A Year in Review- What I Will Continue to Do

This week is the last week of school for our students.  It is also summer for most staff- I of course am not slowing down. I will be doing Summer School as a librarian (and I have some fun things up my sleeve with the help of Erika Rocha and Monica Alcaraz for summer reading) Monday-Thursday, Monday-Wednesday I will be teaching swim lessons and Friday and Saturday will be lifeguarding.  

I had SO much fun this year working in high school.  I am going to miss the kids over the summer and the ones that are moving on to adulthood.  I have now had a chance to work in elementary, middle, and high school. I have appreciated every level for different reasons- but I sure have enjoyed high school.

Things I will continue to do:

Hot Chocolate Storytime

In December we had a Pajama day- and anytime that I can wear a Onesie.. I am in! After chatting with my principal I decided to start hosting a morning storytime that included hot chocolate and a themed book.  In the beginning, I got some grumbles- but the students came for the hot chocolate.  By the last month, I had students bringing in their friends to join in and I even had a few smiles with the story.   

The Pros of this:
-affordable
-gets students in the library
-gives students a chance to hear a read aloud

Keep Irving Beautiful Projects

Keep Irving Beautiful is a local organization that does just what it says- Keeps Irving Beautiful. You can check out their website here Of course one of the main things they do is pick up trash- but they do so much more! They have various community service projects throughout the year that the community can participate in.  This year our school participated in creating holiday cards for Christmas and Valentine's day for nursing homes and also picking up trash around our school.

The Pros of this:
-affordable
-easy community service projects 
-keeps our school engaged with our community

Senior Photos

I LOVE taking photos.. especially ones of people.  I am not a professional (but I am not half bad) I have offered photos to family and friends for maternity, family, and senior photos.  This year, I extended my photo-taking to seniors.  Seniors could sign up for an hour slot either after school or on a weekend to have 100-300 photos taken.  I take my favorite out of the batch and edit them for the students (my goal is 10-15 photos per student)  I then upload these photos into a Google File that has all my photos and the edited ones.  Students had the option to take photos around the school (there are so many options!) or at a local park. Did each photo session take about 2 hours of my time from taking the photos to editing- yes.. was it worth it to offer it to students that might not be able to afford them otherwise.. 100%

The Pros of this:
-affordable
-way for me to give back

-makes my heart and brain happy

Destination ImagiNation

I started volunteering with Destination ImagiNation back in 2009 as a Team Manager.  I have written about Destination ImagiNation before. You can find more about it here. This year I moved to a new campus.. but still had 2 teams that I had been managing since they were in 3rd grade (now they are Juniors about to be seniors.. and seniors that are about to graduate) I wasn't planning on taking on any more teams (although I usually manage 3-5 at a time-you can read my blog here about how I organize multiple teams)  After next year when the next group graduates I was planning on going to the appraiser and volunteer side.  At the beginning of this year, however, I had students approach me asking me if I would be willing to manage a team.  How could I say no? As long as students need and want a Team Manager- I will be there to support them!

The Pros of this:
-Way for me to give back

-I have a chance to see students grow and try new things

-Students have a chance to challenge themselves

I of course will continue some other things such as:

-Stranger Things Day

-Family Literacy Night (hoping to grow it with another campus as well)

-holiday craft activities

-weekly voting (thanks Nicole Graham)

I have a couple of other things that I would like to try next year.. but I am also already thinking about my word for next year and how that will fit into my ideas.

What were your favorite things you did this year?  What do you want to keep and what do you want to ditch?

May the 4th Be With You!

Last week I hosted my first literacy event that was Star Wars Themed.  There are so many different ideas out there- but here is how I hosted my "Jedi" Training. There are lots of links and pictures to go along with this.

I got a ton of ideas from this blog from Lego Librarian 

You can find my Star Wars Jedi Training Station Signs here (Canva Template)

First- I have to share my TikTok because I have to admit it was my cleanest transition yet!

I also had the help of Marie to make this happen!

On May 4th we invited students and staff to wear their best Star Wars attire  (shirt or costume) just no face covering.  The Jedi Training was after school in the library from 5:00pm-6:30pm

Of course, I had to have a voting area- thanks Nicole for giving the idea for voting We went with old-school characters.  I think in the end it was a tie between Chewie and Darth- poor Luke didn't have a chance

This was one of my displays- I got the sign idea from one of the Facebook groups- it says Reading Solo is Dangerous- take a Wookie with you (and then there were Wookie bookmarks)

This station had a QR code that led back to our databases and posed the question of what was an interesting fact that they learned about Star Wars- and then use a dry erase marker to write on the board.

Picklebums had a Build Your Own Star Wars Droid.  I printed off copies of these and invited attendees to create their own Droid.

I also found printable bookmarks that attendees could color.

You can find the I Spy  printable here 

I loved this decodable message station and will probably do something like this throughout the year.

I also had regular games set out throughout the library for students to play.

This was the Light Saber Training- I created the Light Sabers out of pool noodles that I cut in half and added duct tape.  The mission was to see how long they could keep the "Droid" (balloon) in the air. I had some students set up obstacles with some chairs.

At the end we also had a Read Aloud of Are You Scared Darth Vader by Adam Rex

I also had a station that invited attendees to put themselves into a Star Wars scene using a Canva Template.

Will I do this again- absolutely.  I think I had 7 attendees and also 5 staff that came and participated.  The high schoolers that attended were totally engaged and did the stations. At the end of the evening, I also had free books to give away.  I LOVED having conversations with these kids! I had some elementary school kids come and they walked away with picture books.  The high schoolers that came walked away with books they would enjoy.  I also have some high schoolers that have children of their own- and they walked away with board books for their little ones at home.  

Do you guys do anything for May the 4th?  My next blog is about what I plan to continue next year as a high school librarian. I can't believe that is already May and that this school year is almost done!!