Treehouse Art

One of our third grade classes asked if I would display their collaborative treehouse art in the library. Here is their display of very fun looking treehouses surrounding a community soccer field.  It is nice to have student art in the library!

Fortnite read-alikes

I found this fun display idea online at the Skinner Middle School Library website and related MinervaReads blog.  Fortnite is a big hit with our MS/ES students so we decided to copy their display idea.

Here's our new display:

And here's a close up of the books we have.  Unfortunately, we don't have all of them from the book list Skinner Middle School provided, but still a good selection!

Happy Winter Break!

The library wishes you a wonderful Winter Break.

We are open during break! Check the newsletter for dates and times.

Thank you to our assistants for making our library so festive.  Our book tree has received many compliments.

Happy Halloween!

The MS/HS Library wishes you a Happy Halloween!

Come find a book to scare you silly.

Banned Books Week- it's here!

Middle School had many discussions this week about why books may be challenged.  Checkouts and holds of challenged materials soared, which always happens during Banned Books Week!

Our most requested hold this week...Thirteen Reasons Why.  Students were surprised to hear that the book is over 10 years old and the "movie factor" increased challenges of this book.

Find all the books below (and many more) in our libraries!

(ALA.org)

Banned Books Week 2018

We are busy getting ready for Banned Books Week September 23-29.  Stop into the library to learn about, and check out, challenged books.

A huge THANK YOU to Mr. Shoyab and Ms. Shuborna for taking the lead on the awesome Banned Books Week displays.

Genre Feature Table- an easy addition to library lessons

I am lucky enough to see Middle School Humanities and English classes once per 8-day cycle for a 30 minute library lesson and book checkout.  This year, we added a genre feature table to our classroom area with the the hope of increasing checkout and introducing students to new books.
At the start of each library lesson, I book talk 4-5 books from the table and we discuss the featured genre.  For me, it's a great way to focus students and kick off our lesson.
This small addition to library time has been so successful that I have to re-stock the table after almost every lesson.
The featured genre for this week is: Sci Fi.

Emoji Book Reviews

Thank you to the team at NIST in Bangkok for sharing this great idea for Emoji Book Reviews.  I was wondering what to do to get students to review more books (because I can't keep my review shelf full all by myself) and this idea is really taking off.  Students love it!

I used many ideas from this NIST blog post.  The NIST bookmarks are beautiful; I wish our colors were green and blue but we went with Tiger orange to show our school spirt.

Here are a few photos from our review shelf:

Library Signage

Our last step was to create signage for the new sections.  I wanted something that could be seen among all the colorful book covers as our current signs seemed to blend in.

After doing some searching online for signage, and realizing our school has a lot of spare chalkboard paint, I asked our team of carpenters to modify a design found online.  We used natural, untreated wood (both for cost savings and for the rustic look) and chalkboard paint.  Chalkboards make the section titles really stand out.

We were not able to put the chalkboard signs on the tall shelves without hitting the ceiling so I used a chalkboard background and printed posters to put in frames to keep with the chalkboard look.

We had about 40 signs made and our talented assistants learned to do chalk art via YouTube tutorials.  Here is our beautiful new library signage:

Happy Halloween!

Thank you Ms. Shuborna and Mr. Shoyab for creating our awesome Halloween displays.

Have a spooky Halloween!

New Board

Found this idea on Pinterest and modified a bit for our library.  Others always comes up with the best bulletin board ideas!  Thanks Mr. Shoyab for taking on this project.

Works Cited:
B, Mrs. "Back to School: Ideas & Resources." Pinterest. N.p., 20 July 2015. Web. 24 May 2017. <https://www.pinterest.com/pin/74872412532270181/>.

What to do with old library books?

Book Art!

In collaboration with our middle school art teacher (99.9% of the credit goes to him- I just donated the books) we have new art displays in our library!
When I arrived this year, I found our non-fiction section to be very outdated.  The massive book weed resulted in several big, thick books that were perfect for recycled book art.  The MS students worked very hard to create these masterpieces:

Poetry Month

 Here is my favorite poem:

  (Harper Collins Tumblr)

I found this funny sign for Poetry Month for our display. We a bit behind this year given it's already April 19!

Thanks to Pinterest for the image, traced to the Literary Hoots Blog and several other libraries around the United States.  Oh, the fun of trying to cite Pinterest!

Ms. Shuborna created our book display with some of our "better-looking" poetry books to try and generate some interest.  Poetry is a hard sell in MS/HS.  I weeded non-fiction this year and would have had to weed 99% of the poetry if I were to go by checkouts alone.

READ WHAT THE PRINCIPAL READS

Thank you to our principals for sharing their favorite books for our new display.

Here are their favorites:
MS Principal Favorites   Boy in the Striped Pajamas The Witch of Blackbird Pond The Giver All the Light we cannot see Blindness Still Alice Three Cups of Tea Agassi The girl with the dragon tattoo The girl who kicked the hornet's nest The girl who played with fire How Children Succeed Outliers	HS Principal Favorites  Glass Palace Perfume House of Spirits Chronicle of a Death Foretold Fifth Business All the Light We Cannot See Master and Margarita Catch-22 The Handmaid’s Tale

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Stop by the library to pick up a book with an Irish Twist from our Saint Patrick's Day display. 

Not feeling the luck o' the Irish?  How about just a GREEN book?