No Shhing Here

One of my personal goals for this school year is to increase student voice in our library program. I have some great mentors in this area (Hello, Sue Kowalski!), but it's not my personal strength. I know it's super-valuable, as it provides students with a sense of ownership and increases engagement, but it's not been as high a priority as it should be.  So, for my first targeted attempt of increasing student voice this year, I built a "Your Book Picks" display. To kick things off, our library helpers all recommended their favorite books.  But I built the display so it's constantly evolving and other students can add their favorites at any time. They simply grab a "thumbs-up" tag from the jar, write their name on it, and then stick it on their favorite book, adding it to the display.  Want to create this display for yourself? Here's a link to a PDF where you can download the materials . I just printed the thumbs on cardstock and then laminated th...

Better late than never, right? For May, our book displays celebrated National Bike Month. If your school sponsors a "bike to school" day, this kind of showcase is a great way to promote it. Because I was late taking photos this month, certain parts of our display are looking a little weary. Not everything we come up with is a home run - check out our sad "bike tires" - repurposed trufella tree trunks. Though, the bike was a hit - kids loved ringing the bell on the handle bars. Eventually we scraped the "tires" and just moved the signs to the columns on either side of the desk. We used tricycles and scooter type toys on the display shelves, along with Fourth of July table decorations. We used the theme to display books that in some way deal with wheels, including NASCAR, skateboarding, and cards. We REALLY wanted to include a couple of stationary bikes, so kids could pedal as they read, but we couldn't find any, so we scrapped that id...

We're in creation mode and gearing up to switch out our Read Across America hoopla with our April displays.This month's theme is "Rainy Days are for Reading." (Imagine the image below rotated 90 degrees - darn Blogger!)  We're loving our Pintrest inspiration images, so here's the one that got our creative juices flowing:   Image via Pintrest from Etsy This one also sparked a few ideas: Image from Pintrest Here's a peak at some of the things that are piling-up in our back room. Our main display involves many, many, colorful umbrellas. Obviously we don't buy into the idea that opening an umbrella indoors brings bad luck -- but we'll let you know in May if we see an uptick in uncooperative studyhall visitors. :) An up close look at some of the separate elements. The clouds are multiple layers folded and stitched together on a sewing machine. Raindrop chains were also made by stitching paper cutouts together with a machine. The...

Some of the best ideas for our book displays come from non-library sources. This month was no exception. Image from here. The inspiration? J. Crew's current window featuring accordion pleated circles. I'm digging it 'cause it's festive and special, but it's not overly sicky-sweet and cutesy. Here's our interpretation of the display:  It was a great way to use up back issues of magazines, and we had an assembly line going with study hall kids. There's a small frame on the right side of the desk (made out of rolled up magazines) with a sign that reads: Books We <3. The books we picked were just ones with pink and red covers. Here's another view: For our secondary display I found inspiration on Pintres t. I've been meaning to make paper garlands like these for my Christmas tree. Pin from this Etsy store. Here's how my version looks: It was an easy project to cut out a bunch of paper hearts and then stitch them together with my sew...

Our January library displays are up. Our "Healthy Apps" Display for the month of January In our school, January is Wellness Month. To celebrate, the library hosts WiiFit Fridays, where students can play WiiSports or Just Dance! during study hall and lunch. (If you squint, you can just make out the Wii action in the background of the above photo.) (Imagine this is rotated 90 degrees) Fooducate pillar in the library.  In addition to our Wii activities, we have a display on Healthy Apps.   Fooducate , a fantastic app that helps you make healthier food choices, is totally worth checking out if you're unfamiliar with it. Above: Our "grocery store" in the library. We installed the app on our library iPads and iPods, and students used it to scan barcodes on all kinds of different food. We definitely feel like we're running a grocery store with all these items on our shelves! The app gives each food a letter grade and provides suggestions for he...

This month we're featuring spuds and books from across the pond. Our first display is all about "Book Potatoes -- s-mashing books that have been vegetating on the shelf too long." I totally copied this display (and the original looks way better) so can't claim any of the creativity behind this idea. The display features books that have never been circulated (we own a scary number of these!) or books that haven't left the library in few years. Our circulation desk display area is dressed up as an Olde English Book Shoppe, complete with Big Ben and a British telephone booth -- props leftover from a local festival. The titles featured here were either written by English authors or the books are set in the UK.

We're incredibly lucky to have an amazing library secretary. Besides the fact that she's super intelligent, very self-directed, technology savvy, and fun, she's also CREATIVE. This is a fabulous combination for our library needs. My teaching schedule doesn't leave a lot of time for setting up displays and bulletin boards. Luckily, our secretary loves doing this. She goes out of her way to create visually interesting, diverse, and appropriate displays that change monthly. Without further ado, here's how the library's looking this month. Below: The circulation desk is decked out in conversation hearts. Students wrote their favorite book on heart cut-outs, which we plastered around the library. The books on display required very little thinking -- they're just the ones with pink and red covers - easy is never a bad thing! :) Below: More of the Valentine's Day display. This is "Sweethearts of Literature" -- match the famous couple to the cor...