Welcome Back

It's a new year and we are excited to open up the library for the year.  We already had our Scholastic Book Fair that coincided with our Ready Set Go!  Understandably we did not meet our goal but we will try again soon!

I can't wait to see all the new and old faces and have students back in the media center!!!

I Love to Read 2020

Our theme this year for “I Love to Read” was “Wild About Books”

This is my favorite time of year

The bookfair coincides with "I Love to Read Month" so during this time we combined our efforts to have just one theme.  I usually have a trivia contest and I also shred a fairly well known book and see if the students can guess which one it is.  I usually have some small giftbags with prizes for students whose name is chosen from the correct trivia answers.  I like to include things like bookmarks, pencils, pens some type of candy or treat and a book.  This year I also included a little "put together" glider and an animal visor or headband.

Winter gets long and this seems to help shorten it up.

Winter bookfair

It’s a jungle out there. This winter bookfair was great because we were able to collaborate together with our theme for “I Love to Read Month” which was “Wild About Books”
Once again our #1 volunteer Judy Simpson pulled off another awesome bookfair. Here is a look at some of the great decorations at the bookfair!

There were tons of great books there too!

All in all we sold quite a few books and  it was a very successful bookfair.
Thank you for your support!

New Books!!! Oh my!

I love getting new books and each time a new box of books comes to the school for the library I'm like a kid at Christmas!  I can't wait to open the box and see all of the new and wonderful titles.  Here is a preview of a few of the new books we just received.  I did not put in every title because some of them were replacements or second copies of some of the popular titles we already have.  This time I purchased quite a few books that are of the poetry and verse genre.  I think these books are a great segway into more books.  There just isn't as many words on the page therefore students can finish the book faster.  These seem to be a big hit.  So watch the video and see what you think.

Bulletin Boards that Engage

Sometimes people do think that bulletin boards are that big of a deal or don't really think that they are that important.  Well I have totally changed my thinking on that and here is why.  I am always trying to find ways to get kids to connect with books.  I created a bulletin board for our front hallway in hopes that I could get  a couple of kids interested  in some books that are available in our library. 

Well what do you know it worked!!!  I had a student come up and when I said oooh that one is a good one she said she saw it on the bulletin board and thought she would try it!  I told her awesome and to tell her friends because nothing gets more kids reading than when other kids can recommend books to them.
Here is a picture of another one I created.  I still love it!

This is another one that I just liked and at least it is perfect for the season

Fall Bookfair

It's that time in the fall again McGuire is doing their fall bookfair and boy are we lucky to have such great parent volunteers.  This fair's theme is Are you Yeti to Read?.  Yeti's and mountain climbers gotta love it!  Can't wait to see all the scholastic books .  I bet Raina Telgemeiers book Guts will be a favorite!

         

We have one of the best volunteer/parents ever here at McGuire Judy Simpson always puts so much work into each bookfair and is so creative with all of her bookfair decorations.  She even had treats for our staff hot cocoa and donut holes and chex mix! The bookfair will still be open through Wednesday morning at 8:00. I hope you get a chance to visit the bookfair there are tons of great books for kids.

We even had a couple of penguins come and join in the fun!!

Hey that looks like Dr. Alexander!

So what's New in 2019-20 school year?

Every year there seems to be something different that we focus on or something that we try to tweak to make things better for kids.  Because of our new initiative with "The Book Whisperer"  I decided that it would be important to find a new way to interest students in finding books that they would be interested in.  I decided to purchase some genre labels.  I chose some labels that I thought kids might relate to or find helpful.

The next thing I did was to create a big section of the library with huge posters and pulled books in  those genres.  I felt that this was an easier way to see some of the books that were available in those genres.  I obviously couldn't put every single book out on display but it was nice to be able to showcase some of the books.  

I chose 5 genres to highlight at the beginning of this year which was Realistic Fiction, Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Sports & Romance.

I really think this was helpful for students and highlighted some of those books that they may or may not have seen on the shelves. This next quarter we will choose 5 different genres.  This is a great way to highlight something new for them.  My next step is weeding.  We have so many great books but we also have some we need to sort out so we can get to those great books. Stay tuned for updates .