Thursday, March 31, 2011

Fiction Book pass

My article about Fiction book passes will be published in the October Issue of Library Sparks! I did this same principal using non-fiction books to help students decide on a topic for their reports. MMMMM- another article?? Maybe!

Monday, March 21, 2011

Ideas on Professional reading! -

Well this is different- another snow day! Do you keep track of your reading - both professional and for fun? When I read for fun ( I love historical fiction and biographies ) I don't. I just read for pure enjoyment.
However when I do professional reading ( books, journals) I have my notebook with me.I like to jot down ideas that I gleam that I can use , ideas for lessons, quotes that inspire me, ideas for advocacy, or ideas to share with library colleagues or teachers. I can look back in this notebook and make sure I have the quote or idea correct.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Author Visits -part 2

1. Get the students ready! Go on the internet and look at the authors website / or other resources and get information about the author. Talk to the students about the authors life and read them some of the authors books or chapters from the book if is a longer book. Put up posters around the school announcing the arrival , time and date of the author visit. Maybe you could have some of the older students make posters and place them around for you.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Author visits - Part I

1. Host an Author visit to your school. Contact your PTO / PTA and see if they can help with funding your author visit. Students love when authors visit! You might also contact your local library to see if you could collaborate with their program director to see if they have funding that might be helpful. We had Lindsay Barrett George. Visit her at LindsayBarrettGeorge.com
The first steps are: funding and contacting the author. What funds do you have for payment? Parent group- Assembly funds- other funding perhaps from the community?
Make sure you have resources for payment. You may also need to provide accommodations/ transportation so get that in line also.
Contact the author, and make the arrangements. When will he come? You will want to speak with administration before hand to determine what day and time will be appropriate for you author day. You don't want to be in conflict with another program or a testing
date.

Then we start the promotion: What can you do to promote the program. Firstly, the students. Hopefully you will have ( or can borrow) some of the authors works! Then begin to tell and read to the students ( or have them read) some of the authors works. Put up posters or do a bulletin board about your authors visit. If you are allowed outside visitors - contact your local news media and see if you can send a press release or short article for them to publish/ present.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Another Snow day

We are officially out of snow days at our school - so now we are working on conference days and extra days we had at memorial day. So much for getting back into the swing of school days.
Yesterday was spent finishing up my monthly report where I update the administration about what we have done in the library.
Good News! I will have an article published in Library Sparks in October 2011!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Review

The Collaboration Handbook by Toni Buzzeo

Toni Buzzeo has done it! . This slim volume is the definitive book that provides LMS’s with the tools to develop steps to collaboration in our schools. Every LMS to wants to begin to collaborate should read this book. Her book is also geared to administrators to show them how they can work with their LMS and teachers to promote collaboration.
The different levels of collaboration of LMS and teachers are first defined. Each level is described and expanded upon in the beginning chapters of the book. Each chapter outlays the level, and provides many find examples of the level of collaboration from schools across the US. The examples will give you ideas of how you can apply collaboration in your school. This is a work book, and there are places that you can write in your ideas, and places where you can evaluate your own levels of collaboration.
I was wishing the copy I read was my own. There were places I wanted to underline, and I wanted to fill in the action plans, the putting it to work charts, the discussion charts, and the tool charts for librarian s and administrators. This book (and some action on your part)will get you into the role of collaborator with your staff.

Check out this website!

Check this out!

http://saveourlibrarians.org/