School Librarian's Workshop

Activity Extra: June 2002

Around the World in Twenty Questions

Summer is often a time for taking extensive trips, but few get to go around the world as students do in this activity. While there is a single answer for the left-hand questions, answers to the right-hand questions are fairly wide open. The only limitation is that the answers students choose fall between the previous left-hand site and the next left-hand site. Have them check each other's answers and compare the different routes around the globe. On the sample worksheet below, the student answers are in roman type. The answers in the right-hand columns are samples only.

From the largest city of the Empire State
New York 		To the capital of the Emerald Aisle
Dublin
To the city known for the Eiffel Tower
Paris 		To the capital of Hans Christian Anderson's homeland
Amsterdam
To the capital of the country between Russia and Sweden
Helsinki 		To the island country south of Turkey
Cyprus
To the city which has both the Wailing Wall and the Dome of the Rock
Jerusalem 		To the capital of the country east of Ethiopia
Mogadishu
To the capital of the country the Dali Lama calls home
Katmandu 		To the country once known as Siam
Thailand
To the country once ruled by Ferdinand Marcos
Philippines 		To the capital of the country of which Hong Kong is now a part
Beijing
To the capital of the country where sushi originated
Tokyo 		To the capital of the continent/country where the Great Barrier Reef is located
Canberra
To the country whose indigenous people are the Maoris
New Zealand 		To the capital of the 50th state
Honolulu
To the westernmost Canadian province
British Columbia 		To the province in which Calgary is located
Alberta
To the city on the southern shore of Lake Michigan
Chicago 		To the city where Wall Street and Broadway are located
New York



May 2003: Stars and Stripes Forever

Find out for each of the following:




April 2003: Sources of Information

Name three places you would look to find more information about the April events listed below. Be specific. For example, if you are going to use an encyclopedia, give its title.

Choose the source you think will be the best of the three and take notes on what you find.

Was the one you chose very helpful? Explain.

Disasters

Revolutionary War

Presidential Matters

Civil War

More Wars

Opening Our World



This can be done with 2 or 3 students together or individually. Answers will vary.


March 2003: Warrior Women

For National Women's History Month, have your students find out about women who fought and who their enemies were. Did they battle in military combat or did they take on the establishment or a powerful group? Here is one way to have fourth through ninth grade students discover what women have fought for and what they have achieved.

As always, this will work best if students are in groups. Have them create a series of mini-posters for every letter in "Warrior Women." At the top they can place the letter (W, A, R, etc.) followed by the woman's name with the letter she represents made larger or in some ways more obvious. For example, for the "W" poster they could write "Harriet Beecher StoWe. They can then complete it with a picture of the woman, her field, and her accomplishment.

Some examples for spelling out "WARRIOR":

Harriet Beecher StoWe: Fought for abolition of slavery in her book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Susette LA Flesche: Native American activist from the Omaha tribe, works for Indian rights.

Gloria YeRkovich: Founder of CHILDFIND, national organization to locate missing children.

Dolores HueRta: Co-founded United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez.

Frances WIsebart Jacobs: Philanthropist responsible for what is now the United Way.

Belva LockwOod: First woman lawyer to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court

Mary A. HallaRen: The first woman to be commissioned as an officer in the regular Army, she gained women permanent rights to be in the military.


February 2003: Love the Earth

Hone your elementary and middle school students' sense of ecology by giving them a worksheet exploring the many ways we destroy the very things we need to survive on Earth. For the final question, encourage them to present a vision of what might be, not an unrealizable dream but rather one which they can turn into reality. Students need to understand their role and responsibility to shape the future.

Pull appropriate materials from your shelves to help students find examples of endangered animals, activists, and trouble spots (places where the ecology is threatened). Most of them will know what can be recycled. Older grades may want to explore recycling in industry and research technological developments on the topic.


January 2003: It's News to Me

Although newspapers and their readership are steadily declining, they not only have an important place in national history but also are an essential antidote to the sound-bites that often serve as news on television. This worksheet provides reference questions that explore many facets of journalism.(For a fuller look at reporting add more names to question 6, including: Ben Bradlee, Katharine Graham, William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer, Col. Robert McCormick, and William Allen White.) Click here for answers.


December 2002: Hot It's Not

A bit of word play on a wintry theme is a "devICE" for applying several research skills while reminding intermediate and middle students that sometimes they need to bring their own knowledge to problem-solving.

Have them work in groups to find answers and then discuss how they did it. For several clues (Nos. 3, 7, 13, and 14) they must rely on what they already know. Did they search for all remaining answers? Those who had enough background undoubtedly did not wade through extensive texts to find Nos. 1 or 15. The more you know, the less you need to research.

As part of your discussion ask students what made some of these clues impossible to research. They should be able to understand that lack of a suitable entry is the cause. This activity will help them recognize when to ask you for entry terms if teachers who know the answers assign questions without giving students enough information to start their search.

Click here for the worksheet and here for the answers.




November 2002: In Other Words: Thank You

Primary and intermediate students, working in pairs, can learn to use thesauruses, English and foreign language dictionaries, and the print and automated catalog as they find answers to this month's Activity Extra, which focuses on the meaning of Thanksgiving Day. Remind them that they can also list any words they know without checking reference sources.

When they have completed the worksheet, have them put the synonyms they found on chart paper. (They may need to check under "thanks" and "thankful" as well.) Let them wait to write their thank you notes (No. 2 on the worksheet) until this step is completed so they will have the benefit of everyone's research.

While they can begin their list of words for "thank you" in other languages using dictionaries, encourage them to ask people who speak a language other than English. Staff and family members can help with this one, writing the word(s) if a non-Roman alphabet is used.

Answers will be very individual, but click here for sample responses to two of the questions.




October 2002: Shadow World

As days grow short, whether or not you celebrate Halloween in your school the early dusk is a perfect time for an elementary school unit on shadows and optical illusions. Pull all titles on the subject, including fiction, and review them for ideas to add to the activity. Bring and borrow as many lightweight flashlights as you can get.

Set the tone for the project by reading Robert Louis Stevenson's My Shadow. Ask students what they know about shadows and put their ideas on an easel pad. Talk about how shadows get bigger or smaller as the light source hits objects from different directions.

Divide students into twos and give each group a book. Use material on optical illusions if you don't have enough on shadows. Groups must discover at least one idea about the subject to bring back to the class. Add their findings to the information on the easel pad.

Experiments Based on Research

Have some groups trace the right or left hand of each member on a sheet of construction paper, putting the person's name inside and then cutting it out. As the same time have other groups work with the flashlight. While one shines it on a hand held above the paper, the other traces the outline, labels it and cuts it out. Repeat the process with the hand closer to the paper or with the flashlight held at a different angle.

Switch groups so that those with flashlights now do the tracing and those who traced work with flashlights. Have them paste the different sizes of cutouts on a contrasting color of construction paper. Hang the hands on counter-heigh shelves so students can look at all of them. Ask them to explain what their experiments have proved.

Those working with optical illusions should reproduce one and be ready to explain what makes it fool the eye. Using what they learned, they should try to make a smiple optical illusion of their own. (Railroad tracks meeting at a distant point with two equal-sized objects of their choice pasted at different points along the tracks is a simple example. Another is to draw two circles of the same size, put a square around one with sides touching the circle and a triangle inside the other with points on the circle.)

Silhouette Stories

As a culminating activity, regroup the class into fours to create simple shadow plays. Have each group select a nursery rhyme or short story and trace appropriate objects onto construction paper. Keep the tracings small and have students tape sraws to the bottom or side of their drawings.

To put on the plays, set up an overhead projector and screen. Turn off the lights and have each group in turn recite the rhyme or tell the tale while moving the puppets along the glass top of the overhead projector. Even without scary Halloween stories, your students will enjoy the slightly shivery feel of objects moving on the screen in a dark room.

September: In the Beginning

This activity, for middle and junior high students, will help you gauge how skilled they are in using the media center, and at the same time will reacquaint them with your collection.

Put students into groups of two and have them complete individual worksheets. For question 4, fill in a different letter for each pair. Move among groups, offering advice as needed and getting a sense of how they think through problems.

When everyone is finished, review what they have found. As you hear their responses to the questions, encourage discussion on selecting fiction books and nonfiction subjects of interest. Explain or remind them of the procedure for borrowing materials and allow time for them to do so before going back to class.