Review In A Nutshell:
Title: Media Center Discovery: 180 Ready-to-Use Activities for Language Arts, Grades 5-8 (A Marketplace Book)
Author: Barbara R. Hamm
Price: $29.95 US
Overall Rating (1-10): 9
Value (1-10): 7
Flexibility (1-10): 10
Ages/Grades: Grades 5-8
Review:
Remember how much time you spend in Elementary School learning to navigate the Media Center? There are some valuable skills to be learned that some homeschoolers might miss out on. This book brings these lessons home by providing lots of fun projects and worksheets that incorporate teaching Media Center skills. These skills are critical for children to learn because knowing how to find the information you need is the most important step in learning. But I also remember these lessons being terribly boring and mundane and I didn’t see much sense in them. I sure didn’t understand what benefit learning to navigate the media center would have for ME. This book changes all of that!
Unit One introduces the media center. Parents can use this unit to guide children through the Dewey decimal system – the ABCs of library organization! Once a child masters the Dewey decimal system, every library will be easy for him to navigate. Through games like “Scavenger Hunt” and “Plant the Flag”, children will have fun while learning to navigate their way through a library. Since most media centers have all but tossed the print card catalog in favor of an electronic version, both print and electronic card catalogs are introduced with activities, worksheets and a game to aid in learning to navigate the catalog systems.
Unit Two introduces resources – another invaluable tool for those in search of knowledge. Covered in this unit are the parts of a reference book including the table of contents, index, glossary and bibliography – again with fun supplements, games, and activities.
Unit Three introduces reference materials that are handy for those in search of information. This unit covers common materials such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs, thesauruses and record books. Yes, again, games and activities bring it all together in a fun and useful way.
Unit Four focuses on geographical reference materials. Fun worksheets and activities using atlases, maps and even a geographical dictionary help make sense of the world around us.
Unit Five introduces biographies and quotations. This is my personal favorite unit for the enthusiastic response the activities garnered!
Unit Six explains the various references to current information available to students. Periodicals, magazines, vertical files, newspapers, etc are all covered in detail.
Unit Seven breaks down that Dewey Decimal System even further. Dewey Jeopardy, anyone?!?
Unit Eight showcases Fiction by introducing the elements that make up a fictional book, different genres, Book Awards, Copyright and creating a great book report. Who knew there was so much to learn about Fiction?
Units Nine and Ten delve into the world of electronic media. Learn about microfiche (remember that?) and the availability of cds, cd-roms, videos, DVDs, audio books . Add to that lessons on Internet Search Engines (routinely available at libraries and media centers, now), short lessons on using the internet and work processing and the world suddenly becomes one huge library!
Finally, Unit Eleven brings all the previous units together in review. It shows how using all of these library skills can help with writing and publishing with a nice overview of the writing process.
This is a huge book that could easily be stretched for use over many age groups and many years. It is a fun supplement to any trip to the public library and I truly believe that the lessons taught in this book are even more important than the Three R’s because they open up the entire world of knowledge to children through empowerment. It is a little pricey but if you have more than one child or purchase this book to use with other families, it becomes very affordable.
Bottom Line:
This is a great resource for teaching children than the world of learning whatever they want is at their fingertips. This book empowers children to use all the references afforded to them, free of charge. I absolutely loved this book because it made these lessons so fun and functional. I highly recommend this book for all styles of homeschoolers (including unschoolers).