Discover curriculum related books that can be purchased and utilized by students and teachers - and why picture books are important in middle school.

1. Using Picture Books
in the Middle School Library
Rachel Grover
Rocky Run Middle School
ragrover@fcps.edu
FCPS Library In-Service
Winter 2016

2. Session Objectives
Understand why MS students (and their teachers!)
need picture books
Gain strategies for selecting quality picture books for
the MS level
Preview new titles that are MS relevant
Match at least 1 picture book to a skill your students
struggle with

3. ...Where are We?
Who has a picture book collection?
What groups in your school use your picture
books?
When was the last time they were...weeded?

4. Picture Books at the MS Level?
Short on pages, long on meaning
(critical thinking!)
Skill development
Illustrations extend & enhance the text
Written for many content areas
Accessible for all students

5. “The picture book is a picture puzzle,
badly understood by critics and
condescended to by far too many as
merely a trifle for ‘the kiddies.’”
- Maurice Sendak

6. Strategies for Selecting
MS Picture Books
Blogs/Google “picture books” AND “middle school”
Focus on curriculum
What will your staff & students actually use?
The FCPS Library Catalog & ILLs (what do others
have?)
Avoid books with massively long text

7. Strategies for Collaborating with Teachers
Read alouds: Intro a new unit
Small group activities to practice developing skills
Think of colleagues you already work with - or you
don’t!
Attend CT mtgs (if you can) to see what they are
struggling with - can your picture books help?
How can they help your school’s literacy goal?
What I did with my picture books...

8. Turn & Talk:
Which departments at your school are/would be
most receptive to using picture books as an
instructional tool?
OR
What strategies have you already used to
collaborate with teachers and use picture books?

9. Story Time!
Think: What skills/standards could this book address?

10. Turn & Talk:
What skills/standards/classes
could this book help teach?

11. Skills/Standards for
Benno and the Night of Broken Glass
Point of View
Inference
Plot & Sequence
Making Predictions
WWII/Nazi Germany

12. Common (Language Arts) Skills that
Picture Books Address
Plot & Sequence Inference
Characterization
Theme
Word Choice/Writing Style
Point of View

13. Not Just for English Teachers...
Art
Tech Ed
Social Studies
Foreign Language & ESOL

14. Previewing New Titles
1. You & your group will preview a book.
1. Think about:
- Literacy skills - Types of
activities
- Potential classes - Would you
purchase?
1. We will share in about 10 minutes.

15. Rachel’s Top 10 New Titles
STEM
Cause/Effect
Characterization
Theme
The Most Magnificent
Thing, by Ashley Spires
(2014)

17. Rachel’s Top 10 New Titles
Inference
Characterization
Plot
Funny!
Memoirs of a Goldfish,
by Devin Scillian
(2010)

19. Rachel’s Top 10 New Titles
Personification
Plot
Theme
STEM
What Do You Do With
An Idea?
by Kobi Yamada (2013)

21. Rachel’s Top 10 New Titles
The Boy Who
Harnessed the Wind,
by William Kamkwamba
and Bryan Mealer (2012)
Science: Wind Energy
Biography
Inference
Sequence

23. Rachel’s Top 10 New Titles
Foreign Lang. & ESOL
Word Choice
Day of the Dead study
Mi Familia Calaca,
by Cynthia Weill (2013)

25. Rachel’s Top 10 New Titles
Theme
Inference
Characterization
Bear and Duck,
by Katy Hudson (2015)

28. Rachel’s Top 10 New Titles
WWII: Paris
Plot
Inference
Characterization
Stone Angel,
by Jane Yolen (2015)

30. Rachel’s Top 10 New Titles
Inference
Making Predictions
Creative Writing
One Day, The End,
by Rebecca Kai Dotlich
(2015)

32. Rachel’s Top 10 New Titles
How to Babysit
a Grandpa,
by Jean Reagan
(2012)
Inference
Sequence
Point of View
Writing Technique

34. Turn & Talk:
Which of these books sound like
they would work best for
your students and staff?

35. Reflect:
1. How much attention does your picture book
collection need to be a ready resource for your
staff?
1. What other supports do you need for this to
become a reality for you and your staff?

36. Thanks!
Feel free to come look at the books...
Rachel Grover Rocky Run Middle School
ragrover@fcps.edu