Make your library the center of your school
Spring is here, and there’s a light feeling in the air as we get ready to plan our April library lessons! The kids are excited to play outside and there’s a general excitement buzzing throughout the school. I love planning my April library activities, because there are so many fun themes and events that the students love. April themes bring activism, writing, and fun into
Happy New Year!! The new year at school brings a fresh start and can help energize your January library lessons. It’s time to help your elementary students get excited about reading again, for one thing. Since the holiday craziness is behind us, it’s a great time to dive deeper into learning without fear of interruption! Here are some topics that I like to cover in
Although I always hate to see summer come to an end, I do find satisfaction and joy in the preparations I make in my school library each year. I love it when it’s time to get organized for back-to-school in the library, but I also want to have some time to squeeze a little more fun out of summer. Here are some organizational tricks to
Picture this: You teach different grade level library classes back to back without a break in between. Although you are working on the same topic with each grade level (maybe library catalog practice), the lesson materials and practice pages are slightly different. After a couple of classes, your teaching area is a mass of white worksheets and you can’t find the materials your need for
A couple of weeks ago I shared some ideas for school librarians as they get ready to go back to school. As more and more librarians find out what their unique back-to-school situations may be, whether face-to-face teaching, blended learning, or distance learning, they are scrambling to make back to school plans. So I’ve got a few more back to school library ideas for you!
We know that students benefit from collaboration between classroom or content area teachers and the school librarian. You can read my previous posts for more information: Students benefit from Collaboration in the School Library and More Ideas for Collaboration in the School Library. I’d like to invite you to consider school specialist collaborations to energize and unite your school community around a common theme. I
As school librarians, we are constantly striving to form collaborative relationships with classroom teachers and content area teachers. We know that school library collaboration strengthens and deepens learning for our students. When we work with teachers to support and augment classroom instruction, our students benefit greatly. In my last post, Students Benefit from Collaboration in the School Library, I shared some ideas for collaborating with
Collaboration in the school library has been a key component of school librarianship as long as I’ve been in the profession. Even now, “Collaborate” is one of the shared foundations in the National School Library Standards. We collaborate by working with classroom teachers and content area teachers to ensure the learning in the library augments and supports the learning taking place in the classroom. School
School library advocacy is more important now than ever. Get tips for how to effectively advocate for your school library.
Education in the midst of a pandemic brought a great deal of uncertainty. School districts had to cut back on budgets and eliminate positions as they reorganized for the 2020 – 2021 school year. As librarians we had to refresh our advocacy skills and learn how to effectively advocate for our school library programs. Since we never know when future budget cuts may threaten our
