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I'm doing it!  I'm posting before it's been 6 months! Haha!  

I've been posting new books to our school's #SharonStrong as often as I can, to promote the new books we have purchased.  

Through promoting our new books, author Ame Dyckman, saw one of my posts, contacted me, and sent our school enough "Misunderstood Shark" bookmarks and stickers, so that each child at school got both!  I posted her letters up next to our bulletin board.  The kids LOVED them, and continue to love reading her stories!

And, before our county subscription to TeachingBooks.net ended, I entered a book contest and won this book for our school!  It's going into our Professional Library, since it's a paperback.  

C.A.S.T.L.E. (Collaborative and Social Technology Learning Environment, also known as the library) Apprentices, or 5th grade helpers, have started working to create our monthly bulletin board and shelf display.  They're doing a marvelous job!

       
 


First graders have been working on their library lessons to practice recording titles and call numbers, so that it's easier to get help when locating books.  Second through fifth graders had lessons on using their Biblionasium and had a review lesson on using MyON, now that there are 200 new titles.
        
 

 The "Books on Hold" cart is hopping!  We've already gone through 13 full pages of holds titles.  It's an act of love to look for the books students want to read while simultaneously having a class and trying to shelve the books.  I've also developed a small holds tag, where I write down the students' name, the teacher's name, and the date I place it on the holds cart.  I also email the teacher, asking that they notify the student, and then 5 school days later, remove the book from the holds cart, if the student hasn't picked it up.  It's a system that has evolved, but I'm happy with how much the kids feel special by having a book saved for them.  :) 


We celebrated "International Dot Day" for a week, so that all the classes could participate.  You can see how the work built up over the week (left picture to right picture).  I read the upper grades "Ish" in addition to "The Dot" so that we could compare the plots.  Students had the option to make and leave a dot, if they wanted it put up on display.  I love their creativity, and how they each made something special and unique.

 

 GoodReads Reading Challenge Update:  I'm up to 32 out of 100 books.  I've started reading "The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place" series and "The 39 Clues" series - both EXCELLENT!

Lastly, one of the most amazing librarians I know, Kris Cable of Compton Elementary School in Cobb County, made and shared a video tour of her library with me.  Her school is so far away, but I had wanted to visit it, since she has already genrefied her fiction section, a personal goal of mine for our library.  She also shared how she moved to whole number Dewey, and how she is working on figuring out a way to have a front-facing "E" book section.  (That would be a definite dream of mine, but we would have to figure out a cheaper system or win the library funding lottery, since the shelves are ridiculously expensive for displaying books front-facing.)  Her ideas give me ideas, and I am just so amazed by her incredible work!

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