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!!

Library Month 2023

 There are 3 days a year that I intentionally treat myself.  The first day of school, my birthday in January, and School Librarian Day.  

April 4th is School Librarian day, and I am geared up and ready to go for the month!  I will probably have a few more things up my sleeve but wanted to share what I have so far.

You can find what I did last year here

Since I am at a new school, I will be doing some of the same things.

Although National Library week is not until the end of the month, I am still starting the month off by celebrating School Librarian Day.

I do have Amazon links in here, but I do not make any profit off of them, I just want to share where I got my materials.

I am passing out stickers to remind students and staff that I am stuck on them.

I was pleasantly surprised with the latest stickers I ordered from Amazon.  You can find them here (and they were only $9.99 and I didn't have to get rid of any- if you do order them I would still check!)

I love all of the information/ideas/social media items that ALA has- check it out here

Monday, April 24th- Right to Read day- I am going to invite students/staff to stop by the library and share their favorite book

Tuesday, April 25th- National Librarian Worker Day- I am going to have a Book Talk Tuesday wall up for everyone to add theirs too (I am hoping this will look like a "graffiti" wall)

Wednesday, April 26th- National Library Outreach Day- I am going to have hot chocolate in the morning and then invite students and staff to create a bookmark.  There will be two options.
-Felt Bookmark that only takes two items (which I already have in my Amazon cart)- full disclosure- I haven't made these before.. so I am hoping the items that I am ordering will work.
  *Jumbo Paperclips
  *Stiff Felt Squares
-Scratch Bookmarks for Kids

Thursday, April 27th- Take Action for Libraries Day- this day I will be sharing information about what our library does for the community and various stats. It is also Poem in your Pocket day!

You can find my premade social media designs by using this Canva Template Link I did use ALA social media Instagram Square and added more to it.

Other big things this month:
-Texas Library Association Conference in Austin- are you headed that way? I am helping at the Wakelet booth and also presenting over how to be a TokStar Librarian
-I am offering Senior Photos to my students (I am not a professional, but I love taking photos- and this is something I can do for my community)
-Getting one of my teams ready for Destination ImagiNation Globals in May!!
-Planning a literacy event for our families

I plan to also share on my various social media platforms what the library looks like throughout the day.

Thank you to all the librarians out there that are continually making a difference and making sure that all stories have a place on the shelves!

Also- if you need a good template for your Twitter/Facebook there are two great ones going around right now!

Zinnia- https://twitter.com/BayardoZinnia

Melissa Corey- https://twitter.com/melissacorey

#FirstLineFriday

If you are not already signed up to use Canva- GO DO IT NOW!

The presentation that I used to walk students through the process is at the bottom- along with a link to the template.

Canva is one of the most versatile programs and there are so many reasons to use it.  I use Canva on almost a daily basis for so many reasons. This week I had a chance to collaborate with one of my teachers. (Spencer.. like all the teachers at my school.. is amazing!)

Canva can be used as an app or in a browser on an iPad, Chromebook, desktop.

There were several TEKS that were covered-this was one:

Apply desktop publishing to create products using word processing programs, editing products, or drawing programs; design elements such as text, graphics, headlines, color, white space; typography concepts, including font size and style; and graphic design concepts such as contrast, alignment, repetition, and proximity;

After chatting with the teacher, we decided that we would have students create #FirstLineFridays using Canva.

The Main Points of this Lesson:
-Having students take the time to read the first line of a book- there are some really boring first lines out there-sorry authors. Students could choose ANY book- and some even chose a Graphic Novel or Manga.
-Once they had their book they then had to read the inside book cover and decide on the Tone and Mood- we talked about how that will change our font, background, and color choices
-Students then used the Instagram Story template in Canva to create these
-We talked about how these will be shared on social media- no one wants to watch a Reel on Instagram or a TikTok that is over 30 seconds long- so we talked about how to change the length of the videos

There were 2 products of this lesson:
-A finished #FirstLineFriday promo created in Canva
-A CER about why they chose the book and also why they chose the different design elements.

Other Great outcomes from this lesson:
-Students checked out books
-I had products that I can use on our various social media sites
-A chance to collaborate with a teacher 
-For the most part- students were engaged and were able to create great products!
-It was also a great lesson for students to check their spelling and capitalization of words.  You would think copying is an easy task- but proofreading is important

This is the presentation that I used to guide the lesson (also made in Canva)- Would you like to use this presentation for yourself- here is the Template

First Line Friday by akbusybee

March in the Library

February was a whirlwind! I didn't make it to TCEA- thanks to the ice storm that stretched from Dallas all the way to San Antonio.  Although I was bummed about TCEA, I know that NTTBF and TLA are just around the corner!

March is another busy month with lots of different things in store (along with spring break!)

This March I am planning

-Read Across America
-Open House Activity
-Promoting North Texas Teen Book Festival
-New Displays
-Taking 2 teams to the Lonestar Finals for Destination ImagiNation
-Senior Pictures

Read Across America

Read Across America is a great time to promote reading, but sometimes that gets a little harder when it comes to middle school and high school.  You can find what I did last year here

I have a confession- I am using the same Read Across America ideas and tweaking them just a little bit.  These high schoolers haven't seen it before... right? I do love dress-up days, but my mind was busy with Destination ImagiNation- so, maybe next year.  You can find the template here

I will also be making daily social media posts with this information.  You can find those templates here

For Thursday, March 2nd- Read Across America Day- I am going to host a Hot Chocolate and storytime before school starts.  I have started doing these about once a month.. the students humor me and stop in, but I think they secretly enjoy the story and hot chocolate.

Open House Activity

March 1st is our Open House. I always like having a fun and simple STEM activity.  I am reusing this idea as well, but it has been one of my faves (it is also super easy setup and creating!)

We are going to do Hoop Gliders and then challenge students to see whose glider can go the farthest. 

Materials Needed:
-scissors
-tape
-tape/glue
-straw
-ruler if wanted

North Texas Teen Book Festival

If you are in the DFW area, I would HIGHLY encourage you to check out the North Texas Teen Book Festival.  I have written about this festival several times- because honestly, it is the reason that I became a librarian.  You can find information on their website There are SO many amazing authors... and.. it is FREE!! You pay for parking, food (it is credit card only) and books if you want to buy (which you will want too because the authors sign them!)  It is a day full of author panels, conversing with students, book signings.. and just a day of amazing books.

I have a group of students that are helping with the countdown- Look for us on Day 4 until North Texas Teen Book Festival on their social media.

New Displays

I have been doing a weekly vote outside the library- currently, the vote is favorite kind of pizza. I think for Read Across America I am going to do favorite type of book.

-March Mammal Madness- I saw this from a TikTok- and now I am trying to convince my Biology teachers to do it with me.  You can find it here

-Women's History Month

-North Texas Teen Book Festival

I will post pics of my displays once I am done with them.  You can find my libraryland Instagram at @beeinthebookends

Destination ImagiNation Lonestar Finals

I am ending my month taking 2 teams to the Lonestar Finals for Destination ImagiNation.  In my spare time, I am a DI team manager and also a Girl Scout Leader.  I am SUPER proud of all of my teams.  

I took 4 teams to Mid-Cities Regional Tournament and all walked away with medals with 2 advancing to state.

The Nerdy Birdys- I have been hanging out with them since they were in 3rd grade- and now they are Seniors! They are an Improv group and will be going to state at the end of March

The PEEPS is another group that I have been hanging out with since they were in 3rd grade and now they are Juniors.  They didn't make it to state but still did an amazing in their Fine Arts challenge.

The E.L.V.E.S. was my FIRST team from my new school- they did AMAZING.. and placed second in their challenge.  Check out the website they created

The Flock is the combined team of the Nerdy Birdys and the PEEPS.  They placed 1st and are headed to state as well.

I am super proud of all these teams and what they did (I also shed a couple of tears when I realized that was the last time for my Nerdy Birdys to have a regional tournament)

I also love a selfie- and check out this pic that the photographer caught at awards.

Senior Pictures

I love taking pictures.. I am not a professional, but I am not too bad. I am offering senior pictures to our students- a headshot and some candids.

So far these two books have been my favorite reads of February.

 

Of course, spring break is in this month too.  I am helping with robotics, planting trees with my Girl Scout Troop for Keep Irving Beautiful, and picking up a few hours of lifeguarding. 

For the Love of Reading- February in the Library

 January and all of the adventures got away with me- but I am ready to ring in February.

I am starting my February in San Antonio at TCEA where I will be talking about Leveraging Your Online Presence.  I am also going to have a Pop Up Storytime to celebrate World Read Aloud Day.  Lots of links with pictures throughout the blog (along with shoutouts to all the amazing librarians that are sharing their resources!  Of course, I have lots going on at school- but it is also Destination ImagiNation season, Girl Scout cookie season, and some extra events going on at the pool that I am working at.

Things that I have planned for February

-World Read Aloud Day
-Dino Hunt
-Blind Date with a Book
-TCEA
-Keep Irving Beautiful Valentine Cards
-Black History Month

World Read Aloud Day

World Read Aloud Day is February 1st and you can find a TON of different ideas already ready-made.  Check out the Scholastic Website or check out Twitter and look for #WorldReadAloudDay23 

I will be at TCEA  that day, but I have decided I will be doing a Pop Up Storytime that will have a technology extension activity.  If I was at school- I think I would do the same thing.  I will be reading Have you Seen Gordon Adam Jay Epstein and Illustrated by Ruth Chan. I will share the activity after my storytime on Wednesday!

Dino Hunt

Are you following Melissa Corey on Twitter- if not- GO DO IT NOW! Not only does she share great programming ideas, but she also shares the templates. She just shared the Dinosaur Scavenger hunt for February and it is SO cute.  My high schoolers enjoyed the last scavenger hunt that I did- so I can't wait to get this one.  You can find the original tweet here

Blind Date with a Book

Another one of my favorite librarians to learn from is Racheal Reads- great ideas and she shares so many templates.  There are so many ideas out there for Blind Date with a Book- but I love how Rachael Reads has it set up- AND she shared her great resource! You can find it here

I had to recreate and add some of my own books.  You can find my template here

The white space on the bottom is where I added the barcode for each book for easy checkout.  For the descriptions, I used the annotation from Mackin (to make my life easier)  I also found this website that would make barcodes for me- Online Barcode Generator

TCEA

TCEA is the Texas Computer Education Association.  I have been a member of TCEA for probably about 15 years.  Every year they have an annual conference that is absolutely amazing! This year the conference is in San Antonio.  I am not able to go for the whole time, but I am slated to present on Wednesday afternoon over Leveraging Your Online Presence.  The bad news- DFW is currently under a winter storm warning... so I don't know if I am going to be able to make the drive. I will share my presentation soon!

Check out #TCEA23 on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok for some great learning!

Keep Irving Beautiful Valentine's Cards

I love that Keep Irving Beautiful has started these different opportunities for the community to give back.  Last year they invited community members to create cards that would be delivered to nursing homes at Christmas- they got so much great feedback that they began to do it for Valentine's Day too.  I of course love doing programming- and doing programming that you can give back to is even better!  I create card samples and get materials for the different kinds of cards.  Students can of course create their own, but sometimes they need a little help.  To prepare for the card making I ask students to sign up first (this way I know who to expect)  I also invite attendees to create 2 cards.  They will donate one card, but then be able to keep the other card for themselves.

You can find the 3 different cards that I created by clicking on this template.

Black History Month

I don't have a huge amount of space for displays-so I try to be creative.  I created a display cart for Black History month of some of my favorite authors. Disclaimer- Most of these books are also my Keller recommendations- so I have these books visible 24/7 unless they are checked out!

What do you have planned for February? I have also been devouring books this month.  I have already finished 14 books with The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson being my favorite so far.  March will be full of Read Across America, Spring Break- and who knows what else I can fit in.

January in the Library

 Welcome to 2023! I had grandiose ideas of what I wanted to get accomplished- and then reality hit!

Teachers started back to school on January 6th, with students starting back that next Monday.  I spent most of my winter break working at the pool lifeguarding and other odds and ends (thank goodness for it being indoors!)

The Friday that teachers came back I used this time to work with my Destination ImagiNation Teams.  Destination ImagiNation is for kindergarten- college level students where teams made up of no more than 7 members compete in different challenges. I think I have been doing Destination ImagiNation (DI) for about 13 years.  You can find more at the website here This year I have 4 teams.  I have a team of Seniors (the Nerdy Birdys) that I have been managing since they were in 3rd grade.  I have a team of Juniors (the PEEPS) that I have been helping manage since they also were in 3rd grade.  The Nerdy Birdys and PEEPS have combined this year to become The Flock.  I also have a brand new team this year in high school called the ELVES.  Competition is fast approaching so tis the season for stressing out (but I love it!)

When preparing for the month, I first get my Google Doc lesson plan calendar going.  This changes year, to year, but I like how I am scheduling it this year. 

What has worked for me this year is to have one Google Doc per month with each page representing a week. After my dates are put into the calendar I then plug in the different dates from my Outlook calendar and also the district calendar.  By doing this, I can easily have a calendar ready for me to collaborate with teachers and grade levels.

I started all of this planning- and then germs hit and knocked me on my rear for almost 2 weeks! Some of the things I had planned for the beginning of January- got moved to the middle of January.

Things Planning for this Month

-Goals for 2023
-Preparing for Keep Irving Beautiful Service Project
-Promoting new books (and making sure they are ready to be on the shelf)
-Weekly Poll

Goals for 2023

Amanda Chacon (@thegoodread) posted on Future Ready Librarian page about how she was ringing in the new year  (Nikki Robertson also shared how she did hers)  The idea was to have books that invite students to try new things in the New Year.  I don't have as much space for displays, so I changed mine up just a little bit.  I created speech bubbles for different things the students might want to try.  You can find my Canva template here

Keep Irving Beautiful Card Making

Before the holidays we had a Keep Irving Beautiful community service project.  Keep Irving Beautiful has so many projects that they are always doing to build our community from picking up trash, to planting trees, to so much more.  During the Christmas season, they invited community members to create cards that KIB could deliver to nursing homes.  What a super easy way for us to give back to the community (and let's be real, perfect community service and KIB took care of making sure it got to where it needed to go!)  They do this for Valentine's Day too.  Our school will have a card-making session at the end of January (on my February blog I will share all that we do) but I start promoting.

New Books

Don't you just love the smell of new books! In the fall when we have lots of new books come in, I do a book preview for staff first.  This was a smaller book order, so I created a TikTok that I could share on social media and also created a cart that was easily accessible.

Weekly Poll

One thing that I had been wanting to start, and I knew I would the first of the school year was a weekly poll.  I have been following Nicole Graham (@GrahamLibrarian) for awhile and one of my favorite things she has posted recently was a passive programming poll.  I started with Who Will Win and had Cowboys and 49ers.  

The poll station is set up right outside the library.  For our first poll, I stood in the hallway and asked students to have them participate.  

For this last week, I put the poll up- and guess what- the kids came to me!! (which was of course the hope, but let's be real.. sometimes it takes a bit!) The second week I did best fast food burger. I have loved the different conversations and arguments that students AND staff are having over the different polls.  Next up is best fries... and then I think I will do favorite Valentine Candy.

February is just around the corner- and I am almost prepared for it! I will share all that I am doing in February soon.  Right now I am gearing up to be at TCEA for one day, but some of the things that are coming up for February:
-Valentine Cards
-Blind date with a book
-More Polls
-World Read Aloud Day
-Blind Date with a book
-Dino Hunt 

and I am sure more!

What was your favorite thing that the library did during January?  Do you have ideas ready for February?