Ah, the first week of school is always very special time in the library. In my library media center, we start off with the basics: where to sit, a review of school rules, and a tour of the library, which always excites the students because they can't wait to check out books. So, of course, we start off by reading stories that take place in a library or that have something to do with books!
The kindergarten read Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen. It's one of my favorite stories to read during library orientation. In the story, a lion wanders into the library and he enjoys it so much that he decides to stay until one day he breaks the rules and roars in the library. He has to leave, but then he's invited to come back when one of the librarians has an accident and can't work without him. Here's the coloring sheet that students got to work on once we finished the story:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Byk7Fm3Q76yZcHlzN2t3aktaVHc/editThe first grade read about a little dog, who loves books so much that he opens his own book store. At first, no one visits him, but once he starts to read, he is no longer lonely and customers start to visit him. The story is called Dog Loves Books by Louise Yates. Second grade read the true story of Dewey, the library cat. Dewey was once abandoned in a public library book drop and luckily a librarian found him and saved him. He became a resident amongst the library's books and patrons. The third grade read about another little critter - a mouse named Sam. Sam loves writing books and sharing them in the library. Eventually everybody wants to meet Sam, but he's too shy, so he helps people see that they can be authors of their own books and that they can share stories as well.
The fourth and fifth grade toured the library and played an incredibly fun game of library pictionary. Students picked library and technology terms out of jar, such as iPad, call number, and fiction and then they had a minute to draw the term while the rest of the class had a minute to guess it. This game served as great refresher to some of the terms that we may have forgotten over the summer.
The students can't wait to get started on book check and I can't wait to share some of the revamped book care lessons.
