First, students are exposed to various genres of literature from around the world. Using these resources, students learn to identify the parts of a book while developing the necessary skills to use the Dewey Decimal system, conduct boolean searches, maneuver a computerized atlas, compose a bibliography and the like. Due to the strong library program, students who attend John S. Park from kindergarten to fifth grade have many opportunites that other children in Nevada and across the nation must live without. Here is a product from library class. The librarian, Mr. Dwyer, loves to conduct his unit on poetry.
Students first listen to and then read poetry.
This book contains many great poems on the American desert. To feel the rhythm of poetry, children play percussion instruments while others read. Next, the students begin writing their own poetry by creating couplets. A couplet is two sentences that end with rhyming words. Finally, young poets write quatrains or four sentences with a variety of end-rhyming possibilities.