learning about Dewey

Melvin Dewey was the designer of the Dewey Decimal system - the system used to categorize and organize information (non-fiction) books in libraries. The primary classes were introduced to this system in a basic way earlier this year through a Curious George book and over the last few weeks, the intermediate classes have been learning a little more about Dewey.

Division 2 created mini-posters on the iPads for each general category and these are now posted in the library and are being well used by students to help them locate books. Here are a few examples of the mini-posters the students created:

We read the book Do You Know Dewey? which explains the system in an introductory way and describes how books are ordered on the shelves using more and more specific categories as the decimal part of the "call number" gets longer and longer.

Division 2 has also been creating some interactive games that we will have the other classes try out to review what they know.

This week, all the intermediate classes have broken up into teams and  have played competitive (eg. LOUD) rounds of Dewey Jeopardy. The students worked together to choose a category, the question they wanted to try based on the number of points it was worth and then had to come to consensus as a team before offering their answer to the question. The interactive powerpoint game can be found HERE.

It was fun getting to know Dewey a little better and it sure came in handy as the students helped shelve all the library books being returned before the holidays!
~Ms Novakowski