Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Reading for Science: Space

I am a firm believer that the primary purpose of library time should be about expanding the imagination, not teaching information. However, I am a big lover of learning.

So here's my compromise:

"The library is a place for love of reading and independent learning."

Let's face it, the library is the only unstructured learning environment in the school!

Even so, it's still not usually very interesting to read a non-fiction book out loud to classes. Better, I will read through the non-fiction text on my own, and then give the students a guided reading, speaking ad-lib about the subject and pointing out the pretty pictures.

My theme of the week is accompanied by a display table with a number of topical books, non-fiction and fiction. It's not enough to leave the books there. I find the most effective way of encouraging children to try new books is to take the first step myself . So I give a short phrase about a few of the books, and then open some up (some kids are hesitant to do this!) I find this introduction is enough of a hook to have a few kids crowding around the table to check the books out for themselves.


Read-alouds should be either interesting, or fun, or both. Even a simple, easy-to-read book like, "Going Around the Sun: Some Planetary Fun" is enough of an appetizer to get some students interested about bringing a book home about space.

This book by Marianne Berkes and illustrated by Janeen Mason gives some information, but the rhyming made it a great favourite with my kindergarten and Gr. 1 classes. The kids enjoyed counting along with me too as we named each planet.

Here's an example of a page from the book: