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. 

ES Library and Grade 5 Journalists Making Headlines!

The grade 5 unit recently embarked on a journalism unit in their literacy workshop. The ES library is very happy to support them in this unit, as we have many resources to help them in their journalistic endeavors.

All 3 classes came to the library for a session on journalism sources and how to access many from the library catalog.

Journalists must keep track of their sources. We ask our grade 5 journalists to maintain a bibliography of citations. Templates for the citations (in MLA format) can be found in their student planners or on the Visual Tab grade 5 page. Citing our sources is one of the ways we demonstrate our CAC core value of integrity.

1. Personal interviews and observations
• Journalists find stories in the world around them. Our grade 5 students are encouraged to do so as well. 
2. Written materials, e.g., primary sources and  magazines
• Primary sources would include letters, maps, recordings and other materials created at the time of the event being 
• Magazines and other periodicals - we have many childrens' magazines in the ES library. They are getting checked out frequently for this unit. We remind the students that magazines and other periodicals are often printed on flimsy, inexpensive paper and so they must take extra special care with them. 
3. EBSCO's Primary Search database -- link on the library catalog's Visual Tab Current Events  page and the Home page.

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• This is one of our subscription databases. It searches for keywords in children's magazines. 
• Students are encouraged to use subscription databases because they are reliable sources of information. 
• Primary Search database allows students to filter results by time, subject, publication, geography and other limiters
• It also provides a citation for the article in question. This citation can be copied directly onto a bibliography
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4. WebPath Express -- on the library catalog
   
• WebPath Express is the search engine for our Destiny catalog. It searches for keywords in a large collection of websites vetted by teachers and librarians. While it may not return the most current of articles, it does return relatively authoritative and reliable sources. 
• To create a citation for an article found through WebPath Express, students will need follow the formats given in their student planners or on the grade 5 Visual Tab for research skills. 
5. Kiddle.co -- link on the library catalog's Visual Tab Current Events page
   
• Kiddle.co is a search engine for kids. It uses a customized Google search to first find articles written for children, then articles written for adults but accessible to children and finally articles written for adults. 
• The News tab on the Kiddle.co site will look for articles in children's online news sites first. 
• To create a citation for an article found through WebPath Express, students will need follow the formats given in their student planners or on the grade 5 Visual Tab for research skills. 
• When looking at websites through Kiddle.co, students should consider our website evaluation criteria, PAARC. (P-purpose, A-authority, A-accuracy, R-relevance, C-currency)
6. Current events page on the Visual Tab
   
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• The Visual Tab has a "Current Events for Kids" button. That will take you to a page full of links to online newspapers and magazines for children, from many countries and in different languages. Unfortunately, each site has to be search separately, but for the most part, these online news sites are quite current. Facts should always be cross checked. 
• We do not have an online site for children's news in Arabic, so if you know of one, please let us know so we can add it to the page. 
7. LAST resort: Google search
• Google search should be the last resort, to be used only if none of the other sources produce the information sought. 
• For our journalism purposes, we often are interested in different perspectives, so we can focus our search results by using the code, "site:", and adding the 2 letter country code. For example, a search for "Olympics 2016 news site:.eg" will give us results of news published in or about Egypt. 

Journalists must have at least 2 verifiable sources for the information they report on. This forces journalists to double check their facts. Our young journalists will be held accountable to the same standard. Using this list of sources will ensure that they know where to look for information.