Blessed to Teach and Read

Another great year is in the books!  Am already looking ahead toward next year, gathering ideas for genrifying sections of our library, but am definitely taking some time to relax, restore, and spend time with family.   Here's a brief overview of happenings from March to May: Thanks to the VERY supportive parents of our school, we held our Spring Follett Book Fair.  (I helped decorate a bit.)  While the set-up was super easy and they give 30% cash, we've decided to go back to Scholastic Book Fairs, until they build more Follett distribution centers near us, and/or hire more staff.  We missed having a regional person on-site, to ensure that we were getting the books we needed.     I continued on with monthly Biblionasium Challenges, ending in the grand prize giveaway of 2 Paperwhite Kindles, donated by our local Zaxby's.   Loads of more lessons for my K-5 kiddos, with an emphasis on a variety different authors:...

This is how all of the student work from our Georgia Book Award Centers came out.  Again, some was digitally created, some was paper pencil, and some was crafted from their own imaginations.  Next year's goal:  Centers could be less teacher-directed, and more open-ended.              Reflection:  So, as you can see, I did put up all the hearts that students created for why they love the library.  Obviously, next year, I need to make better paper color choices, like yellow or light blue.  But, I also need to figure out what else I can do for that day or entire week.  Within my all-day, fixed, 6-day rotation, I did do lessons that involved Dr. Seuss' books, but for his actual birthday, it was back to regular library lessons.  I had read collaborative ideas from other media specialists within our county, and even created a page on our county's ItsLearning platform for sharing past ideas, but I didn't ...

Our county Media Specialist, Susan Grigsby , has asked us to post a "shelfie" of the books that we've read this summer.  I remembered that I could update my  Shelfari app, and since the books that I've finished to date all fit onto 3 shelves, I snapped a picture.  These same books are in the Shelfari to the right.  Just click through. ----> I was trying to start reading through this year's  Georgia Book Award Nominee Finalists for grades 4-8, but that was starting to get costly.  So, I looked at what books I could check out from my local Gwinnett County Public Library on my Overdrive app for iPad.   ALL of the books above are digital content downloads.   All of them .  Knowing that some of them would be returned as the days ticked down to the due date actually motivated me to finish reading some of them.   This naturally lead me to reflect on my Follett wish list for the upcoming school year.  Almost all the books...