Jungle Book Fair

We recently held our spring book fair. Last spring, I had everything prepared for our book fair but it was cancelled after school closed due to covid. So this year, I used the spring 2020 theme, which was Book Fair Jungle: Elephants, Tigers, and Books Oh My! The inside and outside of the media center were decorated to correspond with the theme.  

Several changes were put in place to make this book fair safe. Students were required to sanitize their hands as they entered the book fair. Previously, teachers were invited to sign up for one preview time and one shopping time. As a result, we often had two classes in the book fair at once. During this fair, I created a video preview for students to watch and asked teachers to sign up for a shopping time only.  This allowed us to have one class at a time in the library. Our digital learners were invited to shop after school. My students and teachers were so excited to have an in-person book fair that they did not mind any of the new procedures!

During this fair, my younger readers loved Babysitters Little Sister: Karen's Worst Day by Ann M. Martin, Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry, and My Very Favorite Book in the Whole Wide World by Malcolm Mitchell. My older readers bought Dog Man: Mothering Heights by Dav Pilkey and Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon.

Because we did not have any family events, this was not our most successful book fair ever. However, we made enough money to purchase new books and filament for our 3D printer!

Bonnie Clark Virtual Author Visit

We virtually hosted author Bonnie Clark on February 10! Bonnie is the author of Taste Your Words and Catching Thoughts. Both of these books are great social and emotional learning titles. Bonnie joined us on Microsoft Teams. This allowed our students who are learning at home to join her presentation in addition to our face to face learners.

Bonnie's presentation focused on the book Taste Your Words. In this book, Amera uses unkind words to express her anger and frustration, her mother tells her to "taste her words." Then every mean word tastes terrible, like sour milk or rotten eggs! Amera quickly learns that kind words taste like jellybeans or watermelon or something else sweet. This book provides a wonderful message to students of all ages! The bright, colorful illustrations add to the engaging story.

Bonnie's presentation was very engaging. She started by talking about her history as a writer and how she came up with the idea for Taste Your Words. Then she read the book to students and asked them to share examples of kind words and what they might taste like. 

Last, she asked three staff members to participate in a taste test. Several days before the presentations, Bonnie dropped off some Jelly Belly Bean Boozled jellybeans. I gave three staff members one jellybean each. The jellybeans were spoiled milk or coconut flavored, rotten eggs or buttered popcorn flavored, and dog food or chocolate flavored. Bonnie re-read the part of her book that mentioned the flavors, and then the staff member with the corresponding jellybean ate it! Below is a picture of me eating a dog food flavored jellybean!

Best of all, Bonnie's visit was funded by the Georgia Writer's Association! This organization offers Literary Events Grants to help finance events featuring Georgia writers. I am so thankful to the Georgia Writer's Association for making this event possible! I know my students will remember to "taste their words" for a long time!

Virtual Author Visits

Each year, our students look forward to author visits. Author visits take a lot of planning and coordination, but the results are lasting and worthwhile. When we have an author visit, that author’s books are checked out for the rest of the year.

Author visits encourage reading for pleasure, motivate reluctant readers, improve writing skills, and support classroom learning. Visiting authors also share their creative process with students, which often inspires our young learners to make their own books.

At the beginning of this year, the prospect of hosting an author seemed impossible due to covid restrictions. We were unable to host authors in person or hold assemblies. An additional concern was including students who are learning at home. So, Microsoft Teams came to the rescue! Teams is the perfect platform for virtual author visits.

FoxTale Book Shoppe, a local bookstore, connected us to the authors and handled book sales. Our first virtual visit was with author Ridley Pearson and illustrator Ile Gonzalez, who teamed up to create the DC Comics Super Sons series. Then we hosted author Sherri Rinker, who writes popular picture books for children, including Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site. 

After setting up the dates and times, I immediately put in a request to have my amazing Instructional Technology Specialist, Kristen Brooks, help with the calls. We set up a practice call, and she also helped on the day of the virtual visits. Kristen is a Teams expert and thought about many things that could go wrong and how we could prevent problems. 

We connected with the authors about 15 to 30 minutes before the actual calls. Kristen showed the authors how to share their presentations and answered any questions they had. When the calls started, I introduced the authors while Kristen let classes and students in and made sure everyone was on mute. During the presentations, Kristen admitted latecomers and I muted them. It was very helpful to have two people working together on this with the large number of attendees.

These authors were fun and engaging. Our students loved participating in an event that made it feel like a normal school year. And our remote learners were also able to participate without leaving home.  Ridley joined us from Idaho, Ile from Mexico, and Sherri from Chicago. Teams allowed us the benefit of making this connection without the expense of travel.

We are already working on plans for our next author visit. Through Teams, we can connect with anyone, anywhere in the world!

Teaching the Science of Light with Minecraft: Education Edition

This school year, I participated in several trainings to learn more about using Minecraft: Education Edition with students. I didn't know much about Minecraft before this year. However, as a media specialist, I try to learn everything I can about emerging technology to support the students and teachers at my school. So I first signed up for an evening class offered by my district to learn more. Then I was selected to spend two days in December at a Minecraft Adoption Program training. After that, I was provided the opportunity to receive coaching on teaching our standards using Minecraft. During the coaching process, I Skyped with a trainer who helped me select a standard and develop a lesson to teach that standard using Minecraft. The Minecraft: Education Edition team visited my school to observe the actual lesson. They recorded the lesson and interviewed the coach and I about our planning process. Here is a link to the video, which shows my super smart first graders learning about artificial and natural light!

Teaching the Science of Light with Minecraft: Education Edition

2019 Georgia Children's Picturebook Award Winners

This year's Georgia Children's Picture Book Award winner is Not Quite Narwhal written and illustrated by Jessie Sima. Not Quite Narwhal was also the winning book at my school. My students loved Jessie Sima's debut picture book about a unicorn who thinks he is a narwhal.

The second place book in our voting was Good Night Owl by Greg Pizzoli. This is a hilarious book for beginning readers about an owl who tears down his house looking for the cause of a squeaking noise.

And our third place book was Sergeant Reckless: The True Story of the Little Horse Who Became a Hero by Patricia McCormick. This book is the true story of the only animal to ever hold an official rank in the United States military.

Dino-Mite Book Fair

We recently finished our spring book fair. Scholastic's spring theme is Dino-Mite Book Fair: Stomp, Chomp, and Read! The outside of the media center became a Jurassic jungle!

The inside of the media center was also decorated to correspond with the theme. This Dino-Mite Book Fair vignette greeted students, staff, and parents when they entered the media center.

After we set up, I held a teacher preview. I served a meat tray for the carnivores, a vegetable tray for the herbivores, chips (dinosaur scales), yogurt covered pretzels (dinosaur bones), and Little Debbie caramel chocolate brownies (dinosaur droppings). Our Scholastic rep came to booktalk some of the titles and she did a drawing for some books.

During this fair, my younger readers loved Sparkly New Friends and The Very Impatient Caterpillar. My older readers loved everything Dog Man, Because of the Rabbit, and Stolen Girl.

Although this was not our most successful book fair ever, we made enough money to purchase a new encoder for our morning news broadcast. I'm already looking forward to the Arctic Adventure book fair in September!

Saving Time as a Media Specialist

I was recently honored to be a guest blogger for my friend and colleague Suzy Lolley's blog. My post is all about time saving tricks for solo librarians. Click here to read the post!