Being an elementary school librarian can frequently feel unwieldy. There is so much to do! We teach, shelve, circulate, collaborate, order books, and more. I know many school librarians who also manage the school’s technology, book clubs, and school discipline. With so much to do, it’s necessary to make library teaching manageable.
What does manageable mean when it comes to the library? What can we do that makes our lives easier and still keeps kids engaged?
I’ve got 3 ideas to keep teaching manageable in the library. Since doing these things I feel less overwhelmed, better prepared, and clear headed.
I’d rather have the time and energy available to be creative, and calmly respond to kids when they are in need.
No prep lessons are a lifesaver. It’s sweet to grab a book and just print out an activity or two for kids to use.
Whether I’m teaching kids to code, teaching digital citizenship, or video creation, I like to keep it simple.
This did not come naturally. As a classroom teacher, I overdid everything! I had to knock that off when it came to teaching in the library. I quickly learned that less is more.
Sometimes, it’s easy to come up with a no-prep lesson. When I know a book well, I can just grab it off the shelf and come up with a makerspace challenge for kids.
But to be honest. I really prefer to have a plan in place. And by plan, I mean I like to know what I’m teaching and what the end goal will be. I prefer to be more deliberate about learning outcomes.
I don’t always have the mental bandwidth to come up with a no prep lesson. And honestly, I like to have a general idea of what the kids will do throughout the year.
There is so much to teach, and it’s easy to get distracted.
This is why I love mapping out some ideas of what to teach. It keeps me focused and provides me with flexibility.
When building out a scope & sequence, I include the important things. Kids need to learn how to find the books they want, coding, digital citizenship, using devices, and making digital products. Once those are figured out, there’s time for makerspace days!!!
During the 2020-21 school year, the specialists saw the same classes for 10 days. For example, we saw grades 1 and 2 or grades 3 and 4 during the same time period.
That year, we batched teaching by grade level bands. We taught the same thing to PreK and Kinder, grades 1 and 2, and grades 3 through 5.
This dramatically decreased the workload. Spending less time planning, made it possible to be more creative.
Grade level batching is possible with a scope and sequence, too.
Batching scope & sequence content would mean teaching 2 or 3 grades the same content.
Here’s one example of this in the library:
The same could happen with the outlined coding and digital citizenship curriculum.
What do you do to make teaching in the library more manageable?
