Library Lesson

I swear, I could come up with a lesson for about anything. :)

Tomorrow, we are having a lesson on the library.  We are at the library EVERY SINGLE week and my kids know where everything they need is located, but do they really know how a library is set up?? I'm speaking of the Dewey Decimal System.  Now if my kids were in public school, they would probably have gotten this lesson by now, but they're not, so it's up to me to teach them. :)

 

Until now, I probably would not have thought about teaching them this. They know how to get on the library website and look up books, but what if they need to write a research report on something and they do not know where the book is located in the library??  They know where the nonfiction section is and they could find a book according to the call number, but I don't think they know that they are actually classified in a certain way.

For the next four weeks, Megan has to write a research paper on her state.  I'm going to count this as Nebraska history. :)  And because I don't want her getting all her research off the Internet, I am going to make her check books out from the library. I also don't want to just show her where the Nebraska history books are located and pick them out for her. I want her to learn how to find them on the computer and how the nonfiction books are categorized on the shelves. 

I have a couple worksheets we are going to work through tomorrow and then I copied off some charts of how the Dewey Decimal system is arranged. I think we just talk about it a little bit and then head to the library and really see it and look at the shelves more closely.

By the way, do you think it is important that I teach my kids about card catalogues?? We will probably never go back to them as a society, so is there a need to discuss them?? Do they just need to be aware of them??