Your school librarian is experienced at finding resources on all sorts of topics; fiction and nonfiction. When looking for resources, librarians help to guarantee it is a timely, valid source that is appropriate for your students. FCPS also has an established system for interlibrary loans, allowing us to easily share books across the system. Librarians can also curate resources in a variety of formats:
Talk to your school librarian when searching for resources for your students to use or content you need for a lesson. Involving your librarian can also help you build on students' prior knowledge and support other teachers in your building since they can help build cohesiveness across grades and content. Librarians are happy to be a part of your lesson. They love to collaborate and will help save you time.
Did you know that your school librarian also has a curriculum and standards that they are responsible for covering with their students? At the elementary level, these standards can be addressed during media class but also during flexible time, if it is available in your librarian's schedule. At the secondary level, librarians address these standards through our programming and collaborative lessons with other teachers. So please don't hesitate to reach out if you want help instructing on these skills, that are also often built into your curriculum as well. Skills like:
Plus many more.
Ever find yourself planning a lesson and wish you had another pair of hands in the classroom? School librarians have various standards to teach and skills that probably fit in with your lesson. Talk to your school librarian and see if they have a suggestion for how they can help with your lesson. You'd be surprised at how they can be an asset to your instruction. Such as:
FCPS Librarians have worked hard and utilized resources to make sure our libraries are safe, collaborative, and functional spaces for students and staff. Coming to visit and using our space is a compliment to these efforts. Each librarian manages the space slightly differently but generally prioritizes teachers that are collaborating or their own classes first, then other activities that relate to our curriculum. However, we also acknowledge that for many of our schools, it is a large instructional space that can be helpful for various activities outside of the realm of library skills. Talk to your school's Librarian if you would like to use the library space.
Many of FCPS's libraries are also places where school-wide resources are shared. Although each school is different, some of the items that may be housed in your school's library may include:
Talk to your librarian about what items they have available for staff to use outside of traditional library resources.
