Yes, I Still Do Dewey

I had a great lesson on Dewey with the fourth graders on Thursday.
"Are we having fun?"
"Yes!"
10 minutes later: "Are we having FUN?"
"YES!"

It WAS fun and it was a great way to get to know the Dewey Section.
I asked them when we started to assess how well they knew Dewey.
Not so much.
At the conclusion of our lesson? Experts. lol.

NYC School Library System has a wonderful, comprehensive curriculum called the Empire State Information Fluency Continuum (ESIFC), created by the incomparable Barbara Stripling and her team in 2009.  Reimagined this spring, I highly recommend you take a look at it, if you haven't already.  Many of us in New York State turn to it frequently. I took one of the documents, spruced it up a bit, crossed my fingers (as I usually do almost every lesson) and hoped it would be a success.

Students had to log into their Google Classroom accounts (I am trying to go  paper free as much as possible this year), copy my document into their own drive and then they begin the scavenger hunt.

There is a Dewey Decimal "worksheet" in the Grade 3 IFC assessment.  I changed it up slightly and asked students to find books in a category and then take a selfie with that book.  It was an engaging, collaborative, lively lesson that incorporated not only Dewey skills but digital literacy as well. I knew it was a good lesson when kids asked if they can do it again tomorrow.

Alexis searching in the 600s.  Boys in the back in the 700s.

Jacob excited to find one of our favorite books translated in Spanish in the 400s.

There's more to the 300's than the 398s!

Ethan plowed through this activity. Future librarian for sure!

Nice job, Alexis! 

Is Dewey a thing of the past? Maybe?  But the thought of actually genrefying the library is overwhelming.  I have some bins for popular subjects: horses, sharks, dinosaurs, football, baseball, jokes, dogs, cats...It helps with shelving (I have an assistant in the library about 3 hours a day) and it makes my students feel successful in locating those highly sought after books. But going all the way? We are nowhere near that.  And so until then, we will continue to have FUN finding our way in the Dewey Section.

And finally, a tweet from the 4th grade ELA teacher.  Another compliment is when the classroom teacher thinks it's great lesson! Happy to get your students back in the Dewey Section (and beyond!), Mrs. Roe! You just say when!

Learning about the Dewey Decimal System in the library with Mrs. Rattner. @SchodackCSD @CastletonES @staceybethr pic.twitter.com/zeN0hHjYOI

— Amy McGarvey-Roe (@AMcGarveyRoe) September 12, 2019