Library Experiences: We’ve made it to November!

I feel like this school year is already flying so quickly! How can my last post be about summer reading?! In our library learning commons, we hit the ground running this year with orientations starting earlier than normal, book tastings to follow right after, makerspace orientations, and Beanstack introductions. Following the first nine weeks of crazy, we’ve done SORA introductions, high frequency word hunts, sensory story times, Halloween stories, Thanksgiving stories, and math breakouts.

I’ve focused on planning per nine weeks with the lessons in the LC. I think this has helped both teachers and I plan for what our students need. We have some exciting events coming up in December too– grinch day measuring activity for second grade and holidays around the world with first grade.

I have worked to change activities we’ve traditionally done in the LC that needed to be re-worked. Bringing holidays around to first grade is very exciting, but it does replace our normal Polar Express day. However, most students have already seen, read, or done a Polar Express experience. I’m ready to try something new!

Thinking ahead to the spring, what are some activities you’ve done in your library learning commons to bring the joy back into instruction? Have you made changes in your teaching this year?

Just think we are almost to the second half of the year! What will your students remember from their library experience?

Ditching Dewey: Making Nonfiction Make Sense

Nothing sounded better during the end of year crazy of testing, field days, inventory, end of year celebrations, award ceremonies, and inventory than re-organizing our nonfiction section in our library. This project started at the beginning of the year when we thought we would change to whole number Dewey to make things easier for our primary grade students to find. However, once we started digging into the location of some of the books–why were cats and dogs not with other animals, but instead in 636 for farm animals?– we realized many books weren’t located somewhere that made sense or that were checked out.

My para and started looking into the sections that were checked out the most. For example, sports, cats, dogs, dinosaurs, and sharks. We took each of these and demolished Dewey. For sports, each sport went under 796 and the sport name– 796 BAS for baseball, 796 for FOO, etc.– and right away we noticed how easy it was for the kiddos to find the books. This got us excited to start working through each section and determining how to best group and label each section. Some of our numbers completely broke the Dewey system such as habitats (oceans, wetlands, etc) now belong in 574 HAB.

When we went through each section, we asked each other , “if we were looking for this book, what would be the first word we would use.” That’s the word or abbreviation we went with for that section. Where would you look for a book on bugs? 585 BUG! Also, because we now have larger sections, our plan is to print a cheat sheet of where to find everything.

In going through this process, we were able to weed and shift our entire nonfiction section, and we cleared all our top shelves. These shelves are too high for most K-2 students, so books that lived there were rarely checked out by younger students. (Thanks to Mrs. McCoy for this idea at AASL last year!) With it being the end of the year, we left up “something fabulous is coming” signs on all these empty shelves. However, we have displays and signage planned for these shelves next year, and we are excited to compare our nonfiction statistics from the previous year to see the difference these changes make.

Have a great summer teacher librarian friends!! I know it is hard to unplug, so if you are thinking of big projects for the upcoming school year in your space please let me know!

Listening is Reading

As a reader, teacher, school library media specialist, and advocate of all things literacy, audiobooks weren’t an immediate sell for me. I wanted to read the words on the page, and I felt like I was cheating if I listened to a book. I started listening to books on CD from the public library when I had a longer commute to and from work, and I quickly realized how much reading time I could gain in my day if I listened to books in the car. Now I’ve graduated from books on CD to audiobooks from Libby, Spotify, and Sora, and I’ve realized that I can plow through some nonfiction audiobooks like no one’s business! I have found I definitely prefer nonfiction audiobooks to fiction, and I love when authors read their own books.

Recently, Amy Hermon with School Librarians United shared an opportunity to share on her podcast the hill you would die on. I shared my thoughts on audiobooks (as well as graphic novels, magazines, cereal boxes, etc) and how reading is reading is reading! No matter how or what kids (or adults!) read it counts as reading. Audiobooks are books. We use the same skills to process and understand the information we are putting into our brains.

So tell me–what audiobooks have I missed out on?! What do I need to listen to right away?!

Renewing Your Spark: GLMA SI 2023

Last week I had the amazing chance to attend the Georgia Library Media Association’s (GLMA’s) summer institute. This professional development opportunity filled my library bucket and allowed me to re-think some ideas in my own media program. Some of the ideas and sessions were items that have been on my own library to-do list for too long! Isn’t it funny how we hear an idea from someone else that is seemingly so simple and we think, “wow! I can definitely do that in my space!” Below are some of the takeaways I hope to use or build upon in the upcoming school year. I picked three ideas that I feel I can either add to our media program or use to enhance programming that already exists. Some of these are just enhancements to library programs or promotions we already do, and some may turn into even bigger projects! A huge thank you to all the presenters at the summer institute that inspired and shared these great ideas!

-Graphic novel signage/contest: Re-doing the signage for the graphic novel section is on my to-do list for this year, but I loved the idea of having the students submit ideas for the labels and signage. This would give them so much more ownership over this section in our media program!

-Student ambassadors: Again this is something that has been on my list for awhile now. I usually have middle school students who are teacher’s kids hang out in the learning commons in the morning and help. However, I would love for fifth grade students to help in the mornings assist students, work in the makerspace with students as needed, or deliver items to teachers. Thankfully a fellow media specialist shared her application with me too, so I can work to tweak that before school starts.

– Physical activities integrated into the story walk/trail walk: We already have story walks posted on the playground, but I think either adding a trail walk or integrating physical activities would be a great collaboration between the media program and our PE program!

What ideas have you developed this summer or goals you want to work towards for next school year?

Collection Development

What are the best collection development strategies you use or look for each school year? I know this looks different at each level (elementary, middle, and high), but I feel when working to develop an elementary collection there are many factors at play when examining high interest texts for students. Also, within the realm of collection development, we also have digital collection development and what is circulated in print vs. a digital or audio copy. That leads into an entirely different discussion about what to purchase for your digital vs. physical collection.

When considering collection development at the elementary level, I think you have to think about current trends in what our readers are looking for. Pairing chapter books with their graphic novel companions has been a focus recently for our collection as well as filling gaps in popular series we have.

Also, when thinking about middle and high school collection development, how do those strategies differ from elementary school? Do research topics or changes in grade level curriculum impact your collection development?

Passive Library Programming

Whew! We have almost made it through the first full month of school (for those of us in the south that went back Aug 1st)! I think this year started as the normal August crazy of just trying to get our feet on the ground. We’ve overcome library orientations, book tastings, beginning of the year read alouds, SORA introductions, and laptop distribution. I feel like now we finally get into collaborative teaching and partnerships. Last week I started curating resources for a mini third grade research project, gathering names for book clubs, and brainstorming STEAM bin ideas for the makerspace this year.

I listened to Amy Hermon’s School Librarians United podcast episode about passive programming (found here) this summer, and I think the idea of embedding our programs in such a seamless way is important for our stakeholders to see all the options we can provide them. So as we move into September, I want to start focusing on passive programming and things that students can participate in as they walk through the learning commons or post to our learning management system. Maybe have them submit online book reviews to me this way? What about challenges in SORA–as a class, read for a day (24 hours)? What are some passive programming ideas you have or ideas that have been successful?

End of School Year Prep

I know we are only in March, but who else starts looking towards the end of the school year as soon as we come back from December break? I start looking at May’s calendar, and I start strategically thinking about all the end of year tasks I need to accomplish between field days, tug of wars, end of year assemblies and parties, yearbook signings, and grade level celebrations. How do you wrap up the end of the year in your media program? Do you have a checklist? At times, I feel like my end of year and July/August checklist intertwine. Whatever I can’t accomplish in May usually ends up on my beginning of the year list for pre-planning.

Each May I plan for a celebration for my school new’s teams, read shelves and finish up inventory, run end of year reports, weed the collection and discard books as needed, check in equipment from teachers, update my five year plan for our media program based on what we accomplished the previous year, and start planning orientation for the upcoming school year. In addition to the media end of year tasks, we have school-wide procedures and checklists we have to complete, collect technology from teachers who are leaving, and publicize the summer reading programs.

Fellow media peeps, how do you organize all these tasks? Do you have a strategy that works well for you? Do you have a hard copy of all your tasks or do you keep an electronic copy? Please share all your secrets!

Makerspace Brainstorming

As we are still altering our ways of instruction to meet the needs of students during a pandemic, I wanted to get creative about new ways to invite students into our makerspace. Sometimes the activities we have out aren’t always the easiest to clean or easy for students to share the materials. Below are some of the activities I’ve added or tried to expand on this school year, and I have linked to purchases or resources for each. Hopefully these are ideas you can incorporate into your own media programs or classrooms.

Large pop it games: Pop its are all the rage right now, so what better way to bring students into the makerspace? The best part is up to four students can play on each game board.

Digital sticker puzzle: My students love the Stick Together sticker puzzles, but I think they like the digital puzzles even more! The best part about this is that it is out in the learning commons for all students and teachers to contribute to not just in our makerspace.

Mackin maker cards: These free makerspace resources and task cards from Mackin have made setting up makerspace stations easier this year. I used the grades 3-5 task cards for multiple makerspace stations for strawbees, keva planks, legos, and snap circuits.

Golf tee pegboard: I ordered this pegboard display on wheels, and I have colorful golf tees out for students to use to build shapes, numbers, or letters. We even had a class borrow it to each multiplication and arrays. The students love designing items for the board, and this is another maker option we keep readily available in the learning commons outside of the makerspace.

AASL Conference Recap

This past week I attended my first national school librarian conference, and I was blown away by the amount of fellowship, networking, and sessions! Not only was it good for my soul to see my library tribe in-person (with masks and safety measures in place), but it also refreshed the fatigue feeling so many educators are facing this year. I got to meet people in-person that I had only met via Twitter or through webinars, and it truly felt like I was reconnecting with old friends.
The sessions I attended were so impressive, and I came home with ideas exploding out of my brain! If you missed the AASL conference, you can find notes and presentation links here: bit.ly/notataasl21. Noteworthy sessions I attended included: #BetterTogether: Creating Content and Communities, Manga in the School Library: What, Why, & How?, AASL Author Talk: Project-Based Learning for Elementary School Libraries, 2020 &2021 Research Grants, Dueling Makerspaces: Curriculum-Connected or Open-Ended? You Decide!, Embedded Librarianship: Infusing Your Library Program within Your Entire School and Community, and Share Your Story! Getting Started with Professional Writing.
I always feel like I’m drinking from a fire hydrant at a conference, so I’m trying to focus on one or two ideas I can implement quickly in my program. I worked on a manga book order while at the conference, so I feel my students will be happy when this arrives! I also talked with our stem teacher this week about different makerspace ideas as well as added to my Amazon wishlist for our learning commons.
I tried to read over my conference notes yesterday now that I’m a day removed from the conference, but what other reflection tools do you use after a conference or PD session?
I hope to see many of you at #AASL23! Look out Tampa!

Show Educators Some Love

To all the educators who are teaching right now whether it is virtually, hybrid, or face to face on some wonky model, I see you and I feel you. We just finished our third week of teaching on a hybrid model (teaching both virtual and face to face students at the same time). We do work remotely on Wednesdays in order for buildings to be cleaned, and we have meetings both with teachers and students to do virtually.
I have come each day exhausted. Not one class in “teacher school” prepared anyone for the level of engagement you have to meet each day. Many teachers are leaving with no voice because we are working to ensure we talk loud enough for all the students to hear us behind our masks. It is hard. If you know a teacher, this would be a great time to send them a quick letter, text, or note of appreciation. Because right now, so many of our efforts don’t feel seen or heard. Also, if you are a parent, ensure you show your child’s teachers some grace. Many are learning how to navigate day-to-day instruction along with your students. I am extremely appreciative of my teachers who are still collaborating with me and bringing me into their rooms for lessons.
Show a teacher some love today.