October in the Learning Commons

October was a fun month full of learning in Lakeside's Learning Commons! 

Learning Commons Coach Mrs. O'Malley spent time with our youngest readers as they learned about libraries around the world. They shared a read-aloud, looked at photos of children in other countries enjoying books in different environments, located new places on our world map, and together discovered the section of our library where non-fiction books about places can be found. 

Just before Halloween, first- and second-graders learned what skeletons, books, and Lakesiders all have in common: they have spines! Students learned about the spine labels in our library, practiced finding books using the labels, and even made their own "spine labels" for their backbones.

Mrs. O'Malley reads to students.

Mrs. O'Malley reads to students.

Our older Lakeside Lions began October by doing a library scavenger hunt. They teamed up to discover where different kinds of books can be found in our library, notice the difference between fiction and non-fiction spine labels, and locate award-winning books in our space.

The next week, several classes did an activity to learn about how non-fiction books are organized with the Dewey Decimal System (a new term for the vast majority of our students). With Mrs. Doublestein's guidance, students practiced using our library database system, Koha, to search for -- and then find on the shelves -- a non-fiction book of their choice. It was great to see them successfully locating titles by their Dewey Decimal call numbers!