Greetings, all, and happy almost-end of the year. Winding down these final weeks, the students’ and teachers’ brains are all but toast, so for our final visits with grades 3-6 we host our annual Library Olympics: a series of games reviewing skills and concepts covered throughout the semester (we do one before Winter Break and one before Summer Break). Below are a few of the events we play, remixed and revamped every year. Enjoy!

Mini-Shelves

We play this game to review organizational strategies. 7-8 books are set up at each table, and students simply rearrange the books in call# order. (Fun fact: there is ALWAYS one team who arranges the books in reverse order.)

Catalog Relay

So that I don’t have 24 9-year olds storming the stacks, this is a true relay: a small stack of cards are placed on each table, with either a title, author, or subject for each student to search in the catalog. One student from each table scoots to the shelf and brings back their book, and then tags a fellow table-mate who then retrieves their book, and so on until either time or cards run out. We play this game to review organizational strategies and location & access.

Codebreaker Word Scramble

This game involves a bit of prep on my part, but it sure is fun (and it usually takes me longer to explain than it does for the kiddos to actually play). This game reviews text features, and if we have time, students must find the correct book on the shelf first (location & access). Each book has a corresponding worksheet, and students must use the table of contents, glossary, and/or index to find the correct words. One letter from each word corresponds to a blank on the whiteboard (prepped before-hand), and once every team has filled in their letters, the whole message unfolds.

Kahoot!

No Library Olympics would be complete without a Kahoot! game. Depending on the grade level and concepts covered, these questions can range from simple catalog screenshots (“Is this book available?”) to fill-in-the-blank questions (“A digital subscription source with articles edited by experts is a ____”). Madness ensues. It is spectacular.

What about you? What games / activities do you use to review concepts with your students? Thanks for reading!