Mock Caldecott

It must be NOVEMBER! 

It's Mock Caldecott time again! 

I got my ground rules for our competition here. 

I also used her power point for years and have only this year made my own. If you're struggling with where to start in creating your own Mock Caldecott it's absolutely worth the $2.50! 

Here's my set up. I've made stations around the library and put a potential candidate at each letter.  

The  first week of November we talk about the Caldecott and what it means. I always emphasize that the committee is looking for unique books that grab your attention. Here's my presentation.

The next week we vote.  
 I made a Google form for our ballot and am crossing my fingers and praying that our technology cooperates. Each child will bring their iPad from class and vote using the form. Here's the form with our candidates for this year. 

The last week (only 3 weeks typically with Thanksgiving break in there.) I announce the winners for the individual class, grade level and our school. 

One of my favorite things we do all year! 

National School Library Month

 In honor of School Library Month we are having some fun in the elementary library at FWC!

We are going to be Skyping with one of the authors of the new Voyagers series soon (see pictures below) and we have 20 copies of the first book Project Alpha.

I was trying to decide how to give them away and I came across this on Pinterest.

I am making it my own and it feels very complicated at the moment. Update: It turned out to be simple. The kids loved it! One parent told me that her son looks forward to coming to school because we are playing Monopoly in the library. (and I think he really wants a book!)

When a student checks out a book (4th or 5th graders only, since they are the ones Skyping with the author) they roll the die and move the game piece. I think I'm going to limit it to one play per day. 

I have written (stolen) trivia questions about famous children's books and assigned a question to each spot on the board. I adapted "Chance" to be "Complete the Title" questions. For example: The Day the Crayons _______ (Quit). And "Community Chest" are "Who Wrote It?" questions. Example: Who wrote Alice in Wonderland? 

If they get the question right they will enter their name to win one of the Project Alpha books. I will probably give them 2 minutes or so to go find the answer if they can. If I give them unlimited time the teachers will kill me since they will spend all day in the library.

I know there are more technologically savvy ways to do this and next year I'll make it more efficient. This year is an experiment! I'll add pictures as it progresses.

Happy Reading! 

Update: We also had leadership from our school come in and read to the students. 

We also played a version of Clue that I found here to promote our Mystery genre. 

 

Here are pictures from our Skype visit with Voyagers author DJ MacHale. 

 

Mock Newbery Results

It's (un)official! FWC has predicted what will win the Newbery Award in 2014. 

 Here's a list of our predicted possibles.

Drumroll Please!!

Here are the results from our Newbery Book Club

Winner: Navigating Early

Honors: The Real Boy

               Jinx

Here's the breakdown of the votes

So proud of the students (and teachers) who participated in our book club these past few months. They are READING ROCKSTARS!

Book Wish List

I bet every other librarian has already done this, but I have a clipboard hanging by my desk. On it is our library wish list. This way teachers & students can write the titles of books that they want that we don't have. I even add to it so that I can keep track of cool books I find. Then when I'm ready to order I can just grab this list and I'll know what I need!

I got the title border from The 3am Teacher who is fabulous! I want her to design my life!

Howdy folks,

I've been thinking about and preparing for this post for a while, but never could find the time to sit down and do it! I know you know feel my pain!

Some things I'm excited about:

Library Star Stickers

I made this page and I print it on round Avery labels. They are the ones that go with the template 22807. I am attaching the PDF mostly because it took a lot of tweaking to get them just right and if they were changed at all I bet they'd print all wrong again. (And you'd waste a page or two of labels like I did!) If you want the word document it's here. 

Here is the *final product of my Hollywood theme. 

*It's never actually final. My high school helper is still adding windows to the buildings. We'll find something else to do when that's done! 

There's more to come and I'll find some time to document it all... but not today!! 

Happy Tuesday! 

I'm alive!

Ok so it's been more than a year since I posted...

Since April of last year I found out I was pregnant, had morning (read all-day) sickness, got as big as a house, had a precious baby boy & now I am about to start my very first year as a librarian. Yay!!!!

I don't know if this blog will be relevant to any of you but I'm just so excited that I want to share what's going on these days!

I have been working on my Hollywood theme this year.







Here is what the hallway outside the library looks like so far. Lots of work still to do but it's coming along (and kicking my tail!)

Love you all for still caring!

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