier with his accent. Listen to the whole book here!
THANKSGIVING
Debating (cause I still haven't gotten very many students or staff to fill out a "favorite book" leaf for the "Fall into Reading" bulletin board) ...
but one year (a couple years ago so I don't have a pic) we handed out one brown paper turkey body to each classroom. If you want to know the truth they looked surprisingly like a bowling pin. Google "bowling pin outline clip art" then whiteout the stripe around the neck. Voila! Turkey body. Anyway. Kids decorated them to look like their teacher (TOO cute. Glasses and hair and Spurs jerseys and the like) and then each morning for two weeks we added a feather for every 10 books the class read the night before. Should I try again? Didn't get 100% class participation but hey. Couldn't have kept up with that many turkeys anyway.
Turk and Runt might be my favorite T-Day book. Or maybe Twas the Night before Thanksgiving. I love the story about the first draft of that book. I was going to send you to pilkey.com but it looks like he's updated the site (which is still cool, just doesn't have the anecdote I'm talking about). If you go to the WAYBACK Machine and then go to the page about the book there is still a little snippet there. Dunno if this link will work but here it is just in case.
GENRIFYING
Should I? Are you? Sara is just starting. Really wasn't ever planning on it ... actually was kind of against it ... until our new library computers were installed. They take so long to log in (can't leave it up and running) that no one bothers to use the catalog anymore. NOW there's a real reason to. Maybe. Was asking around but only one teacher really gave me any feedback and she was about like me. Could see real Pros AND Cons to it. She told me "I'm game for whatever you go with."
RESEARCH
Today we started a climate research project with 3rd grade. Here's the thing ... there are not many books that talk about the "continental" climate or the "mild" climate. Yes, state and country books that HAVE that climate that talk about it. But all print resources on the topic that I can find require MUCH inference. Can't even find many websites on a do-able reading level. What I have is on a Libguide here. Too bad our computer lab is completely non-functional. #21stcentury
I totally understand your dilemma about genre sorting. A couple of the girls in my district have successfully reorganized their libraries. Problem: when the kids get to high school, they can't find anything. I am way too OCD to reorganize. I have to have the books in order. Will have to check out Neil's site at school tomorrow. "Dying" to see if it makes it through the school's filters.
ReplyDeleteI think that might be why I'm still hesitant. I'm very selectively OCD. Like you will see paper clutter all over my desk that drives me insane :( but books. Books must ALWAYS be where they belong because they have ONE PLACE where they belong. And what about the genre crossing books? It seems very inefficient to "have one in both areas." I don't always buy two copies of each book. But seriously ... with our new computers being so unfriendly I'm still considering it because I can count the number of times kiddos have bothered to log in to look up a book on one hand. IN TWO MONTHS. Dear Computer Guys ... You Really Biffed This Purchase Up. Our middle and high school libraries were the ones that started genrifying first so I can't really use that argument.
ReplyDeleteAs an alternative to genrefying (at least for nonfiction), you might consider simplifying first. I'm changing all my Dewey's to whole numbers and adding signage instead of going METIS. If you mean just for fiction, then I think either one could work if the other librarians in your district agree.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I stopped using our catalog computers too; they just take up so much space and elementary students want to get up and moving! But then again, I dug deep in the library budget to purchase 12 Google Nexus 7's. It hurts this year, but I think it's worth it to have the Destiny Quest app for catalog, plus all the other goodies a tablet offers. Could tech replace your desktops with tablets instead? They are cheaper.
Oh, I wouldn't do non-fiction. We have signs for general "100" areas and then shelf labels for more specific things. Those are working. It's the fiction (and picture books, but that was always interesting because the computers were So Far Away from that area and hello, kinders using the catalog independently is not a realistic expectation) that is getting killed. They can't look things up so they either are asking asking asking us or going and getting the same thing time after time.
DeleteWe have SIRSI. No app. :(
And we do have a few iPads which might work for the catalog. I am just ... nervous leaving them out all the time so kiddos can just pick them up and look up books. Our library is a hallway. Completely, totally, no doubt about it and not just euphemistically ... it is the major hallway middle of an H shape for the school. So when I get out the iPads it's for a specific activity that I am actively monitoring. I have nightmares of "I'll leave it out so they can look up books" and then getting distracted by a question and someone slipping it into a bag and walking off. Is that being picky? Be honest. It might be. We lose books that way all the time. Just not enough for them to build walls. :/ The FUSS that was made when I first got the grant and got some Nooks. OH MY WORD THE FUSS. Took almost a year to actually get the "OK" to use them. I would like to mess around with a Nexus tablet just to see.