Library Resources Lesson Plans

Use the Internet and library resources to compose a telling time timeline -- a visual history of time. Students will develop research skills and gain perspective about telling time by discovering the history of clocks and time.

Students discuss resource maps and examine examples from library resources. Working in groups, they create edible resource maps by drawing examples, such as popcorn on the border of Iowa and Nebraska. Then they use cookies in the shape of the United States to place items, such as chocolate chips to represent coal.

Fifth graders identify the causes and effects of several different kinds of severe weather phenomenon. They read an excerpt from John Muir's book The Mountains of California and research one of the following severe weather phenomena using the Internet and library resources; thunderstorms, blizzards, tornadoes, hurricanes, drought, and flooding.

Students conduct secondary source research using the internet and library resources to learn more about the backgrounds of their family's cultural and ethnic heritages. Students can work together in research groups that have common ethnic/cultural areas. (One of a series of Lessons from Ellis Island)

Second graders explore biology by creating birdhouses. In this bird identification lesson, 2nd graders discuss the different types of birds that live in their environment and what characteristics each type of bird has. Students create a bird feeder to attract birds and utilize library resources to identify each individual bird that approaches.

Students use library resources and the Internet to research the bread and circuses offered up by the rulers of ancient Rome at two main venues, the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus. They compare and contrast these sites and experiences with professional football or other sports.

Third graders study and observe the migration patterns of the Monarch Butterfly. They collect information from the internet, library resources and by personal observation records of their own. They create a database of this information and form their own theory of how the Monarch Butterfly migrates.

Students discuss library resources and how to locate them by answering various scenarios. Role-playing as librarians, they write essays stating five reasons why the library should not be closed down.

In this instructional activity, What's at the Library, students analyze library resources. Students determine the benefits of using the library for research. Students compare using the library to using the Internet. Students familiarize themselves with what the library has to offer them both educationally and for fun.

Students use Internet and library resources to select and examine the origins of phrases or words, particularly words that have origins in other languages.