Lesson 5

Gale Virtual Reference Library

I picked Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States vol. 2 as my book.  I found South Dakota and discovered all the state information.  This is a grade reference for my first grade students when we talk about the state they live in.  When I teach the state we discuss the state flower, bird, animal, motto etc.  So we will use this reference to find the information and then move onto World Book Kids to find more information along with pictures.

 What foods have zinc in them?
I searched keyword "zinc" and found The Gale Encyclopedia of Nursing and Allied Health.  I moved down the table of content until I found '"zinc." I simple scanned the article and found a header which read Natural sources. 

*Foods with zinc that is better utilized include beef, chicken, turkey, milk, cheese, and yogurt. Pure maple syrup also is a good dose of zinc.

Literacy Criticism of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

I simple search the book title and was amazed to find 84 results.  The first result Literary Themes for Students: The American Dream was great reference that gave a brief overview of what to expect to each set of chapters.  Students can also expand on their search by using the related searches on the left hand side.

 Once again I found the 'listen feature to be very useful with the primary age group that I have.  Students are not limited to the knowledge they learn because they can' not read at this higher level.  I also think this again would be useful for students that do not speak the English language. 

Lesson 4

Proquest
1.I searched "first grade success," which was a broad search.However I came up with a lot of great articles.  I chose an article about the impact preschool has on the social aspect of first grade students.  It was very interesting to read how important preschool truly is.  It had a great argument that even if the student is ready academically, social skills are key to early education. 
I liked that the article could be printed, saved and emailed.  I also could continue with my search by going to the right hand side and finding other articles with shared references. 

2.When I did a publication search I first search for "first grade teacher" and got 0 results. Next I search for "first grade" and got 0 results once again.  Finally I search "teacher" and came up with 75 publications, some of which are useful to me and others which are not.  It was nice to have the results in alphabetical order.  I also found the key on the right side (source type) to be very useful.  I am not sure how I would use this in my first grade classroom.  Students at my level need pictures and simple text to learn.

Lesson 3

SIRS Discoverer
1.When searching armadillos in SIRS Discoverer I found many great articles.  My first impression was that I really like how I could sort the results by lexile levels.  I also found the key at the top to be very helpful telling me the difficulty,  if I could find a picture in the article, activities, PDFs etc.  I also found it to be very helpful that articles could be emailed to yourself or others working on the article with you. 

2.Database Features
Country Facts is a great source when students are studying different countries.  I really liked that once you picked a country it showed a timeline of important topics in the history of that country.  It would be easy for students to continue research because of the additional  hyperlinks to more resources.  The basic information on the left hand side is also very interesting when comparing countries. 
Maps of the World is a great resource for labeling capitals, states and getting the basic idea of the shape of each state, country etc.  I think this will be a great resource for me to use in my first grade classroom when we discuss where we live.
The Educator' Resources is a great tool to be used to help students get familiar with research.  I went into Elementary workbook and thought all the lessons were easy to follow and some easy enough for my young learners. As a first grade teacher I could walk through the lesson with a whole group or would feel comfortable enough to allow them to go step by step on their own computers. 

SIRS Issues Researcher
1. I picked Gun Control as my leading topic. The overview was set up with keywords to know, pros and cons, different perspectives on the topic, a general overview, and other resources.  I think its great that yet again this information can be read to the student.  Also it has MLA citation and a simple summary on the right hand side.

2.The Curriculum Pathfinder is a great tool for teachers and students. This resources includes games, articles, interactive quizzes etc.  Even though this resource to geared towards grades 6-12  I did find a few games I can use such as funbrain and supermathworld.