Displays Work!

I had some very encouraging comments from a 6th grade Language Arts/Reading teacher today.  I was doing a mini-lesson on conflict and previewing the 6th graders' upcoming thematic unit (unlikely friendships).  I did this, as I often do, with the help of a picture book.  Knuffle Bunny Too, by Mo Willems, to be exact.  After going through the lesson, I introduced the students to the three displays that are currently up in the library: Egypt (requested by the 6th grade SS studies to coincide with their current unit), Spooky Chills and Thrills (cause it's October), and 30 Years of Back to the Future (see previous post). 

While the students were looking for books and checking out the displays, their teacher came up to me.  She said, "These displays are a wonderful idea!  I didn't even know we had some of these books, and you forget about some of these great books if you don't see them."  All day the students have been pulling off books from the displays faster than I can replace them (always a happy librarian problem).  The teachers coming in have also been looking through them and seem quite happy with the variety of texts I've put out there. 

So far I've been trying to change up the displays once or twice a month.  It keeps students interested, it keeps me busy and creative, and, as the ELA teacher commented, it keeps books out there that students might not know (or have forgotten) about.  I continue to try to include many different types of books with each display: fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, and picture books if possible. 

Here's a quick look at the Spooky Chills & Thrills display before we come to a close for today:

"You Mean We're IN the Future??"

It's almost here, folks: the future.  October 21, 2015, is a day I've waited for since I was 9 years old and saw Back to the Future, Part II for the first time.  Tomorrow is the day.  The future of BTTF, the greatest film franchise of all time.  I wouldn't be a good librarian--or BTTF fan--if I didn't make a display to commemorate this momentous date in pop culture history. 

The Display

I've created a display with historical and popular fiction books from the 1950s and 1980s.  The middle section of the display are all books that have to do with time travel.  Let me just tell you all this: it was awesome fun going through our collection to find books for this display.  I only wish I could bring some of my own time traveling adventure books from home, like Audrey Niffeneger's The Time Traveler's Wife, Jack Finney's Time Again, or Richard Matheson's  Somewhere in Time. 

I also created some sings for the display, and I brought in my awesome Marty McFly art print that my even awesomer brother gave me for my birthday last year.  Like the Dude's rug does for his room, I feel that it really brings the display together.

The Trivia
I've created more Bulldog Buck Trivia (one question/day), and for the last two weeks of October all of the questions have to do with the Back to the Future trilogy--three questions for each film.  (We have no school this coming Friday, so I needed nine questions instead of ten for two weeks.)  By now the students should know that the trivia questions coincide with the big display in the library, but some were a bit confused why I was asking questions about Back to the Future.  I have been pleasantly surprised with the amounts of "I LOVE THAT MOVIE!" or "Man, I just watched that.  It's awesome!" and other variants of enthusiasm I've received.  

The Outfit???

Why haven't I been working on completing this outfit since I was 9?  I have NO idea.  :(

Well, I'm still bummed I don't have a size-adjusting fit jacket or power lace Nikes, but I do have a Marty McFly cap.  I'm going to ask my principal if I can wear it tomorrow.  She's pretty cool: I'm hopeful she'll say yes. 

10/21/2015
Tomorrow, I'll be way too excited.  I'll be playing the music in the library, gushing about the film to anyone who asks, and hopefully I'll get to go to a screening tomorrow night.  I love this movie so much, and I feel like if students see what I'm excited about and see me grinning and geeking out, they'll know that even though I'm a teacher they don't see that often, I'm still approachable and can have fun, too...even if I do spend most of my time in a big room filled with books. 

When Cameron Was In Egypt's Land

Hey, everybody!  I got to put together a sweet little mini-display for my 6th grade homies last Friday.  The 6th grade Social Studies teachers have already been my biggest collaborators.  They sought out my help shortly after the school year started to put together some web resources for their Hominid Project.  They were pretty stoked when I actually made them a spot on the library's website with links to reliable online resources.  (I mean, really.  What else should I have done?  Handed them copies of sheet with loooooong, drawn out websites that the students would all type incorrectly?  I don't think so.)

When they briefly mentioned last week that Egypt was coming up and they thought it would be cool if I could pull some books for their students I did just that.  We have a small display directly in front of you when you walk into one of the library's two entrances, so I thought this would be a great place to put the display.  We don't have loads of Egypt books, but we had enough to make a nice, small display.

The teachers thought the display was a great idea: When they saw it they told me they thought I would just put the books on a cart with a sign.  Um, no.  I don't roll that way.  I also brought up the idea of maybe having an Egypt movie theater day and have a showing of The Prince of Egypt at the end of the unit.  They loved this idea, too, but because keeping the students in focused, instructional time is such a big push, we don't know if we'll be able to swing this.  Maybe I'll have to think outside the box and have a showing after school.  We'll just have to see what happens after even more awesome collaboration with the SS teachers.

I could always just show the super short clip of Cameron being in Egypt's land.  That would definitely be within time perimeters.

#bannedbooks

Don't we all just LOVE the hashtag?  I know you do.  I thought it was about time I use it for the title of a post, and since last week was one of the most popular and important weeks for a library's year of activities, I thought I should bust it out.  But, I digress before I even begin...

BANNED BOOKS!!!  Every librarian's favorite topic!  Since this is my first year as an official school librarian/media specialist, I couldn't let Banned Books Week pass me by.  I am in a junior high/middle school, so I have to be careful what I push to these younger ones, but I feel like I was able to give an introduction to Banned Books in a fairly safe, yet interesting way.  I have created another big display for Banned Books, and I have also created one lesson (so far) to introduce the concept to the students. 

 A display with just a few of the banned/challenged books from our collection.  

NOTE:  The books on the bottom shelf include authors that have been banned/challenged, but not necessarily the specific title that had been banned/challenged.

 Students couldn't believe that some of their favorites--like Drama, Dr. Seuss, and Charlotte's Web--had been banned or challenged. 

 I created a short powerpoint and bookmark for the students to fill out.  As I went through the idea of Banned Books--what they are, why people try to ban/challenge books, popular titles that have been banned--I had students fill in a short bookmark for a future pop quiz.  At the end of the lesson I gave each table of students a baggie filled with a banned book cover that had been cut up into pieces.  The students had to put the puzzle back together to find out what banned book they had, and then they had to pick a representative from the group to read out loud why the book had been banned/challenged.  They did an AWESOME job working together and sharing their titles!

 Can you guess what titles they're putting together?

I even let Cardinals fans play. 

Along with the puzzle activity and display, I have put on the center of each table a quote from an author who has had titles banned or challenged and have put READstricted signs throughout the library.  I also have one trivia question/day to raise awareness of banned books.  (More on the trivia in a future post.)

So far, all is going well in our month-long "celebration" of banned books.  I have another activity planned for next week about banned picture books, and several students have already been asking about it!  Yay! 

Are You Ready for Some Football!?!

I'm playing catch-up...AGAIN...so here's a quick rundown of the football display that has come (and gone)* since my last post!

Football is quite big in my new school community.  Before the first game of the season there was a huge tailgating effort called Dawgapalooza (since we're the bulldogs), there's a huge Homecoming parade (that my uber cute 1st grade daughter was a part of), and many of the male students from elementary school to high school participate in the sport.  As a librarian, you have to know your patrons, so I thought a big football display to kick off the season would be just the ticket.

 A big, glorious display of American football and Football (soccer) books!  I also have some lovely framed Sports Illustrated covers to add a little humor to the display.

 Being from a family that upholds and appreciates the real sport of football (ie, SOCCER), I also had to include that in the display.

 The soccer season for boys is also in the fall! 

 Check out this one.  Man oh man, sometimes I'm super glad this collection hasn't been updated in years.

Just a few photos of the individual shelves of the three panel display.  To come up with the books for the display I just spent some more time in the stacks of our humble library, pulling everything I could find!  Easy!

I had lots of fun making a collage sign to go with the display, too.  I love to do picture collages, so this was a perfect little extra fun activity I gave myself.

The pick up from the display was constant, and the return was also great.  I had a lot of students interested in the books displayed, and they were awesome enough to return them on time, so others could get them.  Yippee!!!



*NOTE:  This display was up from September 15-October 1 as a beginning of season celebration. 

Spotlight On...The Loft

One of the coolest things that has happened here at the MSJH Library during my short tenure so far is the creation of the Loft.

View of the Loft from the bottom library space.

This reading space for the students used to be a small meeting room, that was enclosed by flimsy, particle board walls.  This space was used for some mentoring meetings, team meetings, and a lot of storage.  When I was first hired the principal told me she wanted to convert it to a reading loft.  She wondered if I'd be OK with that?  Um...OF COURSE I was!  When I first saw the space I thought it would be awesome to tear down the walls, but I didn't know if the administration would be cool that, but apparently we were all on the same page.

The Loft from its entrance.  This used to be a totally enclosed space.

Some teachers were worried and hesitant about this at first.  I can understand that: it's been converted into a comfy space, and when students get comfy, they can get lazy and not want to follow expectations.  It is true that the students do like to talk up there, but so far, with the appropriate and timely reminders of what they are to do in the READING loft, it has been quite manageable.  I think the students love it so much that they don't want to ever lose it.

Oh, the couch...THE.  COUCH.  Already a student favorite.

During the summer, I moved some popular reads up to the Loft.  The couch is flanked by the graphic novel collection and the short stories/nominees collections.

The Graphic Novel collection, with the comfy rocking chair next to it.

Students here are crazy about reading the Rebecca Caudill nominees, and there is also an in-school group called RAMS (Read Across Mahomet-Seymour) that reads nominated books and then picks one for the whole community to read.  

Students also love, love, LOVE short story collections...especially those of the horror ilk.   

There is also a Little Free Library within the library that is housed in the Loft.  Many of the returning 7th and 8th graders had no idea that there was a Little Free Library, so I've been trying to pump up the LFL, so students can enjoy and appreciate it.  So far a lot of books have been taken from the LFL!  (Now, we just need to have a few more given, but we can work on that as time goes by.)

The Library's Little Free Library!  I LOVE it!  After doing a research paper on LFL's last fall, it was a dream come true to find a LFL in a dusty corner of the library.  I dusted it off, of course, and put it in a highly visible place in the Loft.

I also put several lamps in the area, and all of the furniture is brand new from IKEA.  This is also thanks to the generosity from the administration team wanting to make the library a Destination Location for the MSJH student body.  Thanks to the Loft, the library is definitely quickly becoming a place where students want to be, and we are quite busy during study halls.  This, my friends, is WONDERFUL news!

The view of the library from the Loft.

Book Fair Came to Town

The Scholastic Book Fair was at the MSJH Library for just over one week.  Even though I loved walking into the library everyday and smelling the scent of fresh books, it was a lot of hard work.  I think it was worth it???  The reason I'm still debating the merits of the Book Fair is that even though it was fun pretending to be a book store cashier again (like those bygone days at Pages for All Ages), the students mostly bought cheap, little trinkets.  I mean, I know they're in middle school, and that's what they like, but I wanted to sell more books.

The library was turned into a bookstore for eight days!  It smelled REALLY good.

With a Scholastic Book Fair, the library could take 35% cash or 50% Scholastic Dollars after it was over.  With the Scholastic Dollars I can order books from their online store immediately.  With the cash, I would have to wait for a check, cash it, and then wait for it to be added to the library fund.  It made sense to me to go with the Scholastic Bucks to help with immediate collection development needs.  The selection definitely isn't as big as Amazon, but I think it was the right decision in the end.

 

You have to sell the Scholastic posters.  Who doesn't want a poster of a fast car, kitty cat in space, or sport team in their room???

 

With the display cases, table sets, poster boxes, and trinket store, it "only" took two people 3 1/2 hours to set up! 

The Scholastic cash wrap, where I spent most of my time selling cheap pens and pencils to students.  I need parent help next time, and I need to consider selling only books.  However, approximately $400 of our sales came from trinkets.

Have a look at some of my favorite finds at the Book Fair, and the next time one rolls into your town/library, go check it out.  The books you buy (although not discounted like online stores), helps your school library get funds to buy even more books!

 

The Scholastic Representative who came to help set up the fair said they'd be trying to sell the Twilight movie book until they ran out.  There are still hundreds in Scholastic warehouses across the country.  And, who wouldn't want a book of Superstar Crushes!?  (No one here.)

My favorite book on offer by far.  I wanted to get it for my brother--who HATES mayonnaise and thinks it should be outlawed everywhere--as a joke, but at $5.00 it was still too expensive.

More Display Talk: A Later Post

For the first time since starting this crazy librarian stuff (that would be since August 2014 at Uni High in Urbana when I was grad assistant), I forgot to take a photo of a display as soon as I was done with it.  This was a big display, too.  The biggest one I had ever compiled, since my space at Uni tended to be so limited.  Why is this so bad?  Because students actually came and checked out books before I could document it!  (Darn kids.  Wantin' to read and stuff.)

My display is entitled Back to School.  All of the books have to do with starting middle school, starting a new school, school drama/problems, bullies in school, schools of magic and princesses, etc.  It was a lot of fun going through the collection to find books like this.  Because our collection is pretty small, I was worried I wouldn't find enough, but I shouldn't have worried so much.  I found plenty--enough to fill up three big shelves.

Here are a few photos of the display, its space, and the different organizations I've done to keep the display looking good as books are checked out:

Here it is after one period of students had been through.  Several holes already!  Good library problem.  The first display day was Monday, August 24, 2015. 

  
So many of the books had been checked out after one day that I re-organized all of the books onto the middle shelf, and left the two side shelves empty. 

  
A few of the books had been read and returned by Tuesday, September 1, so I was able to spread them out a bit.  This is a week after I put up the display.

And, of course I made some signage for the collection.  Because the display area is so big, though, the sign gets kind of lost.  I'll have to work on that in the future.  

Did you really think I WOULDN'T use this Billy Madison quote for my Back to School display?  If you did, you haven't been reading my blog for very long.

I've learned a few things from this first big display of the year:
1)  Students actually check out books here, because they want to, have time to read, or are forced to.  ;)
2)  If I want a photo of a display, I better take one QUICKLY...before the kids come and ransack it!
3)  Once again, gathering books for a display is the best way to learn about your collection.  I can also learn what I need to add to the collection.