Lewis and Clark Learns

I started taking photos of my library for the new school year and realized just how much has changed since May.  At the end of each school year, Mrs. Haynes and I always have some ideas about what to change in the library based on the kid's library survey that they take each January.  Mrs. Haynes fabulously captures the kids' thoughts and ideas each year and shares with the kids what changes will be made.  So, the photos you see below represent the kids' input and some other ideas that Mrs. Haynes and I had to make things a little easier for kids to find what they want in our library. This isn't new, but the question is! New signage for the genre sections. Our focus board. We gathered our maker books (and MAKE magazine) and placed them next to the MakerSpace. The kids said that we needed more search stations in the library so we added two more.  Still waiting for the laptops from our tech. dept.  They are busy getting everyone in the di...

A piece of brown roll paper and some Sharpies...that is all it takes to start a graffiti wall for kids to recommend or find a great book! What can a simple chess board (or 3) do in your library? 1.  Ignite a passion to learn something new. 2.  Bring kids together to teach and learn from each other. 3.  Get kids' brains working strategically. 4.  Help kids make new friends at the beginning of the school year. 5. Encourage kids to learn how to win or lose graciously. 6.  Help kids realize that you don't always get what you want right away...sometimes you have to wait your turn. 7.  Help kids understand that sometimes you are wrong and it is OK to admit it. 

When our LC readers come back to school in August, they will notice a significant change in the Fiction section...Mrs. Haynes and I worked the first two days of summer break organizing it by genre!  We had been thinking about doing this for a while based on our students' library surveys, student feedback, and articles I had read.  We had already talked and planned out the genres we would use.  As we worked, we talked about signage, how to label our books so our library volunteers could continue to shelve, and book placement on the shelves for natural stops and starts for each genre.      It was quite a job and did not go as we had planned.  When we started this endeavor, we had planned to just start with 1 or 2 genres and see how it would work for kids next fall.  We soon realized that would not be the best use of our time and efforts. So, we labeled our tables for sorting and went for it.  We soon realized that this was also...

I love coming back to a brand new school year.  So much has been planned and I look forward to us learning together. Tomorrow is our first day of school, be sure to stop in the library to drop off any books you still have from summer reading or summers school. Please remember to turn in your summer reading lists so you can join us at our first reading celebration.  The library is sporting a new theme again this year...the wild west awaits you.  Check out some pics!