First Week of School: Orientation, Just Right Books, and Fun in the Library

Is it just me, or is September the BEST? Everyone's excited to be at school, no one's in trouble yet (I hope), everyone's got a clean slate and is pumped for a new year. Also there's college football and cider mills. But I digress.

I love the first few weeks of school, and even more so since shifting to the library! I've played around with different lessons and orientation spiels and get-to-know-you activities, but I think it's best when it's all focused on literacy. I do not check out books with K-2 the first week of school; they are so overwhelmed just adjusting to being in school that I don't want to add even more to their (and their parents') plates! Instead, we spend the first week defining two important words - library and librarian - and thinking about what our library time should look like, sound like, and feel like.

They're constantly evolving, but here were my first-week lessons for my kiddos this year:

Kindergarten:

 I was all pumped and set to show a couple of super cute videos as part of K's orientation this year, but go figure... My Smartboard broke over the summer and the tech department isn't finished fixing it. Fingers crossed it will be all better for next week!

Instead, we started with: introductions! Since I see all the kids in the school, kindergarten is the only grade where EVERYONE is new. That's a LOT of names to learn, and in my school, a lot of those names are unfamiliar and complicated. I spend the first chunk of time introducing myself, showing pictures of my family (or I would have, if my Smartboard was working!), and getting to know how they pronounce their names. I also fill in a seating chart (by alphabetical order the first week - it will change as needed!).

After introductions, I ask if anyone has been to a library before. We have an awesome public library in our city, so typically about a third to half of them have been to a library and know what to expect. We talk about what a library sounds like (quiet voices- especially important this year because the Speech teacher has an office inside our library; people sharing and cooperating), looks like (walking feet, following directions, cleaning up after yourself), and feels like (a safe place where we're excited to read books!).

Talking about just-right books in kindergarten is tricky, because inevitably you'll hear a lot of "But I can't read yet!" I talk a lot about how to choose a book - does it look interesting? What kinds of things do you want to read about and pictures do you want to see? We also talk about how one way to read a book is to listen to someone else read aloud. Using bits of "We're Going on a Book Hunt", I modeled choosing a book from a handful of 4-5 picture books, thinking out loud through rejecting or choosing one to read. This year I settled on reading the adorable We Don't Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins, which they ABSOLUTELY LOVED. After modeling choosing and reading a book, I dismissed the students to our tables, where they had to choose and "read" a book from a pile on the table for 10-15 minutes. We discussed expected behavior at the tables before dismissal: stay quiet, share with your friends, and ask permission to get up. As they were reading, I did my best to circulate and film Seesaw videos about which books they chose and why. This was both to give parents a window into what we were doing, and also to put a name to the face for me. Read more about my love for Seesaw *here*!


After giving kids a chance to try out "reading" in the library, we took a very important break: We walked into the hallway to see where the closest bathroom is. I cannot tell you how many times throughout the year I get kindergarten teachers saying, "So-and-so walked all the way down to our wing to use the bathroom..." Hopefully this will nip that in the bud!

After our bathroom break, we walked quietly back to our carpet spots (testing whether we remembered our spots!). I then read a favorite library orientation book, Mr. Wiggle's Library, to introduce them to Mr. Wiggle, who will feature in more than one of our back-to-school read alouds!

 First Grade

Moving on to first grade! These kids have already spent a year with me in the library, so introductions didn't take quite as long. Again, we set up a seating chart on the carpet (cue acute distress over my moving the couch) and discussed what a library is. 

Then I put this sign up:

I asked the kids, "Do you think this is true? Can we do ANYTHING at the library?"

The kids: "NO! We can't..."

As I read If You Ever Want to Take a Circus to the Library - DON'T, we made a list of rules that we need to follow in order to be able to do all those great things that we CAN do in the library. The list included "be quiet" (from "don't clap and cheer"), "be safe" (don't tightrope and do flips!), "no food or drink" (to go along with "bringing concessions"), and "be kind" (you can't boo in the library).

After looking back at the list of things we can do in the library, we discussed what fun things we CAN do in the library. When we were finished, our list looked like this (left side is rules from the book; right side is things we can do):

After looking back at our two lists (and a wiggle break!), we thought about what a library patron should look like. I found this adorable free download on TPT that I turned into an anchor chart for us to fill in. Then the students were dismissed to tables to color a black-and-white version of the Library Patron anchor chart.

Coloring our library patrons!

Second Grade:

My second graders were THRILLED to be among the "big kids" in library this year - meaning, they will be using their own Google logins! This is a huuuuuge task that we will be tackling....later. For now, the star of our orientation lesson was this awesome book:

 We read the book and then realized that Skoob (the stuffed animal) was missing from where he normally sits on the Smartboard! Instead, I found a message from Skoob telling us that he had hidden somewhere in the library and couldn't find his way back. We were able to follow his clues through the Easy books, graphic novels, biographies, chapter books, check-in computer, check-out computer, and catalog computer, before finding him in the non-fiction section. The kids did a great job exploring the library - it was a good reminder of where things are from last year!

Then we regrouped on the carpet and talked about what kinds of things we might need to do to get the Golden Shelf Award. Each student took a page for our class book, "How to Take Care of Your Library Books, by Skoob," to illustrate and to decide whether Skoob would approve or disapprove. We'll come back to these books next week!

Another take-home: These super-cute Shelf Elf bookmarks! (Also: Her blog has an absolutely AMAZING Golden Shelf Elf Award. Making one like hers is a goal for next year!)

Third Grade

My third graders have been checking out books for three years, so they know the library layout pretty well. However, there are some new responsibilities that come along with being third graders, like checking out their own books and choosing books from anywhere in the library. We reviewed the main expectations in the library, using signs I adapted from the absolutely adorable signs at DCG Elementary. The third grade teachers all use Bitmojis for everything, so these were perfect! I adapted them to fit our class expectations using my own Bitmoji and am excited to hang them in my meeting area.

After a brief review of expectations (and the all-important creation of the seating chart), we thought about how we choose books. We'll do an in-depth library tour in the next few weeks; for now, we are thinking about just-right books and how we decide which ones to read. After checking out books (and demonstrating an ability to keep shelves neat!), students filled out book recommendations to start our book recommendation display. This is the one activity this year that I didn't feel was that engaging. I'll be trying something new with third grade next year - maybe some sort of team-building STEM activity to practice group work?? Ideas are welcome!

Fourth Grade

Fourth graders are EXPERTS on the VO Library! They also, thanks to the projects they did last year, are experts in creating videos. So their task the first week of school: Create and post on Seesaw a video of themselves describing to a Kindergartener/1st grader how to choose a book! 

We started (after expectations & seating charts) by creating an anchor chart: What is a Just-Right Book? I modeled mine after this Twitter post and had the kids help me fill it in. After this review, kids were off! We combined choosing books and completing the video for the remainder of class. In some classes, we had enough time left over to watch the completed products. They were AMAZING. Some kids even decided to do a skit! LOVED it! 

Whew.... It was a great first week and I am so excited for the rest of the year!! Hope your school year is going fabulously!