Unintentional Results Are Awesome

I have really enjoyed Karen's posts on her teaching, and knowing how awesome she is in the classroom, it's been a treat for me to really get inside of her thinking to see how she pulls it all together. I've enjoyed all of your comments, especially those dealing with teaching with intention and purpose.

However, in my three years in the library, I feel like I notice the unintentional moments more, I'm not sure why that is, but it seems that they happen more often then I remember in the classroom.

For example, when I started in the library I decided to do read aloud everyday with every class that has come through the library. I also decided to only read things that could be finished while the kids were in the library, no carry over from week to week. Here comes the part that provided an unintentional result, I chose to read the same book for grades 1 through 5. I wish I could give some solid educational rationale behind this, but I can't, my reason for doing this was to make it easier to keep track of what I was reading, nothing more than convenience to me, took the kids right out of my decision.

What ended up happening is that a reading community was built. Every kid at Bailey Elementary had something in common and I actually heard book conversations going on between first and fifth graders! I got emails from parents talking about dinner table conversations about the book that had been shared in THE PIT that week. Of course I played it off like some great plan based on sound educational practice, but it was all born of keeping things simple for me...who knew!?

The Grand Discussions I've hosted with my friend and colleague Joyce for the last 4 years have been filled with unintentional results. They have opened numerous avenues for parent and child conversations about important growing up topics like bullying, self esteem, world awareness to name a few. And of course this year the with the starting of Coins 4 Kids, a result of our Grand Discussion of Also Known as Harper, our fifth graders raised $780.00 to buy books for the library at my sister's school. Joyce and I never meant for that to happen but we're sure glad it did.

The books have always been my focus in the library, this year I branched out into a little more tech stuff, and plan to do more in the future, but because of my passion for books, I have kids recommending titles to me and their friends every day. I have also noticed lately, that the incredible volunteers that work in our library every day are having book talks about what they are reading while they shelve the books. My awesome aid Yvonne, a voracious reader, many times is involved, quite often starting these discussions, sharing titles and thoughts about the books her book club is reading.

So today I'm celebrating the awesome unintentional result that has occurred in the library in three years, a community of readers from our youngest in pre k to our parent volunteers. I love going into work every day, just waiting to see what happens next!

The Amazing Library Race

From the time I started teaching, one of my number one goals has always been, make it fun! I've always believed that if I can get the kids to look forward to school and enjoy every day they are there, I could teach them anything. To that end, when I moved into the library I took a look at the teaching guidelines and immediately started designing games to teach the skills. One of the few things I remember a librarian trying to teach me, was the Dewey Decimal system, and I could never figure out why. Now, before all of my librarian friends take a collective GASP! let me explain. I could never figure out why it was important to know what numbers went with what subjects when I was just going to look inn the card catalog (remember those?) and then go to the number it told me. I was capable of counting and understand decimals so I was always able to find the shelf address I needed. That's how I've approached it in the library now that I'm teaching the Dewey Decimal. I don't really care that the kids don't know that animals are in the 500s, can you find the 500s? Can you find 599.72 or whatever? Well, to help them with this skill, I designed The Amazing Library Race patterned after my favorite show, The Amazing Race on CBS. I was cheering for Dallas and his mom...anyway, here' how it works and some pix of the most recent version in the library.

It's simple really, I wrote four sets of clues that make the kids use their skills of finding books on the shelf. Each set has 5 clues and a roadblock challenge. The teams designated by the color of their bandannas get their first clue and are off to find the next clue hidden in the book found by using the call number. At some point they will hit the roadblock challenge which could be anything from putting a set of cards in alphabetical order and having one of our secretaries check their work, to counting painted tiles on the wall. Each team has a different color stop watch and the times over the four legs of the race are combined for a winner. I give a prize to the fastest team in each fifth grade class, and a bigger prize to the overall winner in fifth grade. Yes the kids are loud as they look for clues, yes they run in the hall to complete the roadblock challenge, and yes, I think they have fun.