Friday, October 02, 2009

News From the Library--October 5, 2009



WEB DRILL!!


This week fifth graders participated in our Web Drill! Although we have an excellent internet filter at our school, I felt it was important for students to understand that, in reality, they are their own best filters. They have control over what they see and hear on the internet and that control is at the tips of their fingers. Even the best filter can let something inappropriate through and they aren’t always going to be using a computer with a filter. After showing them a presentation on different ways they could exit a website, they opened their laptops and had time to surf several pre-selected sites I had linked on the blog. ( Of course, these were not sites that were inappropriate….but worked for the sake of a drill) After they were engrossed in their perusing, I called out “WEB DRILL!” and they had to exit the site using one of the methods we had practiced. Besides having lots of fun, I think they learned some valuable personal skills for using the internet in an ethical manner. If you’d like to look at the lesson for yourself, go to the Cold Spring School Library Skills Blog and check out the Web Drill post.



Also in the Library this week..


Kindergarten--It was our very first Kindergarten visit to the Library! Students learned library manners using the story book, Manners in the Library by Carrie Finn and then have a great time learning how to choose a book to take home for a week. This is a big step for kindergarteners---checking out a book, taking it home, and bringing it back!


First Grade--We worked on our "Tree of Kindness" project this week. This project is part of our participation in the Anti-Defamation League "No Place for Hate" program. Each class is hearing a story about kindness and then writing an act of kindness on a paper leaf. We are building a huge kindness tree on our Library wall. (Next week you will see the results of this school wide project!) The book first graders enjoyed was Hooway for Wodney Wat by Helen Lester and we discussed how the characters in the story changed from being unkind to Wodney to respecting his differences.


Second Grade--Second graders heard the charming story, Amos and Boris by William Steig as their book about kindness. This simple tale shows how kindness can be reciprocated even by the most unlikely of friends.


Third Grade--Kindness is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler by Margery Cuyler was our choice for third grade. Mrs. Ruler's rather unruly class channels their energies into coming up with 100 acts of kindness and has a great time doing it.


Fourth Grade--How to get rid of enemies? Why, baking an Enemy Pie, of course. Hoping his father's recipe for enemy pie will really help him get rid of his new enemy, the little boy in this story finds out the best recipe for getting rid of an enemy is treating him with kindness. This very enjoyable book of the same name is written by Derek Munson with whimsical illustrations by Tara Callahan King.


Fifth Grade--see opening post


Sixth Grade--After returning from Astro Camp (and missing library last week) the sixth graders reviewed how to use our computer catalog to find books.





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