"I have always imagined that Paradise will be some kind of library." ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Showing posts with label #hopesanddreams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #hopesanddreams. Show all posts

Friday, September 23, 2016

From Hopes and Dreams to Rules and Routines

This week, we're making the connection between our Hopes and Dreams and our Rules and Routines. 

Last week's hard, but fun, work thinking about what they want to accomplish, achieve and/or learn in library continues with thinking about the rules and routines that will allow these hopes and dreams to come to fruition. (This post shares the lesson for the third, fourth, and fifth graders. The lesson for the first and second graders can be found here.) 

Our school rules are: 
Take Care of Yourself
Take Care of Others
Take Care of Our Environment

This week, the students and I began a discussion about what these rules look like and sound like in the library.

After connecting to our hopes and dreams and reviewing our school rules, I started the students thinking about them by reviewing our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). By following these technology guidelines, the students are taking care of themselves, each other, and our environment. With the third, fourth and fifth graders, we reviewed the AUP in a way that also demonstrated how I was working on my own hopes and dreams, which are:

SO, what did I do?  

I used my interactive white board...interactively! It was simple, but effective. The students took turns coming up to the board, reading a statement and talking through their thinking while deciding under which area of the AUP it belonged. 

After this we discussed and modeled using our take a break space, addressing how using it ensures that students are taking care of themselves and each other.
Following this the fourth and fifth grade students then shared their thinking about our school rules on a Padlet. The third graders met in table groups to brainstorm what the rules look like and sound like in the library.

Here's what they had to say:




























We'll be continuing to explore the rules and their application by reviewing this week's work and delving a little deeper into how students can take of themselves in the library.

Friday, September 16, 2016

A week full of hope...and maybe a dream or two

This is what I have been telling students all week. These are my hopes for this year: a "big idea" hope and an item specific hope.

It's Hopes and Dreams week and each day the students have been giving thought to what they would like to learn, accomplish, or achieve during our library program this year. This is a tricky thing for students for a number of reasons. First, they have to distinguish between a hope and a dream. Second, I am asking them to think about hopes and dreams specific to the library program. Third, they have to think deeply. It is easy to pick something superficial and fall prey to peer pressure. It is hard to let go of outside influences and look inside yourself to find a genuine goal. For those students who wrote something related to reading more books and borrowing more books, I plan to encourage them to think more specifically as we move forward.

The library windows are now full of their hopes and dreams.

My daily messages looked similar to this:
I read three different books: A Voyage in the Clouds (grades four and five); The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles (grade 3), and This is Sadie (grades one and two).  The books chosen were both a great read aloud as well as a critical conversation starter for hopes and dreams. 

Click on the link below each book to get a glimpse of the students' hopes and dreams. 





Coming soon! 
The kindergarten students will be a few weeks behind.

These visual displays of hopes and dreams will guide our conversations about rules over the next few weeks.