Call me to book a fun Hispanic Heritage Month Children's Program! September 15 - October 15th is Hispanic Heritage Month and I will be...
The Library Adventure uses affiliate links, see our policies for more information.Kids ages 8 to 12 are often too busy with scheduled activities of their own to make it to library programs in the afternoons or evenings. For librarians who wish to increase attendance at programs for this age group, this can be very frustrating, […]
Homeschooling a child with dysgraphia presents unique challenges. Learn how to beat dysgraphia with these 8 strategies!
The 2016 Summer Olympics are just around the corner! And so of course this presents the perfect opportunity for a book display (I do enjoy creating book displays—see all of them here). Anyway, this idea was pretty straightforward and it's awesome because it's really versatile, too: you can highlight any award winning books. I, of course, like the children's book awards. For instance, all of the Newbery's that you see in the collage above. Or Caldecotts... But really, you could do whatever you like. I made a simple, free printable poster for the display. You can download the 8.5x11 .pdf from Google Drive. OR if you want to be more creative, you could also just download the medal (click on the image) by itself and make your own fantastic be-ribboned display of awesomeness... Okay, so maybe I have too much fun doing odd little bits of graphic design. But hey! I love me some gold (and silver) medal books... ...and my baby, too!
How many of us raising bilingual children wished we can send our kids off to an-all Spanish camp all summer? I do!
Last week, my Fine Art for Kids preschool class learned about Impressionism, looking at images by Monet and studying his Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies. We talked about what an “impression” is,…
A StoryWalk® is a fun activity that places laminated pages from a picture book mounted on posts along an outside path, in store windows, around a playground or park, or anywhere else you can imagine it! The StoryWalk® concept was created by Anne Ferguson of Montpelier, VT and was developed with t
Teen librarian Karen Jensen walks you through turning recorded voice messages into soundwave art that you can scan and hear
Branding is important for your library, and if you have an interesting looking building, it can easily become part of your branding. Feel if you know what the building looks like and can recognize …
So, I posted recently that my sixth graders were writing a mystery that was going to take place in the library. I took two of the best mysteries that were submitted and combined them! Here's how our mystery looked: The Problem: Mrs. Svarda got to school on Monday morning and saw the mess. At first she was just mad that all of the books were out, then she saw that all the books were missing their endings. She picked up a book and noticed that the barcode was missing, too. She looked around and found that several books were missing their endings and barcodes. The scanners were also missing so no one could check out books! Then Mrs. Svarda was scared and mad. Who could've done such a thing? What happened here? How could this happen? She needed help. Starbelly Sneetch Alibi: It was 5:00 and I heard a knock on my door. It was Fox in Socks. He came in and I turned off my music and put away my IPod. We played at my house until we got bored. We decided it would be fun to go to the movies. We texted Hop On Pop and Yertle the Turtle to see if they wanted to come, too. Everyone came to the movie except Hop on Pop. After the movie we couldn't think of what to do so we walked around. We thought we might stop by the library to visit Hop On Pop. It started to rain as we walked so we stopped at Fox in Sock's house to pick up some blankets to keep dry on our walk. Hop On Pop Alibi: It was 5:00 and I was looking at my clock when the doorbell rang. It was Yertle the Turtle. He had brought me some homemade bread. He asked if I wanted to go to the mall. My mom said, "No. I had to work on my homework at the library." Yertle the Turtle got a text right after that asking if we wanted to go and see the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie. Bummer. I really wanted to see a movie and hated that I had to go to the library instead. Yertle the Turtle left to meet everyone for the movie. I headed to the library with my homework. My animal report was due on Monday and mom said I couldn't do anything fun until I was finished with the report. The fun thing was that everyone came by the library after the movie and told me all about it. They had a great time. At 8:00, everyone had to head home. I had about thirty minutes left of homework, so I told them I'd have to stay around just a bit longer... Yertle the Turtle Alibi: It was 4:00 and I was cooking some homemade bread. When it was done I wanted to have some fun so I took some bread over to my friend Hop On Pop. I asked if he wanted to go to the mall, but then I got a text from Fox in Socks and Starbelly Sneetch asking if I wanted to go to the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie. My mom said I could go to the movie, but his mom said he had to do homework. He tried not to show it, but boy, was he mad. I had to leave Hop On Pop to make it to the movie on time. I told him if we had time, we'd stop by the library after the movie to hang out with him. Fox in Socks' Alibi: I was sitting in my room when my mom came in and said when I finished my chores I could play. I decided to go over to Starbelly Sneetch's house to play. We thought it would be fun to go to see a movie and texted our friends to see if they could come, too. When the movie was over we went by my house to get some blankets because it was raining and we didn't want to get wet. Then, we headed to the library to visit Hop On Pop because he was doing homework there. At the library, I looked for the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book. I really liked the movie so I thought I would like the book. What the students do: When the students entered the library, they each grabbed a clipboard with a pencil, ingredients of a mystery checklist, alibis, map of the crime scene, and suspect list attached to it. They also grabbed a highlighter. I had the problem and alibis typed up on my SMART board including pictures of the characters. I read the problem and each alibi to the students. We walked through the ingredients of a mystery and checked off all of the mystery elements that our mystery had on the list. Then, I separated the students into two groups. One team surveyed the crime scene and drew the map of the evidence in the crime scene first. The second team worked in teams to read through the alibis and highlight evidence they found in the text that made them believe a character or characters might be guilty. After ten minutes, the teams swapped stations. We returned together as a group to discuss all of the evidence the students had found in the crime scene as well as the alibis that led them to believe that specific characters could be guilty of the crime. We completed the suspect list together. Students work in teams to highlight evidence in the alibis. Students sketched the crime scene. We taped off the crime scene with caution tape. The crime scene included Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, barcodes with fur on them (from characters), endings ripped out of the end of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books (these were really just copies I ripped), a blanket, movie ticketes (3), and a book about bumblebees (this was the book Hop On Pop was using to do his research for homework). I found the copies for the ingredients of a mystery checklist and suspect list from Beth Newingham's Scholastic post about the mystery unit she teaches in her classroom. The Solution The students really thought like detectives in this lesson! I did catch a few of them off guard with my red herrings, though. The fuzz on the barcodes made some of them immediately suspect Fox in Socks and the Starbelly Sneetch. One of the kids said, "This is the best lesson we've had in the library all year!" So, you can make whoever you want responsible for the crime. I decided that Hop On Pop was guilty. He was mad that he did not get to go to the movie with his friends. He was working on his report about bumblebees (since bears love honey) and had to stay later than his friends in the library to finish up. All of the other characters visited the library to visit Hop On Pop and they did not say anything about something being wrong in the library. Hop On Pop tore the endings out of the books when his friends left. To excite the kids about checking out mysteries in our library, we created a mystery display. All of the books were sealed in brown paper bags with the barcodes on the outside so we could check the books out without opening the bags. Each bag had a different mystery inside. This was a fun way for our students to try reading something new in the library and practice their detective skills we learned in our lesson together! Mystery books in mystery bags!
Over the last several years, I've done at lot of change up our library space at Stewart. Here's some of my tips to help you rethink your library.
Collagraph printmaking with kids using wooden blocks and foam shapes to create stamps and make prints with a repeat grid pattern that resembles a quilt.
Here is a set of knightly decorations which you can colour and cut out to use to create your very own coat of arms with our Decorate the Shield activity.
Use these hands-on engaging crafts and activities as part of your all about me unit.
Free library games and resources, including printables, worksheets, and slideshow presentations designed to help kids build library skills.
Let's welcome the bugs with these sweet bugs coloring pages for kids!
These dinosaur Crafts for kids are so cool that you will join the gang for one big, loud ROAR! It is not a surprise that most toddlers really like everything about dinosaurs. I should admit
This past week we have been reading the Boxcar Children. One of mine and the kiddos favorite things to do is learn along side the book. This...
Booklist of diverse and multicultural picture books. Children need to not only learn about new cultures, places, and traditions but they also need to be able to "see" themselves in a book.
Fun STEM activity for outdoor play and makes a great science lesson! (Includes a printable rocket template).
Join the fun and friendship of Elephant and Piggie with these 20 coloring pages, free for you to download and print. With these sheets, you can celebrate the beloved characters from Mo Willems' popular children's book series, known for its humor and valuable lessons.
For many of my fifth grade students, learning about and creating their own Hundertwasser inspired art was the best ever lesson.
Are your students in a reading slump and need some motivation? Battle of the Books will do it! Battle of the Books is a highly engaging reading incentive program that is perfect for the classroom or as a school wide event. We know as educators that the more students read, the better their outcomes are in fluency, word decoding, vocabulary acquisition, and more. This program infuses some competition and excitement into what we hope children are doing already: reading a lot and reading with purpose. So, not only is it good for students, it is good for you, and fun, too! Battle competitions are great when your students are in a mid-school year slump, or to keep them reading at the end of the school year when they are only thinking about summer. And by choosing a range of titles, you can provide additional challenge for advanced learners (select classics and more thought-provoking titles), but also encourage students with learning needs to have success with reading (select shorter, more accessible texts). It is completely able to be customized, so you can meet the needs of your class or school. This how-to guide is all you need to know to run a successful competition, especially if you have no experience with a Battle of the Books event. It explains step-by-step how to organize your event, kick it off to your students, select your books, and run your actual competition. I wrote this guide after years of running school-wide Battle events and it is just so much fun. Contents include: Getting Started guide, printable posters, parent info letter, explanatory presentation outline, game play rules, set up diagrams, student bookmarks, score sheets, sample book lists, award certificates, checklists, final program, book recommendation form and digital and hard copy question sets for Kate DiCamillo's The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. These resources are editable in Google Slides: parent letter, award certificates, bookmarks. The title tracker, team trackers, and score sheets are editable in Google Sheets. Even better, as you type in team's scores into your spreadsheet, it will automatically tally each team's points (so handy during competition)! Make copies of these resources and use them year after year, battle after battle. Enjoy!
Plan engaging library lessons for your K-2 classes by creating a routine, adding variety, including music and movement, and have fun!
Looking for fun activities for kids to enjoy a summer breeze? The only thing that comes to mind is to go fly a kite! I've got your back with these 9 how to make a kite that flies tutorials for children. These kite designs include lunch sack, newspaper, garbage bag, fabric and contact paper. Your child will love watching their kite go up, up and away! We've taken away all the guess work on activities for kids with these incredible tutorials. For even more boredom buster activities and traditions Tip Junkie's Creative Community has over 400 tutorials. You can always search there if you're looking
Getting tweens into the library to do library activities and explore books takes some creative thinking. Activities that are interactive, fun, challenging, and hands-on are the best way to get started. We need curiosity and mystery in library activities that will keep them on the edge of their seats for more.
Day sixteen of our Stay at Home, Screen Free Activities Programme is all about cool things to do with a big roll of paper. Cool things to do with a big roll of paper One of my daughters favourite things to do is roll out a BIG sheet of paper. There’s something about the scale which […]
Transform children's thoughts and beliefs with cogntive behavioral therapy. Discover effective and fun strategies for positive change with CBT for kids.
This is my fifth year as the school librarian at my high school, and I have somehow been pretty much spot on on my first five-year-plan for revamping and reinvigorating and modernizing our school l…
Need the perfect song to get children moving? These are sure to be a winner!
Set the stage for a fantastic school year with these fun, foundational, and differentiated September library lessons!
