The Joy of Books

This past week, I was reminded once again of how important books can be to students.

I had two students who were creating roller coasters in the block area. They were working really hard, trying to figure out how to make a"loop de loop" with rectangular unit blocks. They were talking about how to make the cars go down the ramp faster, and how high the ramp needed to be in order to get the var to go upside down. They talked about roller coasters all day on Thursday, roller coasters they have been one, ones they have maybe seen on television, materials around the room they want to use next time they go to the block area.

Thursday night I made a trip to my local library to return some books that I had out for a while. After perusing the the new non- fiction books, I strolled over to the children's library to look for books that pertained to curriculum on wind and water. After using the online catalog and finding a few relevant and appropriate books, I had this feeling that I could do more, that I was forgetting something. And then, aha, I remembered the enthusiasm these two students had about roller coasters earlier in the day. I dashed over to the computer, typed in my search terms, and grabbed a book about roller coasters.

I went to school Friday eager to share the books I had chosen with the kids and especially curious to see how those two students would respond to the roller coaster book. They both looked at it excitedly during morning book look. They called me over and asked me to read certain parts of the book aloud to them (This book was a nonfiction text, with amazing photographs and very detailed text. The text was slightly beyond their level, but the "headlines in the book and photo captions provided a lot of information in shorter segments.) They took the book with them into the block area and used one of the photographs as a model for their work that day. Great, so those two kids know directly that there are books about almost any interest, and that they can learn things from books.

The excitement was contagious. Some of the other students wanted to know if I would look for specific library books for them too. Of course!
Happy reading and learning