I had a ball with the first graders this week. This is the first year they’ve checked out books from the library, and I’ve been pre-selecting their books so far this year. This week I taught them how to use shelf markers when they pull a book off the shelf. The markers are like big plastic bookmarks; the kids put them next to the book they want to look at, so if they decide to put the book back they know exactly where it belongs.

I heard about the Shelf Marker Hokey Pokey from LM_NET, a national school librarian listserv where people share ideas for how to teach just about everything in the library. I sang the song first, then I gave each student a shelf marker and had them stand in front of a shelf. We all performed the song together, practicing with the markers. Then the kids checked out books they’d picked themselves from the shelves. They absolutely loved it, this lesson was a huge hit. And they were so excited to pick their own books.

I tweaked a few of the lyrics from the versions on the listserv, this is what I taught them. I stopped a lot along the way to explain to them exactly what to do next, so there was a lot of talking in between each line of the song.

Shelf Marker Hokey Pokey

You put the marker in,
You take the book out,
You leave the marker in,
And you flip the book about. (I flipped through the pages to show them I was deciding if this was The Book)
You do the hokey pokey
And you turn yourself around.
That’s what it’s all about.

You put the book back in,
You take the marker out.
You put the marker in, (I showed them how to put it in next to a different book_
See what another book’s about.
You do the hokey pokey
And you turn yourself around.
That’s what it’s all about.

You take the book with you.
You take the marker too.
You line up at the desk
So that I can check you out.
You do the hokey pokey
And you turn yourself around.
That’s what it’s all about.