This post is written by Nichole Baumgartner. Nichole is an Elementary (K-5) librarian. She works at Carlin Park Elementary in Angola, Indiana. She sees classes every day, as well as doing recess duty, lunch duty, and aiding in the Kindergarten and Deaf and Hard of Hearing rooms at her school.
If you are like me, last year ended in a haze of overdue books, last minute requests from teachers, and so many returns that you are probably STILL shelving them. With all that, it is hard to believe that summer is over. It's time to get the library in order, finish all that extra shelving, and get your lesson plans down. Before you know it, kids will stream in the door wanting to know what is new since June. But where do you start? How do you determine what will work for you and your library? And how do you even make a lesson plan? If you are like me, you started your librarian job a little lost, and found the answer through trial and error.
I left last school year feeling overwhelmed. I inherited a library mid-year the year before with no training. I had no idea of what to do with my K-5, 30 minute, twice a week library classes. When last year started, I had high hopes of being the “perfect” librarian. It was my first full year as a librarian. I wanted to be the fun, upbeat teacher. I wanted to be someone the kids all loved to come see. I wanted them to think the library was an awfully special place. But how would I get there?
I had done the research. I found this blog (Elementary Librarian) as well as a few others. I bought the book “The Centered School Library” by Cari S. Young. Still, I didn’t know how to start. I had no idea how to really implement the idea of doing a lesson and stations while still checking out books. 30 minutes just did not seem like it could hold all that. I tried alternating checkout days. One day was for checkout. The other day was for a lesson or fun activity, but that didn’t work. Kids inevitably forgot what day was “book day” and still wanted time to look for books. Sometimes teachers wanted them switching books every day too.
Eventually, I found myself doing nothing. The kids would come in, sit down, look for new books, checkout the books, and then leave. That was all we had time for. Sure a few kids didn’t need books during checkout. However, most took the whole 20 minutes to find a book. Why try to force something that wouldn't work? Inside, I felt like I had failed. I was a boring librarian.
I still looked for new lessons and new ideas, but they all fell through. I would try a lesson, spending 5 minutes to explain a task and demonstrate it, but it seemed like we always ran out of time. Students still needed to look for books and next thing I knew, my next class was waiting at the door. It just wasn’t working.
Then spring break rolled around. I knew if I was going to do anything that year, this would be my last chance. I was desperate to do something other than the boring old sit and look at books for 20 minutes. I had spent hours looking on Pinterest and reading blogs, trying to find a step by step explanation of how to make lesson plans and implement them. After searching and searching, I decided to just jump in with both feet. I polled the kids and asked what they thought of stations. Turns out, they were just as enthusiastic as I was. So, we tried it. I didn’t do any fancy matching to the core standards right away. I didn’t worry about involved stations. I went easy.
I started with five stations. They included: a puzzle (with books about the puzzle subject) station, a set of dry erase games and activities (crosswords, mad libs, etc), a partner read station, a “Special Book” area where I kept all of my LEGO books, OLOGY (Monsterology, wizardology, those types) and the 3D books, and a bookmark station where students could color and design a bookmark. Because I had teachers who wanted students to check out books every library, I decided I would split library in half. For 15 minutes, one half of my class would go to their stations. At the same time, the other half would look for books. Then we would switch. The stations were low key. They were easy to understand. It took a little finagling to make sure I gave equal time to each group. I had to resort to setting a timer on my phone, but it worked. I saw more excitement in the library and the kids seemed to really enjoy the stations. Splitting the time in half worked too. Even those students who didn’t check out books would have something to do.
I loved it. I ended last year feeling much more accomplished and ready to for this new year. I still feel like I am spinning my wheels a little bit and not quite sure where I want to go with, but I know that it won’t be as bad as I make it out to be. Even doing small stations, not full lesson plans, I know that I can make a dent and still make library an enjoyable special. I still need to hash a few things out. For example, what do I do for mini lessons? What do I want to teach each grade? How should I structure my library? However, I know it will come together.
At the end of the day, what I want you to know is that things will never be easy and just fall into place. Take that leap. Just try something, anything. If you do, you will begin to see how it works and doesn’t work with your library. The library is a place for learning for everyone, even the librarian. It doesn’t have to be perfectly laid out and organized. Trust me, the kids just want to do something fun. They are more than willing to try a few ideas, even if they ultimately don’t work. Just start with the basics and see how that works. You can move on from there. Good luck, and don’t give up!
Elementary Librarian's Note: If you're also feeling lost in the library, check out our Library Lesson Plans. They give a step-by-step plan for every day, including all resources you'll need!
Alisa Logue says
When you say 'stations' did that involve a rotation? If it was a rotation, did this only allow for 5 minutes or so at each station? Were the kids appointed to their station or did they get to choose?
Jason Strong says
Just looking at this takes me back to the day before school started and how fun it was getting all of your school supplies ready. All the new and freshly sharpened pencils, new crayons, new crayon box, new backpack, and the best part, brand new school clothes to help make you look good on the first day. I'm not sure what it was like for the teachers and faculty, but I'm sure they had a lot of prepping to do themselves so that they were ready to go right from the start.
Kathy says
I also tried centers last year and loved them. The students were very engaged. This year though, about 1/3 of the teachers (mostly by grade level) would not allow students to participate in the stations. ( They told them to come in at lunch. This made lunch time in the library more like a playground.) They are only allowed to browse, check-out, and read. (I usually give a 5 min mini-library skills lesson at the beginning of our 30 min) The teachers stay in the library but many do not supervise their classes. I stopped doing the centers but miss it - especially for the unsupervised classes....Any suggestions?
Nancy says
I should add- I'm glad I don't have classes twice a week! I used to have K kids 2 times a week (20 mins.) and did Tumblebooks or read to them using my doc camera. Easy, peasy. Do you have free flow times? That would solve your kids checking out twice a week in class...
Nancy says
It doesn't say whether you're a teacher librarian? As a solo classified para we don't do library lessons, as we're not teachers. We teach library skills, but no required "lessons". I work in a high poverty school (85%) with about 350 students, and no adult help. To solve the end of year shelving problem, I do my returns differently. I have no shelving on the last day of school. I have no shelving to come back to. Here's what I do- I have no classes the last 4 or 5 days of school. I have all returns sent back 2 weeks before the last day. All of our teachers have pretty good sized class libraries. The last session of all classes are no-checkouts. I give them plenty of reminders ahead of time. We do other activities- Tumblebooks, history videos, dewey or genre reviews, etc. Those last 2 weeks I get all the shelving done, library packed up, mostly misc. stuff I don't want to get dusty. The last day or two I'm doing mostly paperwork, and/or tracking down lost books. With high poverty kids (with high loss/no pay) I do certain things I do to control where those books go, and how.
I was wondering too- does anyone ever read these responses, or am I wasting my time???
Nichole says
Hello! I am actually classified as a "Media center Aide" so no I am not a teacher librarian. My school district is trying to move to the library being on the school standards, just like everyone else is though. This is why I started doing stations, to ease the kids into this eventual transition. I am still waiting on the head librarian to give me the lessons we need to teach. We have one actual librarian over all six schools (four elementary, middle, and high school) with an aide (me) in the actual school for checkout and ordering and such. I actually have classes up until the last day of school. The student's special times are the teacher's prep times, so I will always have class. The last two weeks I do stop checkout, but I still have to occupy 20-25 kids for our regular class time. Stations saved me here! I could get some work done while they were still engaged in a lesson.
Nancy says
Our library time is also teacher prep time, so I appreciate their flexibility in letting me have those last 4 days off. That's helpful with my principal supporting how hard I work too, and allowing those days. There's also a lot of class parties though too, etc. The last day of school is also mine:)