Skip to Main Content

Loving the Library

Promote your local and school library! Students will list and illustrate books they have enjoyed while encouraging people to visit the library.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • Heavy Paper

Steps

  • Step 1

    Before the Revolutionary War in the United States it was hard for non-clergy and non-wealthy people to obtain books. That changed in 1731 when Benjamin Franklin helped bring the membership library to the American colonies. Have students research the emergence of this institution. What's the difference between a membership library and a lending library? What is the oldest public lending library in the United States?

  • Step 2

    Have students make a list of some of the books they've enjoyed. Then ask them to create an illustrated poster to represent and promote these books as well as their school or local library.

  • Step 3

    Have students present their posters and discuss the reason they included these books on the list. Offer the posters to a librarian to display as messages from students that encourage library use.

Standards

LA: Add drawings or other visual displays to written text to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

LA: Integrate visual information (e.g., in drawings, graphics, maps, or videos) with other information to convey meaning.

SS: Time, Continuity, and Change: Read, reconstruct, and interpret the past. Imagine the future. Place oneself in various times and spaces and reflect on change.

Adaptations

Have students investigate how libraries and women's rights advocacy converged in the late 19th century. Ask them to investigate Mary Cutler's salary survey noting the disparity between female and male library employees and the passing of a resolution in 1892 to appoint a committee to organize a Woman's Section of the American Library Association.

Ask students to learn about Little Free Library®, the nonprofit whose mission it is to expand book access globally through volunteer-led book-exchange boxes. Students may have seen these small book exchange boxes in neighborhoods.