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. 

Previewing books: Judge a book by its cover and its spine!

Last year, whenever a student would tell me that he or she couldn't find a book they liked, my stock answer was, "We have 25000 books. Surely we can find something you like!" I'd then go off and pull books off the shelves for students to try.

I realized that perhaps for some of those reluctant readers, knowing that there's 25000 books might be overwhelming. How does one choose when there are so many choices?

I also noticed last year that most of our students will look only as far as the books on a front facing display and will ignore lots and lots of great titles that are displayed spine out. We can't display all of our books with their covers facing out. There isn't enough space - remember I said we have 25000 books? So, this year, I'm doing the next best thing: training students to locate those great titles when they can only see the spine. This also supports the work they are doing in their literacy classes on growing as readers.

There's lots of information on the spine of a book. Some of it comes from the publisher: the title of the book, the author. Sometimes, if the book is part of a series, the publisher may add the number of the book in the sequence. At our library, fiction is arranged alphabetically by author's last name, which means that all the books by an author are together. This last has been a novel idea for many of our fourth graders who hadn't realized that looking for books by a favorite author is a good book selection skill in the library. 

Some of the information on the spine of the book is placed there by the library. The call number sticker, for example, lets you know where the book can be found and who wrote it. This year, all new books have a neon green sticker at the top. For books in a particular genre, we have color and picture coded stickers. All that information, and you haven't even pulled the book out! 

Pick a fiction shelf and let your fingers do the walking, as you read book spines one after the other. Once you find a title that grabs you, pull that book out. 

Look at the cover. Read the title and the author. There may be a one-line recommendation like "By the best selling author of That Book That I Really Liked." Look at the cover art and start making predictions about what the book is like. 

Turn the book over. Many times the back cover has a summary of the book or recommendations from famous authors or popular newspapers. Read the back. Notice how the art work on the back matches the front. Adapt your prediction if you need to.

Open the book to the front jacket flap. This is usually where the book has a longer summary. Read the summary. 

Open the book to the back jacket flap. Here you usually find a very short author biography. Sometimes they can be really funny. Read to learn a little bit about the author - and possibly laugh a little too. 

You're almost finished with your preview! Turn to the first page and read it. Use the five finger rule to decide if it is a good fit for you and to see if you are interested in seeing what happens.

Your preview is finished. You can now decide if you're going to keep reading or if you're going to return the book. If not, please return to its place on the shelf. Use the call number to put it back where it belongs so that others can also find it. 

Grade 4 has been practicing this with fiction books, but you would also preview non-fiction books in the same way.

Go ahead, exercise your previewing muscles. Soon you'll be getting a just right reading workout!