Thursday, April 19, 2007

Librarian-ing

I've been subbing at an elementary school this week. I've had "fun" cataloging "kits" with big books, and assorted storytelling items for each book. Basically had to decide, do I do a separate entry for each item or list them all on one line with commas. Example: small toy moose to accompany If You Give a Moose a Muffin. I suppose I should have measured the moose and entered it in a 300 tag a: 1 moose b: plastic c: 10 x 15 cm. and then measured and identified all the other small doo-dads that were with the book with individual 300 tags. I didn't. I just listed them all on the 300 a line, separated by commas and measured the bag they were in for c. Time was short and I wanted to finish all of them for the librarian.

That does not mean a thing to you if you do not "enjoy" MARC records. Over the 3 days I was there I cataloged or cleaned up records for 189 items. Not too shabby.

I also enjoyed doing bird research with first graders in the afternoon. The librarian had arranged for two wonderful 4th graders to come as "helpers." We had some very nice easy nonfiction (I think they were Bridgestone) books about birds for our resources.

One table had the parrot book, one had the ostrich etc. The kids listened to or read the book and then filled out a little booklet with an interesting fact, what the bird eats, what the bird looks like etc. On the back there was a place to cite the book as a resource.

It was fun to help them begin thinking about research. The most fun was after the class left and the fourth graders looked at me in exasperation and said, "Those kids sure get off track a lot!" They were amazed that recording the fact that a heron eats crabs could lead to a conversation about Red Lobster. They were sputtering.

I just cracked up. I suggested their own teacher must feel this way too when the kids go "off task."

They came back to help the next day though and both of them asked me if they could have extra booklets so they could show the kids what to do. "We are going to do it along with them," they said.

I think they are natural teachers!

Next TLA report will be on Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier.

2 comments:

Elaine Magliaro said...

Camille,

That's a great post about working with children in a school library. There are days when I really miss having that kind of interaction with kids.

By the way, I wanted you to know that my Poem a Day #19 at Wild Rose Reader is dedicated to you.

Camille said...

Elaine,
Oh wow! Thank you so much! Humpty is one of my favorite eggs.