We did something really fun today that I think everyone should go and do. :0) As part of our Evan Moor "Nonfiction" study we had to go to the library and use the above worksheet to explore the nonfiction section. I say "we" but really after a brief explanation I sent the girls to do it on their own while I read my book and did some math with Joe. They started in the 100s and perused the shelves making note of what topics were represented by the books in that section. It took them about an hour and they really had fun. Of course, as they were looking they found a lot of books to check out. We left the library with 5 bags of books. I actually got a little bit of attitude from the check out lady. That annoyed me--here I am, using the library, checking out educational books. Just because it was a lot of books should be of little concern to her. Anyway, the girls found some great books--lots of cookbooks, some books about different kinds of writing (ancient egyptian, chinese, hebrew, etc.), a book about hermit crabs, box turtles, cats, ballet, the Titanic, and more. More importantly, they saw how the nonfiction books are organized and saw that there are books about just about everything!
After their exploration, they had to pick a topic, decide on a question they wanted to answer, and use the card catalog to find a book that could answer their question. Hannah is fascinated by the story of the Titanic right now so that was her topic. Grace's original topic was cuttlefish (sp?) but we could find nothing about cuttlefish. Really, where does she get this stuff? Did you know that cuttlefish are like squid and octopus? I didn't but Grace did. Anyway, she had to change her topic to Beavers and managed to find the answer to her question. These were the first two activities in our unit study. The first pocket is about Finding Information in the Library.
The picture above is not very good but I was trying to get a picture of all the books they checked out. This is most of them but some are still in the Publix bag. I don't know if they will take the time to look through and read all of the books they checked out but I hope they will. One of the new ideas I have is to go to the library once a week or so and have the kids pick at least one book from each of the sections of the nonfiction books and read it over the course of the week (or two). There are plenty of short, picture books in every section. I would assume that some weeks they would get interested enough in one of the books that they get that they would want more information and then we can pursue that. Right now for example, Hannah is interested in the Titanic and she has a big stack of various types of books about the Titanic. Some are fiction and some are non-fiction and she plans to read them all.
We did something really fun today that I think everyone should go and do. :0) As part of our Evan Moor "Nonfiction" study we had to go to the library and use the above worksheet to explore the nonfiction section. I say "we" but really after a brief explanation I sent the girls to do it on their own while I read my book and did some math with Joe. They started in the 100s and perused the shelves making note of what topics were represented by the books in that section. It took them about an hour and they really had fun. Of course, as they were looking they found a lot of books to check out. We left the library with 5 bags of books. I actually got a little bit of attitude from the check out lady. That annoyed me--here I am, using the library, checking out educational books. Just because it was a lot of books should be of little concern to her. Anyway, the girls found some great books--lots of cookbooks, some books about different kinds of writing (ancient egyptian, chinese, hebrew, etc.), a book about hermit crabs, box turtles, cats, ballet, the Titanic, and more. More importantly, they saw how the nonfiction books are organized and saw that there are books about just about everything! 
After their exploration, they had to pick a topic, decide on a question they wanted to answer, and use the card catalog to find a book that could answer their question. Hannah is fascinated by the story of the Titanic right now so that was her topic. Grace's original topic was cuttlefish (sp?) but we could find nothing about cuttlefish. Really, where does she get this stuff? Did you know that cuttlefish are like squid and octopus? I didn't but Grace did. Anyway, she had to change her topic to Beavers and managed to find the answer to her question. These were the first two activities in our unit study. The first pocket is about Finding Information in the Library. 
The picture above is not very good but I was trying to get a picture of all the books they checked out. This is most of them but some are still in the Publix bag. I don't know if they will take the time to look through and read all of the books they checked out but I hope they will. One of the new ideas I have is to go to the library once a week or so and have the kids pick at least one book from each of the sections of the nonfiction books and read it over the course of the week (or two). There are plenty of short, picture books in every section. I would assume that some weeks they would get interested enough in one of the books that they get that they would want more information and then we can pursue that. Right now for example, Hannah is interested in the Titanic and she has a big stack of various types of books about the Titanic. Some are fiction and some are non-fiction and she plans to read them all.
4 comments:
I think I need to go through this curriculum for myself!!! have fun!
I love this idea! I'm a little bored with school right now....maybe it's time for something different, plus it fits with my current philosophy that if you know how to learn, it doesn't really matter what you don't know, because you can always learn it.
Our library has limit of 7 (seven!) book per person. Annnnd you can only have them out for 3 weeks! I miss having a library where you can check out as many books as you would like even if someone at the check out doesn't like it. I'm sorry she gave you a hard time. It is too bad that she doesn't understand the joy of finding so many wonderful treasures at the library.
That does look like fun-what a great way to learn about the library (from the person who could browse in the library all afternoon if allowed)
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