Grade 3 sound and light links on the Visual Tab

The grade 3 is currently studying a science unit on light and sound. As with other units, the library catalog has a page with links to support students in their inquiries.

How to access this Visual Tab page (for a step by step tutorial with images)

• Visit the library catalog and choose the elementary school library
• Look for the tab marked Visual. (It's above and to the right of the search field.)
• Click on the button with Talon. It's called "CAC Units of Study."
• Click on the grade level and then the unit. 

Each of the buttons on the page will take students to sources selected by the classroom teachers or the elementary librarian. I look for sources that are authoritative, accurate and reliable, and as current as possible. I welcome suggestions from the classroom teachers and from students. I give priority to informational sites over educational games sites. If you know of a good source for information on light and sound - or any other science topics - please let me know in the comments.

Note that Britannica Encyclopedia and BrainPop are subscription databases and require username and password. Students in grades 3 to 5 have been taught to access our passworded list of login credentials. The lower grade levels have printed out cards with the logins for the most used databases.

If you are a parent at CAC and missed our parent information session where we demonstrated how to access the library catalog's resources, please stop by the library for help from Mrs. Fitzgerald.

Solar System Resources for Grade 2

Grade 2 is currently studying the solar system. Their essential questions for the unit are:

• How do we know about our place in space?
• What is our solar system and where do we fit in it?

The library has lots of resources, both print and digital, to help answer these questions. They are, as usual, gathered together on the library catalog's Visual Tab.

Print - We refreshed our astronomy print collection last year. The average year of publication for that particular section of the library was 1994. By weeding books that were older than 10 years, and purchasing lots of recent publications, we brought up that average to 2007. 

Grade 2 students learned how to browse the shelves, using the information on book spines to locate titles of interest. They also reviewed how to use the shelf markers to return books to the correct place. 

Click here for a list of solar system books that are good for grade 2 students. Most of the titles can be found in the 520s bookshelves in the non-fiction section of the library. The list itself is posted on the Visual Tab page for this unit.

Digital - We have many digital resources for grade 2, all accessible from the library catalog.

Visit the Visual Tab to see the collection of resources.

To get to the Visual Tab, visit the library catalog, http://library.cacegypt.org. Choose the elementary school library link, and click on the tab marked Visual above the main search field. 

PebbleGo is a particularly good resource. The content has been developed specifically for young researchers, and includes topics in science and social studies, including the solar system. The link from the Visual Tab takes you directly to the solar system section, but you'll have to first log in. Grade 2 students can refer to their catalog login credential cards in their take home folders. All other CAC patrons can log in to the library catalog using the Quick Login to see the full list of databases we subscribe to, as well as the usernames and passwords for each.

Another excellent resource is BrainPop and BrainPop Jr. BrainPop has engaging animated video clips featuring a robot called Toby. In BP Jr., a little girl called Annie accompanies him. One of the buttons on the Visual Tab, called "Space", is a shortcut to various movies about bodies of the solar system. The other button is a movie on gravity. Interested, and advanced students, could also go to BrainPop, the older version and do a search for solar system. Both BrainPop and BrainPop Jr. will require username and password. As above, refer to the login credential card or log in to the library catalog using the Quick Login.

Other sites on the Visual Tab page for the solar system include links to several NASA (the US space agency) sites and ESA (the European Union space agency.) Also useful should be the link to the National Geographic Kids videos. These do not require logging in.

Last, but not least, the Blendspace button has a collection of links to videos that the students have used in class.