For Teen Read Month last fall, the South Jordan Library hosted an after hours minigolf event for middle and high schoolers. The teens who came got into teams of 2-5 people and each team created a hole using library items, such as book ends, discarded magazines; and household and recycled items, such as paper plates, cardboard tubes, duct tape, and more. After each team created a hole, the teens played through the course, rotating around to all 9 holes so they got a chance to see how creative the other teams were. They also found out that playing the holes was, in some ways, even harder than building them! The program was fairly inexpensive--the main cost was the duct tape--and the golf clubs were loaned by a local golf course for the night. The lumber that you see pictured was donated by Home Depot, who even cut it down to size for us. Hooray for community partnerships! I didn't invent this idea of playing minigolf in the library. I do, however, know a good idea when I see one on Pinterest! From the time I repinned the picture of another library's minigolf program, I knew it would be a really fun thing that I would implement before the year was out. When I started planning, I realized it would take me forever to set up a whole golf course myself, so the idea of having the kids actually build it during the program was born from a need to make it easier on me (and realistically realizing that it would be hard even for a large crew of helpers to set up a whole golf course between closing and the start of the program). My amazing Teen Advisory Board teens helped with the set up and take down, which also made a difference. As it turned out, the building was probably the most fun part and is really a STEM activity, measuring, fitting, checking angles, and testing to see if your concept worked, just to name a few. Submitted by L. Renshaw Teen Librarian South Jordan Library (Salt Lake County Library Services)
Planning March Book Madness in 2021?! Let me help you choose books, engage students, and plan activities! Choose books...
March is known as the month of brackets. In recent years, tournament style book battles have been adopted by libraries and cl...
Hello, friends! It's Christmas break for me and I'm taking a few minutes to plan ahead for the new year! Last year our first graders hosted a Tournament of Books and it was a huge success so we're getting ready to host one again this year! The first thing I did was put up this huge bracket in the main hallway of our school. It generated a ton of buzz around the school, especially before we shared any details about what we were actually planning! The Brown Bag Teacher has bracket printables free on Teachers Pay Teachers. They are perfect for getting your bracket ready. To build the bracket, I started from the middle and worked out on each side, using black duct tape for the lines. It wasn't a quick project, but it turned out perfectly! Once all the kiddos were making guesses about my giant hallways display, we collected nominations. Each first grader nominated a favorite book, which gave us about 70 nominees. It was surprisingly easily to narrow them down to 16 choices for our bracket since we had lots and lots of the same choices, plus a few that were easy to toss (a few guided reading titles made it into the mix haha). Once we filled in our top 16 books, the students filled out their own brackets. I printed blank brackets from Print Your Own Brackets and wrote in our selections. Then, we carefully went through the choices and the students filled in a winner for each match up. This also helped them to understand how the bracket itself worked and promoted lots of debate about their favorites! Now that we had our top 16 choices, everyone needed to make sure they read the books! We read many of the nominees aloud to our classes, but we also used QR codes with iPads in our listening centers to make the books accessable to all our students. Then, each week, we conducted a vote. We created a Google Form with the choices and then posted a QR code that linked to the form. Students used iPads to scan the QR code then enter their choices. It was quick for them to complete and easy for us since we didn't need to prepare or count 70 paper ballots each week! Even though only our first graders were voting, the whole school was eager to see who the winner would be and looked forward to seeing the winners each week! Our tournament came down to a Crayon vs Crayon final! The Day the Crayons Came Back was the winner, "because it has glow in the dark!" and two of my kiddos actually managed perfect brackets! This year we're planning further ahead, so the whole school is getting involved! Have you ever hosted a Tournament of Books? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!
Get ready for some amazing March Madness reading ideas! March Madness isn't just reserved for basketball fans; it's the perfect time to add some excitement into your upper elementary classroom with a literary twist! This season, let's score big on reading fun and engagement with our March Madness Reading Activities for 4th grade. We've curated a slam-dunk list of 25 March Madness reading ideas that will turn your classroom into a literary arena, where books compete for the top spot, characters take center stage, and creativity soars.
This library vocabulary game comes with a one page of directions and two vocabulary card decks of over 60 library themed vocabulary words. One set of cards has just the vocabulary word; the other set of cards has the words and clue words to help students who may have trouble coming up with their own...
Library fundraisers raise money for books, resources and programs. They also build community within your schools and local communities.
As someone who engages in a lot of Professional Development (PD) activities – delivering and receiving, one of the overarching gripes I hear is that no one wants to be “talked at”…
This is a collection of fun ideas for middle school library orientation. It includes video clips, an elementary vs middle school presentation, and more!
Combining STEM and Basketball in Elementary Classrooms Get ready to bring the excitement of the Summer Olympics into your classroom with a basketball themed STEM challenge! Basketball is not just a sport; it's an exciting avenue for introducing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering
Started finding a lot of links for Minecraft curriculum. What could be better than homeschooling with Minecraft?
Minecraft parties are all the rage now. From toddlers to tweens, just say the word “Minecraft” and you are bound to have a houseful of party-goers or a library program with sky-high att…
This listing is for a book folding pattern which will enable you to create your own finished book. This pattern: Avengers Logo – 221 folds (442 pages) - 21cm book (minimum) Your pattern will automatically download as a pdf on receipt of payment. You will also receive comprehensive instructions with easy to follow pictures. These will take you through every step of how to fold a book. The instructions will show you how to calculate the number of pages you need in your book in order to complete a design. You will receive instructions on how to tear pages which may be necessary for some folds. It is really easy to do and the instructions are in step by step picture format. Each pattern shows an image of the design along with the number of folds needed and the height of the book required. You can use a book taller than 21cm but I would recommend a book no shorter than. Most hardback books are 22cm-24cm and they will look fine. PLEASE NOTE - The folding instructions are generic and all have the Paw print photo at the end. You have not purchased the Paw pattern. If you have any questions please contact me and I will do my utmost to help you. All my patterns are tried and tested! We have a Facebook customer support group where you can ask questions and share tips and tricks. Please feel free to join, even if you haven’t started folding yet and would like some help or advice. We are also on Instagram Facebook: Book Folding Australia Instagram: bookfoldingaustralia Happy Folding
Are you looking for library centers to engage your students in December? Check out these low-cost and no-cost December library centers!
UPDATE 2/9/2021 – Since this post has collected more than 15 sites, I’ve created a Wakelet collection, which you can now find here. The Wakelet collection will be updated with any futu…
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Buy Book Club, Foundation Paper Piecing Pattern (FPP Pattern), Quilt Block, 5 sizes designed by Full Bobbin Designs
Library musical chairs is a terrific game to promote reading and incorporate technology with Google Form surveys.
