PreK - 5 students come to the library once every 5 days for class or book exchange. Students may come in on a daily basis to do research, browse or book exchange if they have their teacher's permission. These are some of the topics we study:

*Author/Illustrator studies where we learn about them, share their books, do various language arts activities that tie in with the books.

*Familiarize and appreciate award winning books. (Caldecott and Newbery)

*Differentiate between fiction and nonfiction books. We may take subjects such as ants, elephants, etc. and share both fiction and nonfiction books that have these subjects in them. Then we discuss what makes each them true or not true.

*Research and Note taking. We may stay with the subjects used with the fiction/nonfiction lessons and use the KWL approach to research and note taking for these subjects, even in Kindergarten. This approach is where students ask the following questions: What do you know already about the topic?, What do you want to know?, and What did you learn about your topic? The questions they want to know are put on an overhead and on a ditto for grades 2 - 3. We've discussed the "Trash Vs. Treasure" technique for taking notes. This method is from the Big Six Information skills Model. All it means is that if the information heard answers one of their questions, it's treasure. If it does not, then it is trash. As a nonfiction book is shared students raise their hand when they hear treasure. The desired information is then written on the overhead or ditto in abbreviated form.

*Comparing and contrasting several versions of the same story. This is also a great opportunity for Kindergarten and first graders to take notes through pictures so they can compare the versions.

*Locating books and shelf arrangement

*Parts of the book, especially the title page information.

*Respect and responsibility of books. Proper book care.

*Grades 2-5 also do units, Dewey Decimal System, Card Catalog, topic sentences and beginning paragraphs to see if they are hooked on reading the story after only reading the first paragraph or sentence.  There is also an empahasis on research skills that support their inquiry classes.  Our goal is for them to be able to independently use and find their desired resources and books of interest.

*Additional instructional classes are set up on an as needed basis through the collaboration between the librarian and classroom teacher. 

Some of the various programs we do to promote reading and using the libraries are as follows:

*Author visits
*Contests during Children's Book Week and National Library Week
*Guest readers
*Virtual Field Trips
*Read for the Record in October