👀 #TakeALookTuesday--Earth Day Edition 🌎

Last week we recognized Earth Day in a number of ways, including a joint advisory offering with our Heartland AEA consultant Cathy Hines who brought the Google Expeditions goggles so students could explore a number of places virtually. Students could sign up for two different days of virtual tours that featured threatened environments around the globe.

Students joined Cathy's tour of the African plains on the first day and could see and learn about a variety of animals like lions, giraffes, and mongoose. On Day 2, students could join two different tours: one featured the ocean life in the waters off of Thailand, where they could see sperm whales, green turtles, and dolphins, while the other included views and wildlife from the Amazon rainforest, including the river itself, a tarantula spider, sloths, frogs, and chimpanzees. 

Finally, Cathy shared information about the Budongo Conservation Field Station in Uganda and some of the work they do there with chimpanzees.

CLICK HERE to explore an interactive field station map.

Didn't get a chance to join us for the tours? No worries! Stop by the library for book recommendations related to the places we visited, or we can talk about websites to visit based on the tours. See you soon! 

👀 #TakeALookTuesday--Digital Magnetic Poetry Edition

We continue to celebrate National Poetry Month in the library--this time it was with an activity from Eric Curts and Control Alt Achieve. The magnetic tile poetry craze from the 1990's meets Google Draw in Curts' template that he graciously shares from his website. 

CLICK HERE for link

In this drag-and-drop activity, students could use any of the provided tiles to write their poems, or they could include their own word choices with the blank tiles as well. The springtime image served as their backgrounds as they wrote before sharing out some of their work. (On Curts's site, you can also choose templates that feature wintertime or Valentine's Day images.) Students had time to write their poems, then nearly all chose to read aloud what they'd created. We snapped our fingers and supported our poets-in-residence appropriately!

Curts's site has several poetry-inspired activities for Poetry Month--why not visit to find another way to celebrate the month?

👀 #TakeALookTuesday--Novels in Verse Edition

During National Poetry Month, the featured books on display include novels in verse. (See previous post.) In today's Take A Look Tuesday post, we'll take a closer look at this popular format.

Currently the library collection has 39 titles that are cataloged as novels in verse. Titles include those by popular authors Kwame Alexander, Elizabeth Acevedo, and Ellen Hopkins.

Novels in verse address a broad range of topics genres. Several in the collection connect to historical events, like these:

They can also reflect family dynamics and highlight relationships in families and among friends, like these titles:

Several titles also have a focus on social, emotional, and mental health:

See something that looks interesting? Feel free to stop by to talk about any of these novels in verse or other books you might be looking for. Remember, many are also available on MackinVIA if the print copy you'd like is already checked out.

Celebrating School Library Week

 As a wrap-up to School Library Week, students could choose to come into the library today during AO to watch several fun library-related videos. From a YouTube playlist, students could access five different videos, including videos like:

• Phineas & Ferb, "Ain't Got Rhythm"
• Mr. Bean's Library Destruction
• Tracking down the library ghost in Ghostbusters

We even threw in a bonus video at the end of the period with the Sesame Street aliens discovering a book:

👀 #TakeALookTuesday--National Poetry Month Edition

In April we celebrate National Poetry Month, and in the library we're expanding our recognition of it to include novels in verse.

While our poetry collection is in development as we look to add more titles, our novels in verse are an option for students who are looking for a poetry feel in their free reading books. Many titles are available--with just a portion on display--throughout the fiction titles in the collection.

See something that interests you? You're welcome to stop by to take a look or browse for other titles--see you soon!