Our Friend Dewey

With all the integrating with classroom curriculum in regards to library lessons, I realized sometime in March that the majority of kids still had no clue about how to find a book on their own. So, I started looking for ways to teach the Dewey Decimal system that wouldn't be so boring that I would lose them all in the first five minutes. There's not a ton of stuff out there, but I did find a good Webquest and decided to use that as my teaching tool. Sure enough, the adventures through the sections of the library and finding mystery letters along the way to break a code was just motivating enough to generate responses such as, "This is so cool!" from 4th graders. Our three week mini-unit ended with me creating a Dewey Decimal Jeopardy game using a template. Just fill in what you want on this and use it for tons of great activities.

President for a Day

A colleague found this awesome website at PBS KIDS where students (or grownups) can fill in their basic information and be guided through what it is like to be President for a day. The day starts at 6:00 with choices of what to do before the appointments start, and each page has photos of former U.S. Presidents in action with factual information. It is just the right amount of content to hold kids' attention and teach something at the same time. When you finish going through the whole day, a news article is written about your day as President. Pretty cool!

Decided to take this one step further with a willing teacher, and we are going to make a student-created movie based on a day in the life of a President. Small groups will take portions of the day, write a script, act it out and film using the very cool and kid-friendly FLIP cameras. One of the groups will add in random Presidential facts between takes. Loving the idea of finding a fun way to understand the President's job a bit more.