Citing Sources with Kids

As a librarian, one of my biggest challenges is getting our elementary kids to cite their sources. Writing out a whole annotation is next to impossible for those who are just beginning to get a handle on reading and writing. However, it is so important!! We as educators need to be sure that our new readers and writers respect other's works and have a good solid foundation in information literacy and attribution. Plagiarism is real ... even if you are in elementary school!



I am here to say that bibliographic annotation doesn't need to be hard! What's really important is that our youngest students learn that they need to record WHERE their facts are coming from!



I have developed a strategy for citing sources and creating a bibliography that both teachers and kids will find painless. It is not perfect, and in fact may be deemed inaccurate by some of my toughest critics; however, I have found it to be an invaluable resource for my first, second, and third graders. They learn the concept of citation while also learning how to locate, record, and manipulate information.



I start off by actually creating a bibliography for the kids! Each bibliography annotation is accompanied by a "code." For example, the first book on the list would be "B1" and the first website would be "C1".

Then kids have a note sheet. Each note is preceded by a light bulb. When the kids write down their fact, they must also label the light bulb with the code from the bibliography.

Want to know more ... click on the picture below! It explains things a bit further and maybe a bit more clearly. With one click you will be transported to my TpT Store where you can download a FREE file that has both the explanations and all the png files that you will need to recreate your own bibliography and notefact pages.

Happy Researching!