Online Catalog Lesson

I love lessons that take almost no planning and this is one of them. When talking to teachers one thing that came up was a request for books that were already available. Teachers and students had no idea we had access to an online catalog of our library. So that's one thing I feel like has to be made known.

I gave my fourth through sixth grade students a quick tour of the online catalog. We talked about finding books, using keywords if you aren't sure what you are looking for, and how to place a hold. After five to ten minutes of talking I gave them the chance to just explore. They got to look for book subjects that interested them. I kept it pretty freeform because I want students to have freedom in the library and I didn't want it to be a chore for students.

While we did the lesson I noticed a few things: 1) for the most part they followed and did what others were doing, 2) they tended to stick with the books they already knew about instead of exploring new options, and 3) exactly which students struggled with finding books in the library. That shows me we will need to come up with some creative ways to look at different styles of books and explore new interests.