The Shelf Elf for Book Care

     I’ve posted a lot about teaching book care with the younger grades, and while I like to use the same poster board set to introduce the idea of book care ( you can read about that activity here), I wanted to use different books with each grade level.       This year for…

Beginning of Year Library Dragon Scavenger Hunt

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I always like to do some sort of a “Scavenger Hunt” with the upper grades at the beginning of the year.  It helps the students reacquaint themselves with the library, but it also helps them notice changes that may have been made over the summer.  It’s also a great stress-free and fun way for the…

STEM and STEAM Centers in the Library

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Interested in starting STEM and STEAM centers in your classroom or library?  Read on! Last year I started Makerspaces in my library as a way to give my students more opportunities to be “hands-on” in their learning.  (You can read about my Makerspace beginnings here.)  I definitely learned a lot by jumping right in, and as…

Improving Fiction and Non-Fiction – Part 2

(This is a continuation of my blog “Improving  Fiction and Non-Fiction-Part 1″ which you can find here.)      The next step I wanted to improve was how I taught the story elements for both Fiction and Non-Fiction books.  Last year I created an interactive anchor chart that I used in the beginning as we were…

Improving Fiction and Non-Fiction (Part 1)

I am always trying to find ways to help my kids understand the difference between Fiction and Non-Fiction, so over the summer I created a Fiction and Non-Fiction Activity that I could use as an introduction as well as a review with my students. Here’s what I did. Over the years, I’ve collected A LOT of…