Building Block search using LibLit database

Topic: Children's books as a role in Elementary Education
Database: LibraryLit
S1: (child* or YA or teacher*) 26488 hits
S2: (literature or book* or curriculum or education) 122117
S3: (elementary school* or grammar school* or primary school* or children s librar* or youth librar*) 11409 hits
S4:(child* or YA or teacher*) AND (literature or book* or curriculum or education) AND (elementary school* or grammar school* or primary school* or children s librar* or youth librar*) 5373 hits

This is obviously too many hits to sift through (and many seem irrevelant) so I needed to go back through and revise my search. This is what I came up with:

S1: (books or literature or fiction or nonfiction) 106642 hits
S2: (curriculum or instruction or literacy) 16842 hits
S3: (elementary school or grammar school or school library or school library media center) 25068 hits
S4: (books or literature or fiction or nonfiction) AND (curriculum or instruction or literacy) AND (elementary school or grammar school or school library or school library media center) 762 hits

I feel like S4 is what we normally jump into when we search normally. We don't think to break it down into factions. In my search, I recieved way too many results and this may be due to the fact that I have too many synonyms (they each are pulling up their own articles). This search may be better for a topic that doesn't have very much information; it may work better to broaden a topic rather than narrow it down. At least that was just my own personal experience.

Tagging

children's(1) curriculum(1) education(1) homeschool(2) jenniferm(1) science(3) Science Literature(1) unit study(1)

http://www.librarything.com/work/1616220/book/42091569

I chose this text, Science Through Children's Literature: An Integrated Approach by Carol M. Butzow, to include in my blog because I can see that it has a lot to do with science curriculum for children. Seeing that it is important to homeschooling shows me that it can be used as a resource in itself to teach science without needing several other resources at once. This is helpful to any teacher that wants to use their planning and teaching time efficiently.

Seeing the tags from previous members, it is easy to see that this would be a beneficial supplement to any teacher at the elementary level in order to integrate science into literature curriculum.

RSS

School Library Journal online (http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/) is a great site that I found when doing a search on Yahoo! search engine (keywords: "school library news"). It has recent articles and news that relate to anything and everything in the school realm, with emphasis on the library.
The site has MANY options for RSS feed subscriptions. Many were relevant to my blog topic (education, nonfiction books, early learning, etc.) but I chose to include a more broad topic "Books" http://feeds.feedburner.com/SchoolLibraryJournal-BooksNews . This RSS feed discusses everything from award winning books for young people and teens, to the importance of the school library. It is perfect to help keep me and my blog readers updated on the new books that are published for children as well as learn about the educational value school libraries can hold. I also added it in hopes of finding new books that can be used at the elementary level for teaching the learning objectives, as I know there is bound to be many book reviews on this RSS feed.

Podcast: Dr. Seuss

After discovering that YouTube is a podcast, I knew exactly what I wanted to include on my blog. As a 5th grade science and social studies teacher, I read many of Dr. Seuss' books in order to expand on lessons I've taught. It is a fun way to break away from the strict curriculum, and the kids really enjoy it because it doesn't feel like a lesson.

This link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pknssl52sh8 will take you to a clip of The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. It is about conserving our natural resources. It has a great moral and opens discussions about why we need to conserve our resources and take care of our environment.

Dr. Seuss also has a great book that teaches about maps, geography, latitude and longitude, directions/compasses, etc. His books are silly but yet teach necessary learning objectives, so it's great for the classroom.

(I went to google and searched for YouTube. Once there, I searched for Dr. Seuss books and found several great choices among the one I included here.)