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Find Me in The Library

I took a full school year off from this blog, because it finally happened - I was taken out of the full-day, fixed specials schedule last year and scaled back to just 5th grade specials, every other day, every other 6 weeks!  My media specialist dreams came true! 😍  The joy of actually collaborating with teachers to provide lessons that were authentic, engaging, and timely for our students was phenomenal!  I was able to implement ideas as I discovered them, like How to Catch STEAM Week for 1st and 4th grade classes and Very Hungry Caterpillar Day for kindergarten!  

I had time to start reorganizing our picture book section to make it more user-friendly for students and to promote different series.  I was able to see all of our K-2 students every week for a read aloud, book checkout and activities!  Our library could accommodate teachers who wanted to use the space to read to their students or have class in a room that wasn't their regular classroom!  We held author visits and book fairs - in the library, and I got to be a part of them!!  I had time to create and promote monthly reading challenges for K-5, and the ability to award kids lunch-in-the-library-with-a-friend passes!  A teacher commented that I must be doing some "voodoo" in the library to get her 3rd graders to want to read biography books. 😆 We circulated 12,717 more books than the previous year! 
A flexible schedule revitalized my work soul.  I added to our program by creating and vetting monthly, online choice boards, that were inspired by Shannon McClintock Miller.  I published a monthly newsletter, with not only a section for students, but also a section for families with tips from Common Sense Media and reminders about what was happening at our local, Sharon Forks Public Library.  I was able to start our @sharoncastlelibrary Instagram account, and we won $1,000 from Sourcebooks Kids Publishing for participating in How to Catch STEAM Week.  Receiving those funds meant I was able to do Chibitronics circuit and coding lessons with two, 4th grade classes, alongside their Georgia Milestones review!  I was also able to do a full inventory without have to stay until 7 PM to get it finished.  It was a glorious year, and I think this coming year will be even more remarkable! I hope to start a couple of after school clubs built around STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math), and I want to try out some other lesson ideas to implement Chibitronics now that I have a greater understanding of how to build circuits.  (Thanks again, Infosys Foundation, USA for the Pathfinders Institute and the opportunity to learn this summer!)

I hope you can tell from all the exclamation points how excited I am about this coming school year.  I do encourage you to take a look into our library adventures by following us on Instagram @sharoncastlelibrary and/or following along on Twitter @ginnymoy.  

Here's to a wonderful, new school year!  💕


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