Library Inquiry

One of my favourite ways of teaching is through inquiry. Basically, I observe students to see if there are particularly strong interests or wonders that keep coming up again and again.

Today I noticed a few children who had set up a little desk in our classroom library. I asked them if they would like me to make an announcement that their library was open for business. They lit up and soon the library was full of children excitedly choosing books and signing them out.

My job now is use their interest in this topic to teach the curriculum. Today we watched a video about libraries and wrote a list (looking at the beginning sounds of words) of things we might need in our library.

So far, we have counted the number of students in our class and got enough "library cards" for each of them.

Students have written their names on their own library cards and made up their own special library number (practicing writing their names and numbers).

A number of children worked together to create a computer for our library (cooperation, teamwork and design process).

They are taking turns to play the role of librarian and shelver.

Students used markers, scissors and paper to create their own unique book marks.

They are learning lots of new vocabulary including fiction, non-fiction, author, illustrator, and catalogue. All of those words in just the first day!!

The library is a busy place!