End of Year Thoughts

I tell people I have a love/hate relationship with this time of school year. Teachers are excited for summer just like the students are, but we also have lots to get done before our summer can start. We have so few days left, and so much to get done! For school librarians, we are trying to locate all the items–books, technology, equipment–that we haven’t seen since August. I joke with my para that things just have a way of making their way back to us this time of year.

Last year we decided to move and re-dewey our nonfiction section at this time, but this year we’ve decided to move our genrified chapter books around along with our graphic novels. Now we feel the “do we have enough time?!” feeling! We are also having new artwork going up in our space this summer as well as hosting summer school, so lots of moving pieces to ensure they fit together.

Teachers and school librarians: how do you stay organized and sane this time of year?! Best tips, tricks, and strategies?!

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?

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?

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?

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!

Thanksgiving Break Check-in

Well teacher friends we have made it to Thanksgiving break. I have never seen teachers so happy and ready for a break as I have this school year. In the world of face-to-face, hybrid, and virtual teaching, we are exhausted. I know I’ve been taking longer teacher naps each day! (I thought this was a hard feat to overcome based on my normal, school-year weekly naps!) While this school year may not be ideal for some, it has pushed me to re-think how we instruct, provide materials, and ensure our students have access to the materials they need.

Our media program is doing mobile book checkout on a book cart (since no small groups or class check outs happen in our learning commons right now), and I am pushing into classrooms and computers labs to teach. This isn’t worst case scenario for us by any means! We have been able to add so many resources into our collection with the thought of virtual learning behind them. Below are some ideas and resources we’ve started utilizing or changing the way our students use these resources during hybrid instruction.

What resources are re-evaluating this year or what new resources are you making use of for your students?

Destiny collections: We’ve used Destiny collections in the past for book recommendations, but this year I’ve highlighted different topics or resources available through collections. Different collections are linked here on our learning commons blog.

Makerspace kits for checkout: Since makerspace supplies are only being used as requested on carts for teachers to use in their classrooms, many of the supplies are sitting unused. One media specialist in our district starting checking these out to her students, and I thought this was a great idea. Right now we have ten makerspace kits for checkout to students. They are a variety of perler bead activities and makerspace craft supplies (paper, foam, pipcleaners, etc.), and students can check out a bag of supplies, use what they need, and return the unused materials. We will quarantine the materials for three days like we do our library books, re-stock the bags, and check them back in. Our school’s makerspace information can be found here on the learning commons blog.

Happy Thanksgiving and holiday season to all!

Digital Learning

Well I’m not too sure the past few days have been what anyone would have imagined especially for educators. If your school or district has gone to digital learning the past week, I would love to hear from you and which resources your class or district is using for digital learning. I’ve been doing daily videos on my Twitter (@ashermly), school blog, and facebook along with a different resource highlighted each day. Below are some examples I’ve focused on so far you can grab from my school blog link.

STEM/Makerspace activities: This was a free STEM product from Teach Outside the Box, and it provides activities and resources for at-home makerspace type of activities.

Book Review Choice Board: I created this optional choice board (template from Brooke Brown on TPT) of options for students to complete about books they read over their digital learning days. (I allowed students to check out 6 additional books the day before left school, so hopefully they will read them and complete one of these activities).

Author Videos and Resources: So many authors and illustrators are trying to ensure students have access to their books through digital story time (while still complying with copyright)! Kate Messner compiled a great list here.

Screencasts: I have screencasts created with step-by-step instructions for accessing and using different databases I will post over the few days too.

How are you trying to reach students and parents? I read an article about how important it is for our students to “see” us during these digital learning days. Are your students “seeing” you at all through videos, skypes, or virtual meetings?

Let me know! We are in this together!

2020 is Coming: How are you Wrapping up 2019?

202o is coming (1) As we gear up for the holiday season, many times I feel like the upcoming weeks are just downward spiral of fun, lessons, activities, and craziness all at the same time. I know that we only have three full weeks between coming back from Thanksgiving break and starting Christmas break. I would love to hear about the activities you have planned for your students. Below are a few activities we try to do or have done in the past with classes.

American Symbol videos- These are videos we’ve done for the past few years with our kindergarten students. They complete a report about the bald eagle or another American symbol, and I film them sharing their report using the TouchCast app and our green screen. I then upload the student videos to the teacher’s Seesaw account, and we print QR codes to put on each student’s report. Parents can then scan and view their videos during the Thanksgiving feast. Students and parents love watching these each year. If you have parents coming into the building for events, any type of video would be a great idea!

Christmas in the Trenches– I have done this activity with my fifth graders the past few years. Many times around December break the fifth grade students are studying trench warfare in social studies. The classes visit the learning commons, and we read Christmas in the Trenches. Afterwards we watch Sainsbury’s chocolate ad from Christmas 2014 that is based on Christmas in the Trenches with a short re-telling of the story. Finally, the students create their own form of warfare after we discuss how trench warfare wasn’t truly effective. The students get into groups of 4-6, each group gets a bag of supplies to use (supplies included popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, and pom poms), and the students then have to plan a model of their own warfare and be able to describe it the group.

The Polar Express celebration- While I don’t have a train conductor’s outfit, we do set up the learning commons to look like a train, punch the student’s tickets with a hole punch, and we do a grade level reading and celebration of The Polar Express with our first grade students. Many times we plan this celebration on our school-wide Polar Express/pajama day, so everyone is in the spirit along with us.

Holiday makerspace stations- During the month of November I tried to have a makerspace station involving different holidays or items students are thankful for them to incorporate into their projects. For example, stations included writing a letter to someone you are thankful for, creating your own holiday greeting card, designing an inspirational poster for someone else, or making a friendship bracelet to give to someone else. I hope to continue a variety of thankful/giving back or holiday celebration stations in the makerspace heading into December this week. If you have other ideas, please feel free to share them with me!

Makerspace Updates

Makerspace updates.png I’ve gotten a few messages about makerspaces on social media recently asking about our school’s makerspace and how I run it along with our media program. For those local and interested, I will be doing a session at GaETC on November 6th alongside another media specialist in the county about how we started, run our programs, and use our maker resources to teach curriculum-based instruction.

Essentially, there are three pieces to our makerspace. The first piece is our maker mornings option. I host morning maker sessions for our 2nd-5th grade students from 7:15-7:45 each morning. This is after hosting only maker Mondays last school year. By focusing on a different grade each morning, I am able to have more students utilize the space and resources. The morning sessions consist of four different stations or options for students to work on. I try to change the stations every week or every other week. The stations usually consist of some type of coloring option (we will laminate their finished color creation if the students want), some type of technology option such as coding or gaming, some type of building challenge with legos, magnets, or brainflakes, and then some type of craft or creation option. I try to keep the morning stations out during the day school day as well, so students can finish or work on stations they are interested in.

The second piece to our makerspace is open sign-in during the school day. This means students just need a pass from their teacher to sign in and work in the makerspace. Some students come to work on a project from their teacher, such as this choice board from Esperanza Rising (choice board is a freebie I created from a free template from Brooke Brown’s TPT). Other students may earn time in the makerspace as a behavior incentive from their teacher, and they are able to select the project they want to complete. Either way, we serve about 80-100 additional students through makerspace visits each week.

The third and final piece to the makerspace is whole group instruction. This is what my heart loves to see! I love it when a teacher comes to me to see how we can integrate the makerspace into their classroom instruction. While independent exploration of the makerspace is great, whole-class instruction that works to meet a curriculum standard is even better! For example, our fifth graders use the makerspace to complete their genius hour final product. Also, I have it in the works for the PE coach to make use of the space and resources to make jump ropes for our jump rope for heart school-event. This culmination of resources and teaching is essentially what drives my instruction and love of our makerspace!

Please feel free to reach out to me about questions or ideas for projects you have! I am always brainstorming different projects and how I can have our kiddos create in our makerspace!