September's Brain Booster

We are off to a great start in our library.  This year the Canyons district has given us Brain Booster lessons to teach during library time.  These lessons coordinate with the State Core Curriculum.  This month we have learned the following:

1st grade:

What's my job?  What does a librarian do? Then we read Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen.  What happens when a lion wanders into the library?  Will he be able to follow all the library rules so that he can stay for story hour?

Location of books.  We read The Jolly Postman or Other Peoples Letters by  Janet and Allan Ahlberg. We compared books to letters.  The postman knows where to deliver the letters because of the address on the envelop.  The librarian knows where to deliver the book because of the call number on the spine.

What makes a story a fairytale?  We talked about how fairy tales always have some sort of magic in them.  Sometimes it is a talking animal or an imaginary creature or some other type of magic.  There is usually an element of good and evil in a fairy tale but not always.  We then read The Elves and the Shoe Maker by Jim LaMarche.

2nd-3rd grade:
Parts of a Book.  We used the book You Wouldn't Want to be a Medieval Knight by Fiona Mcdonald.  We reviewed the front cover, title page, table of contents, glossary, index, place of publication, author, illustrator, copyright date, and spine.  We then had fun reading about knights.


Tool Time.  We learned what an encyclopedia, dictionary, atlas, almanac, newspaper, and magazine are used for. We then learned how to find all those tools on the computer and how to use the internet for research.

The Right Book.  When you are at the book fair, book store, or library, how do you know what book you want.  We learned how to find the right book that interest you and that is on your reading level.  We learned about the rule of 5.  Then we read Miss Malarkey Leaves no Reader Behind by Judy Finchler.

4th-5th grade:

Dewey 000-500.  We reviewed the 000-500 sections of the library.  The students are getting really good at looking up their book on the computer and finding them by themselves.

Setting.  A setting includes both the time and place in which the action of the book happens.  You can tell a lot about the setting of a book by looking at the front cover and reading the back cover of a book.  We read Appelemando's Dream by Patricia Polocco and discussed the setting of the story.  

Biography.  A biography is a story about someone's life written by another person.  A autobiography is a story about a persons life written by the person.  We learned where the biographies are located in the library.  We then read the biography Nelson Mandela by Kadir Nelson.