Where to find images for school

Need images for a school project? The best option would be to take your own pictures or create your own images to use for a school project, but when that isn't practical, here are some alternatives.

Not all images are free for use, and even if they are, digital citizenship requires you ask for permission before using. Instead of using Google Images to find a picture, head over to the ES library catalog for ethical alternatives so that you can demonstrate the CAC core values of integrity and respect.

Students in grades 2 and up will be learning how to find images for for which they have permission to use and how to cite the sources of those images. 

Here are a few places to start your search for images. 

Britannica Image Quest

This subscription database offers millions of high quality available for students to include in their work. Britannica Image Quest offers images from many reputable sources, including government archives, famous museums and stock photography collections.

Britannica Image Quest is a subscription database, which means that we pay a fee on behalf of our CAC community, and that log in credentials are required. Students in grades 2 to 5 receive a card from the library through their classrooms with all usernames and passwords for all of our databases, but CAC patrons can also use the Quick Login. (All ES students know the Quick Login. Ask your child or stop by the ES library to request it.)

Wikimedia Commons

This site from the Wikipedia family offers 36 million images uploaded by users. Each image is available for download in different sizes and permission details are included on the page. There's even a monthly challenge for photographers.

The search interface is not as elementary school friendly as some other sites, but it is a good option for our older students.

Creative Commons Search

Creative Commons licenses are  sets of permissions for work of all types. By invoking a Creative Commons license, creators of content let people know what type of credit they would like for their work. Here is a very easy explanation of the main four types of licenses. I've also link to this explanatory cartoon on the Visual Tab.

The Creative Commons Search link on the Visual Tab will take you a site where you can search for different types of media: images, videos, and sound files.

Photos for Class

My new favorite, Photos for Class,  offers copyright friendly images that include the proper attribution right on the image once you download it.

CAC ES Library Council Hard at Work!

It's been two weeks since my last blog post inviting CAC students to join our ES Library Council. The council is now established and it has been very busy!!

Our first meeting, on the first Sunday on the return from the December break, was dedicated to establishing essential agreements. We agreed to abide by the following agreements:

We will ALL:

• Work together. 
• Help others.
• Listen and respect each other.
• Respect each other’s reading choices. 
• Arrive on time. 
• Clean up after ourselves.
• Respect the books and library property.

That first meeting involved "a LOT of talking" in the words of one slightly disappointed council member, but the next 2 meetings made up for it. 

In the 2 meetings we have had so far, we have:

• read new picture books, classified them by CAC Core Value and awarded a "Library Council Recommended" sticker each to a new picture book

  

• added letter shelf markers to the DVD collection

 

• moved the back issues of magazines to a highly visible display rack at the front of the library

We will be announcing the next library visitor, origami instructor Lidia Coronado from Venezuela, at tomorrow's assembly. Preparing announcements for assembly is a very popular activity among the library council members. Be sure to come to assemblies for a chance to seeing them shine!

Join the CAC ES Library Council

It has long been a dream of mine to have a tween advisory board for my elementary school library. There's a great article in American Libraries that served as inspiration. In my dream, I see industrious and responsible book- and library-loving students working hard to make their library an even better place to be. I see students come up with great ideas to make the library more efficient and more attractive to their peers. I see them helping out with literacy and/or fun stations for the younger students, and turning the maker space from guided crafts to real inquiry-based projects. The tween advisory board of my dreams is recognized by their peers and the community as a valuable human resource of, and for, the library. It's a beautiful dream.

Until now, it has only been a dream. This year, I have made it a professional goal to force myself to step up to the plate and get it going once and for all. Our first meeting will be on the first day back from our December break.

I've had invaluable help from Ronna Zigmand, super duper librarian at the Delhi Embassy School. She generously shared her application forms and meeting minutes with me and I unabashedly copy-and-pasted to create my own application form. (Click here for my finished version.)

I invited the grade 4 and 5 students to apply this week when they came for their scheduled weekly check out sessions. I explained that this tween advisory board, which I'm calling the CAC ES Library Council for now, will be helping me with library projects, that we'd be meeting weekly and that we needed responsible lovers of books and libraries to apply. I handed out application form and worried about getting enough applications by today's deadline. I want to cap the library council to 12 students to ensure we have enough students to carry out the work but not so many that it is not efficient.

There are 2 questions on the application:
1. Why would you be a good library council member?
2. What idea/s do you have for the library council?

I have received nine 13 applications so far. The best part are the ideas that these students have offered. They cover circulation, collection development, signage and customer service. I love all of them, even the ones I don't agree with, like leveling books because "now one can get confused." Here's an opportunity for patron education! Our students are too focused on the F&P level and don't seem to understand that that is a teaching tool and not the only selection criteria. I'd love to get the library council to spread that word, or to demonstrate choosing great books based on author, recommendations, interests, etc. We could make posters and movies and who knows what other cool things they'll come up with!

Gifted graphic designer and library assistant Lena Rezk came up with these 2 buttons. One will be worn by each council member and the other one is "Library Council Recommends..." to put on books.

 

Having the library council will be a great way to start 2017. Can't wait to see what they'll do!

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.

Grade 4 Social Studies on the Visual Tab

Grade 4 is currently studying a social studies unit called, Connections to History. The essential question for this unit is,

How do geography and people connect to build a nation?

Our fourth graders will focus this question by looking at Native Americans and specifically their settlements, use of resources like food, shelter and clothing, and cultural traditions. One of the projects that will track their learning throughout the unit is going to be a multi-layered map that will show Native American nations geographical regions and movement. We started that map today. 

Students came to the library to start on the map project and also to review the steps of the Big 6 research model. The Big 6 is an useful model to use when embarking on an academic task. More information on it can be found here.

The map that we created today is a physical map. It shows the landform regions of the US. Students accessed the Visual Tab to see the map they would be duplicating on paper. 

(To access the Visual Tab, visit the library catalog, then click on the tab marked "Visual." From there, click on CAC Units of Study, and then follow the picture clues to the grade level and unit you need. There are resources for most social studies and science units in grades 2 to 5, as well as links to poetry websites, mathematics websites including Mathletics, online newspapers for children, and much more. Go ahead and explore. If you would like a guided tour, please contact me at the library.)

The Visual Tab page for the grade 4 Connections to History unit looks like this. The map we reproduced today can be found by clicking the button "Map USA-Landforms."

The resources linked here include books from our library catalog, links to database articles from Britannica Online and TrueFlix, and websites. To access Britannica and TrueFlix, students will need to log in. Their teachers should have given them the log in credentials, but those can also be found by logging in to the ES library catalog. All g3 to g5 students have been taught how to do that. If they cannot remember, please contact the ES librarian, Mrs. Fitzgerald. 

Speed Dating with Books

Grade 5 is focusing on author studies for their reading workshop unit. Each has to choose one author and read at least 2 books by that author. Ms. Kasal, the grade 5 team leader, asked me for a book talk to help students choose a great author to concentrate on.

Last year, I presented a traditional book talk, where I showed a dozen books and gave rapid-fire highlights for each author. At the end of the 20 minutes, students were to choose a book to start their author study. I was disappointed when many of the students found excuses for not choosing any of the authors or titles I had presented. I was determined to do a better job of hooking them.

With the goal of 100% engagement in mind, I decided this year to structure the book talk in a speed dating format. This way, instead of listening to me speak for 20 minutes, each student previewed books by different authors. At the end of 30 minutes, each had checked out at least one book from an author and had previewed 5 books from 5 different authors.

Authors were set up as stations with a poster (created on Canva) and a selection of chapter books. The authors I presented were: Avi, Sharon Creech, Andrew Clements, Sid Fleischman, Patricia Reilly Giff, Patricia Maclachlan, Gary Paulsen, Linda Sue Park, Louis Sachar and Jerry Spinelli.

A sample of the author posters I created for this speed book dating. I used Canva.com.

These authors were chosen because they have a large and varied collection of books - and we have many of them in our library - and because they are great writers who will challenge students to think deeply about their reading. 

Students had 30 seconds to choose an author and then 2 minutes to preview a book by that author.  They each had a sheet for notes on the book. They wrote down notes to themselves about the book they were previewing and rated the books on the sheet on their desire to read them. Find the sheet here.  (At the bottom of the sheet is a link to a programmable online timer.)

Each student checked out at least one book at the end of the session. The sheet also gave students the chance to indicate they wanted a hold on a particular title. 

All in all, it went very well. Our fifth grade students were very vocal by the mention of dating, but thrilled to be considered grown up enough. Even the reluctant readers were engaged and all left with a book to try. They also have a short list of 4 other books to try if the title they checked out at the end of the speed dating didn't suit. 

The next time I try speed book dating, I'll include time at the end for students to compare notes. That could increase their exposure to authors and titles they might not have had time to look at. I would also like to include more diverse authors and perhaps picture books, as many of the authors above also write picture books. Last but not least, I'll create a resource list so that I can track the circulation of the books included in the book talk. 

Recommended Book Lists on the Visual Tab

The Visual Tab of our library catalog is where we gather all sorts of resources for the CAC community. One of these resources is our selection of book lists.

CAC was fortunate to have a visit last week from literacy consultant, Christy Curran. Her presentation to parents on how to encourage children to read was well attended and filled with excellent advice.

One of the tip that most resonated with me was about "reading to your children, with your children and reading along with your children." My children are teenagers now, but we spent a lot of time reading together when they were little. I wish we hadn't stopped! Our reading time was special.

One happy benefit of our early reading life is that my 17-year-old son has started recommending great books to me. So far I've read The Martian, Wool and Ready Player One thanks to him. I've loved them all, but what I've loved even more are the discussions we've had about the books.

Receiving recommendations from others is a great way to discover new authors and genres. The library catalog has collected several lists recommending books on its Visual Tab. Click here to go directly to the Visual Tab Book Lists page.  Continue reading below for instructions in how to get there.

To access the library catalog's Visual Tab,

1. navigate to the library catalog. (We recommend bookmarking it on your browser.) http://cacegypt.org
2. Select the elementary library catalog. 
3. Click on the tab marked Visual on the main search page.
4. Click on the "Book Lists" button. 

You will see links from the American Library Association as well as lists of US and UK award winners. All of these include quality literature for children. We have most of the titles featured on those lists. 

Also on the Book List page are two websites: Common Sense Media and the Scholastic Parents' page. These offer recommendations by age. The Common Sense Media website includes reviews on books, movies, apps and other media. One thing that I like about the Common Sense Media site is that for each of the books (or movies, apps, etc.) it includes a section called "Families Can Talk About..." which lists discussion points for the book. 

The Scholastic Parents' site includes recommended lists by age here, and lots of resources to help with homework. 

Please note that including these two sites in this blog post does not constitute CAC endorsement for either. They are offered only as an additional resource.