January 2019 in the Library

January has been fast and furious! I started out by doing inventory on the library for the first week and then continued the month with lots of reading activities.

There were three students who read at least 5 of the Bluebonnet Book Award nominees. These 4th graders got to celebrate their accomplishment with a voting party. Our school's winner was The Unlucky Lottery Winners of Classroom 13. 

There are several more books in the Classroom 13 series that have been released. I have been trying to read them quickly before I put them on the shelves. They are all funny!

I also read this book this month. I visited Galveston a couple summers ago and find the history of the great hurricane very interesting. This was my first Magic Tree House book to read. I loved it!

My third, fourth, and fifth grade book club started up again with a new book...Bunnicula!

Students discussed the book at lunch while using our exercise bikes.

We did a gallery walk to discuss questions about the book.

We have also done a survey about topics from the book.

We have two more sessions left!

My morning group of fifth graders love doing debates. They are listening carefully to the other side's points so that they can respond. We started reading the book Wonder and this was the first debate about whether August should go to school. 

I attended a full day i3 training towards the end of the month. It was great to really have time to digest new tech tools and ideas. I cannot wait to share adaptive Google Forms with the staff. Plus, we got cool Lego people to hang out with. Mine had red hair and was wearing my favorite color...fate!

As we wrap up the month, we are approaching the 100th day of school. I am giving away 100 books to students and staff members up February 4th's 100th day of school. Here were the first two winners to come and select a brand new book to keep. Think of all the stories that can be told and the books that can be read in the next 100 days!

December 2018 in the Library

December is one of my favorite months. Our school calendar had us go an extra week in December this year so we had even more time for learning and activities!

Our book study of Esperanza Rising led us to make some connections to Cesar Chavez.

Our novel study concluded with a bag project and a party!

The kids did an awesome job on their final products.

We had a schoolwide storybook gingerbread character contest. It was so cool to see the creative entries! It sure made judging hard though. This is only a sample of the many entries.

I won our district's i3 Goosechase contest for the fall semester. Goosechase is an online scavenger hunt type app. It is a lot of fun!

I also did the district's #GISDEdTechMas twitter contest for December and received these microfiber cloths to use with our technology!

The last day before break brought our annual holiday sing-along hosted by the specials' team. My hard-working team made it a great event for the students. 

November 2018 in the Library

November was a shortened month due to Thanksgiving break, but is was still a fun and fast one. 

Coding club wrapped up a little earlier than expected so that the graduate students could prepare for their semester exams. Students got to create whatever they wanted at our last meeting.

The students in coding club learned to make patterns like this.

Our Esperanza Rising novel study is continuing. The students did their third debate and are understanding what it means to defend their arguments with evidence. 

The students made yarn dolls like Esperanza and Isabel do in the novel. I gave them total free reign over the project and it turned out great. The students said that project made them love school. 

Leveled questions about our novel were written and answered by the students.

November is family engagement month so I invited kindergarten and first grade parents to join their child for library class. The kids and parents loved it! This will definitely be a future tradition.

Teachers and staff members were invited to preview our new books before they hit the shelves.

Our school had a glow walk and healthy night. The students and their families had a great time being active together.

Our staff had a Thanksgiving feast.

Specials' team also hosted a turkey trot!

I participated in three Twitter chats for our district so I earned my degree.

I was honored to be named Professional Staff Member of the Month! It is such a blessing to work here and be a librarian. 

Just a preview of what to expect in December. We are doing a storybook gingerbread character contest. The entries have been rolling in like crazy!

October 2018 in the Library

October was a busy, but fun month! I am looking forward to the holidays and all the exciting things that come with them. Here's a journey through October in our library. 

We have 41 students from grades 4 and 5 in Coding Club! It will continue until December 13th.

Every Thursday, the students learn Scratch coding from UTD grad students. They learned this spooky animation on the week before Halloween.

I have been wanting to do a book club since I became a librarian and this year I finally figured out how to make it work. I had 32 students from grades 3-5 came on Wednesdays during their lunches to discuss our first book-Knights of the Kitchen Table. 

After finishing the book, we had a party on Halloween!

The students enjoyed eating cookies, getting a certificate, and celebrating their success. I cannot wait to start the next book club!

Book projects are continuing to roll in. 

Students from both of these pictures are on their second book project so they earned their Reading Associates Degree!

My morning 5th grade group began a novel study about the book Esparanza Rising. They were able to have a great debate dealing with a decision that the main character was facing.

The students also made amazing AVID one pagers about the first chapter. We are making them about each chapter to eventually have their own visual book.

We took a little break from the book on Halloween to write some collaborative spooky MadLib stories. They enjoyed reading the final products aloud!

For October's staff development, the district planned a day called LitCon for all reading teachers in grades 3-12 and the librarians. I presented twice about our free digital resources.

I also did a book study leading up to LitCon and was able to Skype with the authors of the book during LitCon. 

I have been following Eric Sheninger for years so I was excited to attend a session he did at LitCon. 

The month finished with a wild week of book fair, pumpkin decorating contest, and Red Ribbon Week. I did not take many pictures because it was just such a crammed week, but I enjoy how book fair proceeds afford us the opportunity to do great things for the students throughout the year. 

We have two full weeks left until Thanksgiving break! See you in November.

September 2018 in the Library

The 2018-2019 school year began with our school finishing up construction and preparing for a fresh new year. The Bradfield Library hit the ground running and is gearing up for a busy October!

I started off the year by working the Reading with Rodney bus at the back to school rally. Even though it was raining through the whole event, the bus was packed! I have done the Reading with Rodney bus many times, but this was the most crowded I have ever seen it. I love that so many parents and students were wanting to start the year off with books!

We had eight students complete their summer reading Bingo cards! They enjoyed lunch in the library with a friend along with prizes. 

A generous donor allowed us to add some games to the library's makerspace this year. Students have enjoyed getting to have fun while working on their collaboration and social skills. 

We celebrated Cybersafety week with announcements every morning and classes signing pledges to by cybersafety smart. Mrs. Gonzalez' class won the Dums Dums.We also did a cybersafety poster contest and had several great entries. Our winner was Sofia Ortega for the second year in a row. She will go on to compete against other posters in the district. 

A new addition to our school this year are signs that staff members are posting to show what they are currently reading. I was so proud of our cafeteria staff for wanting to collaborate to post pictures of books so that they could make connections with the students. These posters are starting some awesome conversations about reading and demonstrating to our students that #gisdreads

We kicked off this year's book project challenge and the students were so excited! This picture is just a sampling of the cool projects that came in for round one. 

Our bilingual 5th graders all completed a book project featuring a famous Hispanic and using biographies from the library. 

The students presented their project about their famous Hispanic on our Multicultural Day. Parents, staff members, and other students came through to hear about the famous Hispanics. The 5th graders and Mrs. Valdez received rave reviews for these projects!

Next month will bring the start of book club, coding club, book fair, and other fun!