End of Year Wrap-Ups

So, yeah, I really dropped the ball on keeping this place updated the last month and a half of school. On the plus side, it was because I was so busy enjoying this job and my students. Here are some pictures of displays and happenings at my library since you last heard from me (including those National Poetry Month displays I said “would be coming later in the week”…back in April). 

The aforementioned National Library Month Displays (sorry, the display case has no working lights and it doesn’t photograph well.):

 

Here are some photos of the whole Name the Library Fish event we cooked up back in March: 

Look at all those ballots! It certainly was a successful idea. 

Finally, here are some shots of our displays from May. We crowned May “Did You Know Month” in our library: 

My TA also made a cool giant calendar in the display case where she filled in all sorts of weird/unusual National Days of May (Did you know May 4th is National Star Wars Day?). I tried to get pictures of it but they turned out even worse than the ones of the spine label poems we did for National Poetry Month. 

Also, that particular “Now I Know” article is about how clown fish can switch genders. Seriously. Check it out here. 

So that’s a quick photo summary of some of the things we did and tried the last few weeks at school. I’m hoping with summer vacation right around the bend I’ll be able to post on a regular schedule again. I’d love to explore some new ideas and technologies and share them with you all. I’m also getting ready to launch myself into full job hunting mode again soon so maybe I can share some resources and tips along the way. 

Have a great week and hopefully, I’ll be back soon! 

Look What I Made!

Back from Spring break today! Later this week I’ll share what my library looks like after putting our own spin on the National Poetry Month inspiration picks I shared last time. Today, I can’t wait to show off what I created while on break!

A few weeks ago I picked up a Beta fish at my local pet store for a library pet. I let the kids suggest names when they checked out books, narrowed down the list of suggestions to my favorites (so I wouldn’t get stuck with a name like Buttface for the classroom pet), then created ballots and let the kids vote every time they visited the library. I told the kids I would count the votes over break and let them know when they got back from break what the winning name was. I   have been itching to try my hand at infographics so when one of my old classmates posted about an infographics assignment she was doing in Grad school I knew I had to try my hand at it. It was super easy and fun. I think the kids will love looking at the full results of the votes and I’m thinking of using it in my next blurb in the district’s monthly newsletter.

I created this one with Infogr.am but other resources include:

visual.ly 

piktochart 

 easel.ly

Planning Ahead for Poetry Month

Can you believe it’s March 12^th already? I know I sure can’t-which probably explains why I missed the boat on coming up with a cool March bulletin board/reading promo. Technically, naming our library fish is part of the March reading promo but, it isn’t a completely reading related activity like Blind Date with a Book was last month. It also proved difficult to find bulletin board/display ideas that tied in to the library fish idea but didn’t seem too “kiddish”.

In an effort not to waste the precious display space, I put up some flashy “NEW!” signs and displayed some of the book from our new book order and decided to focus my efforts on planning a great display and accompanying bulletin boards for the month of April. Here are some of the ideas I’m liking and planning to implement in April as we celebrate National Poetry Month (maybe it will help you avoid an “opps, I ran out of time” lame display next month).

This display of “magnetic poetry” is eye catching, recognizable and, best of all, easy to make!

I’m planning to cover our big bulletin board in the library with the roll of black paper we have left from wrapping Blind Date books. Then, we just have to print random words in simple black font on plain white paper, cut into a rectangle shape and staple to the black bulletin board. Fast and easy, right? I think I’ll do a set in larger font than the rest that say “April is National Poetry Month”.

This display will take more time but I think it will be worth the effort. The colorful, eye-catching and interactive nature of this display will pull students in (they might even learn something about poetry!). I have a smaller bulletin board near my door I’m thinking about putting this on-the only problem is it is higher up and blocked by some computers. It wont have the same interactive abilities of the original display so I might have to modify the design to make it work…

For the display case in the hallway I want to introduce our students to the concept of spine label poetry.

I was thinking of making signage that announces April as National Poetry Month and says something about how poetry and inspiration are everywhere. I’m going to have the girls in my 8^th grade book club try their hand at it for the upstairs display case and I’ve already talked with the 7^th grade book club leader about her students giving it a try for the downstairs display case.

As far as activities go, I have some rough ideas I’m still trying to hammer out. I want to use this quiz in some way but I’m not sure how. I’ve thought about linking to it from the library website, typing it and printing it out as a handout, or making it into an interactive display on the back of my office door with flip panels that reveal the answers.

Finally, my TA threw out the idea of us doing some kind of ongoing poem with the kids. Like these exercises where you write one line of a story, hide it, and then pass it ot the next person . I’m just not sure how we would actually make it work in reality. It can be tough to encourage their creative freedom and still monitor their contributions for appropriateness…

There are more ideas for displays and National Poetry Month being added to my Pinterest account. Hopefully, you’ll see something that inspires you. I’ll try to remember to take some pictures so I can show you how it all turns out.

Until next time,

~Serena