{"id":7550,"date":"2013-11-18T12:01:41","date_gmt":"2013-11-18T17:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=7550"},"modified":"2013-11-16T22:55:51","modified_gmt":"2013-11-17T03:55:51","slug":"teaching-the-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2013\/11\/teaching-the-teacher\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching the Teacher"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cGive a man a fish, and you feed him for a day.\u00a0 Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.\u201d\u009d\u00a0 Although my uncle taught me<\/span> how to fish when I was a child, I have yet to pass on that lesson to anyone else.\u00a0 Instead, I love sharing my enthusiasm for a variety of other<\/i> topics with the wonderful teachers in our local preschools.\u00a0 These staff in-services have been another way for the library to strengthen our presence in the community, while exposing teachers to our collection and Internet resources.<\/p>\n

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Topics:<\/i><\/p>\n

Over the years, I have presented a variety of in-services: \u201cPoetry for Preschoolers,\u201d\u009d \u201cWhy? Science for Preschoolers,\u201d\u009d \u201cMath for Munchkins,\u201d\u009d \u201cUniquely You\u201d\u009d, and \u201cEarly Literacy 2.0\u201d\u009d (ECRR 2).\u00a0 Although the topics so far have represented my personal interests and comfort zone, I try to create in-services that appeal to the teachers, while at the same time highlighting the resources of the library. As I continue to offer these in-services, the topics will expand into other areas of our collection.<\/p>\n

Goals:<\/i><\/p>\n

One of my primary goals is to expose the teachers to books, books and more books!\u00a0 Of course I feature picture books, but I also include early readers, juvenile easy non-fiction and biographies.\u00a0 A typical in-service bibliography will include about forty titles.\u00a0 I want the teachers to have many choices when they delve into a particular topic, no matter the age of the preschoolers they teach.\u00a0 Another goal is to give teachers activities and practical ideas for use in their classrooms.\u00a0 I utilize my own years as a teacher as well as lessons found online in order to meet this goal.\u00a0 A goal is for them to come away from each in-service with new or renewed<\/i> excitement for these topics.<\/p>\n

Structure:<\/i><\/p>\n

Each in-service begins with an interactive, fun activity.\u00a0 Whether it\u2019s having teachers try to cut an index card in such a way that they can walk through it (for \u201cMath for Munchkins\u201d\u009d) or create something out of a shoebox before reading them Not a Box <\/i>by Antoinette Portis (the practice of play in Every Child Ready to Read 2), these opening activities encourage laughter and relaxed dialogue!\u00a0 Scattered throughout are many other times for the teachers to be more than just passive recipients.\u00a0 During \u201cUniquely You,\u201d\u009d they dance to Jim Gill\u2019s \u201cKnuckles Knees\u201d\u009d \u2014 think singing, laughter, and body awareness for kids and<\/span> adults!\u00a0 In that same in-service, I teach them how to play the \u201cFace Game\u201d\u009d to enhance vocabulary and self-awareness:\u00a0 7 brave teachers draw slips with various emotions and then make faces, while the other teachers have to guess the emotion.\u00a0 During the science in-service, teachers put their hands into a rubber glove and then into a bucket of ice; we time how long they can stand it!\u00a0 Then they put their hands into a glove surrounded by polar bear blubber (aka Crisco) and we repeat the experiment.\u00a0 Together we\u2019ve created poetry, clapped out the syllables in our names, and made silly alliterative sentences.\u00a0 I create a PowerPoint that runs while I present books to use, activities to do, and the ways in which our library can support teachers in the classroom.\u00a0 The presentations last about 90 minutes and include time to ask questions, peruse the books and have fun. We really do have a blast together!\u00a0 At the end, teachers get a certificate of completion and fill out an evaluation of the presentation.\u00a0 I get a great sense of the ways in which they are truly on the front lines of early literacy, the struggles they face and the joys they encounter.<\/p>\n

_____________<\/b><\/p>\n

The time I spend teaching the teachers is invaluable in strengthening our connection to the preschool community, and the effort dovetails nicely with our preschool outreach storytimes.\u00a0 I would love to hear of ways that you work with preschool teachers!\u00a0 Please join the conversation in the comments below.<\/p>\n

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\"Personal<\/a>
Personal picture supplied by Kary Henry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Our guest blogger today is Kary Henry.\u00a0 <\/span>Kary loves her job as Youth Services Associate and Preschool Outreach Coordinator at Deerfield (IL) Public Library.\u00a0 <\/span>Leading the 4-5 year old early literacy storytime is one of the highlights of her week, but every day is an adventure!\u00a0 <\/span>Kary can be reached at khenry@deerfieldlibrary.org<\/a> and @MissKaryReads on Twitter.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.<\/span><\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at\u00a0alscblog@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

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\u201cGive a man a fish, and you feed him for a day.\u00a0 Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.\u201d\u009d\u00a0 Although my uncle taught me how to fish when I was a child, I have yet to pass on that lesson to anyone else.\u00a0 Instead, I love sharing my enthusiasm for a variety of other topics with the wonderful teachers in our local preschools.\u00a0 These staff in-services have been another way for the library to strengthen our presence in the community, while exposing teachers to our collection and Internet resources. _____________ Topics: Over the years, I have presented a variety of in-services: \u201cPoetry for Preschoolers,\u201d\u009d \u201cWhy? Science for Preschoolers,\u201d\u009d \u201cMath for Munchkins,\u201d\u009d \u201cUniquely You\u201d\u009d, and \u201cEarly Literacy 2.0\u201d\u009d (ECRR 2).\u00a0 Although the topics so far have represented my personal interests and comfort zone, I try to create in-services that appeal to the teachers, while at the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[134,93,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-blogger","category-outreach","category-programming-ideas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}