Wednesday, January 13, 2010


Search me!
The second graders are my last class of the day on Thursday and they always leave me happy - and slightly dizzy.

It started last year and, this year has turned into a full-blown phenomenon. They are little masters at looking up books on the computer catalog and then finding them on the shelves.

Every class has its own personality and one thing that drives these second graders' early mastery of this skill is their intense interest in nonfiction. That's a characteristic of many Seabury kids, but these second graders are united in their passion for amphibians, space, science experiments, rocks, World War II ... I could go on and on.

Their feet don't even touch the floor at the computers, but there they are.
"I need to find 590.9 TAY!!"
"Where's 597.8 MAR!?"
"Hey, I was using that computer!"

We have a really great catalog/circulation program from the Follett Software Company. It's got a component called "visual OPAC" that's more user friendly for the younger kids. I introduce it at the first-grade level. I've included a couple of screen shots of what it looks like, but if you ever want to come in an explore it yourself, I'd love to show it to you. The kids know to look for the OPAC icon on the desktop. OPAC stands for Online Public Access Catalog, by the way. I've answered that question a few times.


Talk to you soon

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