library day

We had our first Mommy-Sassy day today since our Magpie was born. We headed to town to visit the library, the chocolate shop, the nature shop & the coffee shop. Before we left, I thought it would be fun to pull up an activity we could do at the library together. I was looking for something that helped teach specific library skills, remembering those field trip days we would take in grade school, visiting the library, learning about the Dewey Decimal system, browsing through card catalogs. Although the process has changed since information was stored digitally, the same filing system still exists and deserves some explanation.

How pleased I was to discover a 9-lesson curriculum just for K-2 children, focused on the same library skills I wanted to share with her. An elementary school in Stanton, KY publishes this library skills curriculum online.

We decided to start with the lesson on learning how books are filed alphabetically by the author's last name, using the Easy Books in the children's department as an example.

The published lesson plan had us start by reading the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes - one of our favorites - but they were all checked out.

So we read two other Henkes books and two books of Sassy's choice. Then we sat at one of the little tables where they already had coloring sheets and crayons set up. I told her she could either color one of the pre-printed sheets or just use the back of the page to draw whatever she wanted.

She did both.



We folded the sheet in half and she wrote her first and last name near the "spine." Since the books on our library shelf were labeled with the first two letters of the author's last name, we wrote the first two letters of Sassy's last name at the bottom of her book to remind her what to look for. Then, we filed her "book" on the shelf where it would go alphabetically.



She asked if we could just leave it there. "Sure!" I said. Then we laughed conspiratorially, like we were doing something so subversive.

She played computer games for another half hour or so, while I talked to the children's librarian who, I found out, was part of the LLL group nearest me. As we left, I asked Sassy to let me take a picture with her by her newly filed library "book." She was so afraid that the librarian would realize we were breaking the rules - since we had filed it there - that she had to sneak it out with her. I was amused, so I played along like I had no idea she was taking it with her. When we got out the door, we laughed like sneaky cohorts again.