There is a Mystery Afoot

 Happy Summer!

Many of my friends are traveling, attending amazing conferences, or just taking a break.  

I am spending my June hanging out with some pre-k and kinder students for summer school as the summer school librarian (and teaching swim lessons and lifeguarding) 

I absolutely love my local public library- and this year their summer reading theme is Only Mysteries in the Library.  You must check out their social media-Irving Public Library.  With the help of two other amazing librarians (Monica and Erika) we came up with some great things to keep our kiddos busy this summer.

Since our theme is mystery we tried to keep our activities along those lines.  I had my students become Library Private Investigators- L.P.I's

Information about our program:
-This is for Pre-k and Kinder students
-Our school is Monday-Thursday
-I see each class 2 days each week
-I am part of the rotation (summer school is different)

I created a Canva agenda board for my daily activities.  You can find the template here

Summer Library Private Investigators by akbusybee

Since I am working with littles this summer I tried to keep the schedule/timing the same:

-Started with an intro of all that we were doing

-did a 3 or 4 minute Yoga video

-used our digital databases to share information over the lesson

-had an interactive activity

-read a book

-checked out books

-then depending on the time left- I spy game or BookFlix

You can also find my lesson plans here-Summer Lesson Plans

There were a couple of things I did purchase-

-Magnifying Glasses-Amazon

-Animal Stickers for prizes- Amazon

-Detective Costume- Amazon

For the first day Erika made great clues to lead to different places around the school.  I used her clues and recorded videos. This gave teachers a chance to explore the school and students to follow the clues.

Although I created QR codes- I also put them all in one Wakelet- You can find the Wakelet with clues here 

We also created a Guess Who Game with clues posted each day (used characters from Bookflix)

You can find the Template Here for the Guess Who Game

Guess Who Summer Game by akbusybee

Some Highlights so far:

-Fingerprint Fun! The kids loved doing their own fingerprints and then using the magnifying glass to observe more closely

-We also had an AMAZING author visit! 

Juana Medina  is a fantastic author/illustrator.  She did a great job at keeping our students engaged.  She read in both Spanish and English- and did some super fun artwork!

Summer school ends at the end of June.  

What are you doing for summer reading? 

I am still using Goodreads- but I have also started using Bookmory- check out this fun calendar that it makes.