Year in Review

 I won’t lie, I had big dreams for this school year. I also had to go back through my Google Photos to remember what happened when! My memory is bad these days.

 This blog post started with a month by month run down…. But that was entirely too much! I am going to try to hit the highlights from this school year. 

I held my first of many Library Pop Ups in the Commons during all lunches. These pop ups were a quick way to grab students attention with books while they were in line to pick up lunches… if they wouldn’t come to me, I took the library to them!

I did these a few times during the school year… I will be more intentional about having a set schedule for this upcoming school year. 

This is the first year I set up a Banned Books display at the Middle School and the 6th graders were INVESTED! They couldn’t believe the reasons behind why some of these books were banned. I advertised on Instagram & TikTok. 

My biggest idea that I had that got a lot of attention from others…. But not much from our students was the Pick a Genre Eyeball activity. I purchased everything at Dollar Tree. The balls were basically ping pong balls and I wrote genres on them. The idea is that a student could pick an eyeball if they needed an idea of what to read. I will do this again in October and I think it will be a bigger hit this time :-)

November and December seemed to fly by with Thanksgiving and Christmas! We came back in January ready to hit the road running.

In January, I did get to meet THE Lauren Mobley. She visited my library and we had the best time getting together and just talking all things library! 

In February, I started focusing on passive programming. I have students that WANT to come to the Media Center but don’t always want to read a book. The Make Your Own Book Heart activity was a hit and it is one that I will use year after year!

February is Black History Month and while I had a display inside the Media Center, I also created graphics for our social media and our lobby announcements to celebrate the accomplishments of those that our students may not know. I chose folks like Billy Porter, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Dr. Patricia Bath, and the list goes on and on! This is one of my favorite activities to do each year. I am challenged to find new individuals for my students to look up to.

I also created Valentines for students that I felt wouldn't be celebrated (I know that sounds bad, but you know who won't be getting a teddy bear and a rose, or a box of chocolates). These were quick to make and the students seemed to like them. I just attached a small piece of candy.

March, April, and May were all a blur. At the beginning of March, I learned that I was chosen as the District Media Specialist of the Year! What a surprise! 

We also celebrated our first National Library Week AND Poetry Month. Library Week was so much fun and I may create a separate blog post for it. The students seemed to enjoy all of the activities and I think it will be even bigger next year! 

                                                                                    

I am going to end this loooooonnnnnng blog post here. It has taken me at least a month to put it all together. I don't think about it when I am at home.