Cool New Tools

Letterfolk Virtual Board

Letterfolk came out with a virtual letter board and I am in love.  This has to be one of the coolest things I have found.  I'm going to be making lots of really cool pictures with quotes, book titles, etc.

I can see this being a great tool for kids to use to create quote posters as well.  It does not require a sign-in and you can immediately download what you created.

Check it out here 

Text Giraffe

Looking for cool text options? Text Giraffe has some great options. There is a limit to the number of letters you can use and it takes a few steps to download your creation but ultimately, I was pleased. Check it out here.

Lots of great books

I spent a lot of time reading some amazing books this summer!  Check out my video below to see what I read!  As always, check with me if you need a good book recommendation. 

You Go First

I loved absolutely everything about this book.  Charlotte and Ben may be separated by thousands of miles but this story shows just how close they truly are.  Both are struggling with family issues as well as middle school drama including friend problems, bullying and worrying about fitting in.  The novel covers a week in their lives and tells both of their stories separately.  Their connection begins as online scrabble competitors and then grows as they both struggle with deal with their separate lives.

The characters are believable and many young readers will relate to them.  They both navigate through some pretty catastrophic middle school episodes and they begin to understand more about who are they are and what it means to find a true friend.  I laughed and I cried and I truly felt like I was living this week alongside Charlotte and Ben.   Loved, loved, loved this book!!

Reading Can Take You Anywhere!

I am so excited about our library theme for this coming year!  One of my goals this summer has been to get in as many great reads as possible.  Here are just a few that I have enjoyed over the past few weeks. 

A Boy called Bat is one of our Ultimate Book Challenge books for this upcoming school year.   It has been sitting on my shelf for a year and I am so glad that I finally picked it up and read it.  I immediately feel in love with Bat. He is such a realistic character and gives a voice to many of our students who are on the autism spectrum.  His struggles and challenges are ones that students can relate to - problems at school, an older sister and divorced parents. 

The day his mom brings home a baby skunk, Bat knows that he is meant to take care of the baby skunk and maybe even have a skunk for a pet.  He even reaches out to a skunk expert to back him up in his quest to have a pet skunk.   This book was delightful and heartfelt.  Such a great story.  I can't wait to read more about Bat's adventures. 

I was lucky enough to get this book during our annual state library conference and had the privilege of meeting Jennifer Nielsen.  My 4th and 5th grade readers have read everything they can get their hands on about WWII so I was happy to see a new book.  Chaya is a Jewish teenager living in Poland who has decided to make a difference by smuggling supplies, food and forged papers into the ghettos.  She is determined to make a difference and as the war progresses finds herself more and more involved in resistance efforts.

This novel truly shows the strength that one develops when they believe in something completely.  Chaya and the rest of her resistance group are determined to show the Nazis that they mean business and will stand their ground regardless of the cost. 

Reflecting on 2017-2018

2017-2018 was a great year with many challenges and triumphs.  Starting a position at a new school, new library was more difficult than I anticipated but also rewarding.  There were days when I wondered if what I was doing made a difference and then there were days when I KNEW that all of my efforts were paying off.  I truly believe that the library program and the librarian directly impact student learning on a campus.  As a librarian, you are in a unique position to touch the lives of every student on your campus. 

My goal was to impact every student, to inspire them to read, to push them to think creatively, to show them that literacy is related to every aspect of their lives.  Most of all, I wanted them to understand that learning is fun and that there is wonder all around them. I know it's not a measurable goal but if you were to just come spend some time in our library, you would definitely see all of the above.  Kids are excited about reading and excited about all that they can discover and create in the library.  That, my friends, is what you call a successful year. 

Nance Library Newsletter - August/September

Habitat Collaboration

Over the past few weeks, I have had the privilege of collaborating with my 3rd grade and kindergarten bilingual classes on a great science research project. It just so happened the while 3rd grade was learning about ecosystems and food chains, kindergarten was also learning about animals. During an afternoon discussion with one of my amazing kindergarten teachers, she brought up the idea of having kindergarten engage in authentic research as opposed to the traditional full class research project that they usually completed.

 I knew from working with our 3rd grade bilingual classes on a regular basis, that they truly understood research and how to complete a research project at a high level of excellence. Our 3rd graders went through the entire research process beginning with coming up with good research questions and ending with presenting their projects to their peers and even creating an MLA formatted bibliography. These kids were so excited about their projects. I sat in class while they worked on giving feedback to each other. These 3rd graders knew how to give meaningful, specific feedback in a way that is helpful and not hurtful. They ended up with presentations that were truly excellent.

 Thus began a great collaboration experience. The 3rd graders started learning about their habitat and specifically about endangered animals within that habitat. They were then paired up with a kindergarten friend who chose one of the endangered animals to learn more about. The 3rd graders came up with the research questions to help guide the kindergarten students and then assisted them with finding the information online and in books. What they ended up with was an awesome google slides presentation created by the 3rd grader and a book created by the kindergarten student with assistance from the 3rd grader about the endangered animal. We scheduled time in the library for our students to present side-by-side. Administration, parents and other teachers and students were all invited. The outcome was amazing!

If you would like to see some of the presentations, go to this site: 

http://mrsgoregrade3.weebly.com/my-students.html

The presentations are embedded on their science page of their blog.