From the Library

Fourth graders started the year with a hands-on non-fiction mystery. It was a fun way to learn the Dewey Decimal System. They collected and displayed non-fiction books with the lowest and highest call numbers in a given range.  Some had a wide range (001-99), others had a short range (375-398.24). Then, by looking at the titles, they hypothesized categories for each range of hundreds. The 500s, for example, had The Magic School Bus and the Science Fair Expedition at 500, Rocks and Minerals at 549, and Chimpanzees at 599.885. I then showed them just the titles of ten more books and challenged them to place each in the right range. Does a book about weather fit with the 500s or does it belong in the 900s? We discussed why some hundreds have so many more books than others, at least in our library. The girls are now more able to find books  independently in the non-fiction sections of the library. They were interested to know that most libraries use the same system to organize their non-fiction books.