Lesson 8 - Dewey Decimal Classification

I asked my seven year old grandson if he knew about the Dewey Decimal System. He said that he didn't, but asked what is it. I explained it to him, but he didn't understand until I showed him a book about dinosaurs and showed him the Call number. I asked him what would be the best way to teach this. He said: "In a Song." So we made up this cool song that goes a little like this: If you want to find a book about dinosaurs, you go to the 567 section.... He came up with turtles and I would say the number. This went on for awhile with different topics and it sounded like a fun song. Too bad you don't get the sense of the tune in writing, but it was pretty fun. I also read the Alien Dewey Decimal story to him (Mixing some school with visiting because I am getting behind). He also wanted to play some of the interactive kids games learning about Dewey; however, I wasn't successful at finding one that he could play. He is so imaginative that I wanted to share this because there are quite a few elementary teachers in this class.

I tried out all the links that were provided for learning about the Dewey Decimal system. I was really impressed how some librarians set up the Dewey Decimal system on their library web site. It looks like some teacher-librarians are really tech savvy at setting up interesting library pages. I did not know that there were ten sections that were divided into another ten sections. I wondered how the numbers were assigned.

During grade 8 library orientation, I gave the students a handout with the sections 000 - 999 and listeded examples of some subjects that are included in each section. When I went over these sections, I had a couple of examples of books that I showed the students. I also asked the students to put six hypothetical books with Call numbers on them in order. Then we went over the answers together. Then, I asked students to find three books from the different non-fiction areas that they were interested in. The students had to write down the Call number, authors or editors, the title, including sub-title, place of publication, publisher, and copyright date for each. After I showed the students how to access the catalogue, I asked them to search a favourite topic and then find the book in the stacks using the Call number.
Although not that interesting of an activity, the students were discussing the books they were finding with each other. This activity got the students into the non-fiction area and looking around. I also noticed that students, mostly all boys, were taking out non-fiction books for silent reading in their English classes.