Top 10 Titles in 2022

It's time to get on the year-end bandwagon of Top 10 lists. :) Here are the 10 most checked-out titles from all of 2022:

Several of the titles continue to be popular even with earlier publication dates--word of mouth is a powerful force when it comes to books circulating often. Movie tie-ins and streaming service adaptations certainly help, too! You'll find fiction and nonfiction on the list, along with series and stand-alone books, as well as graphic novels. Likely you've heard of several, if not read them yourself!

Looking to create your own lists or year-end stats to share? This one was created from a template on Canva, where you can find all kinds of templates for your needs.

❆❅❄ Winter Wonderland Digital Breakout ❅❄❆

Are you looking for "that activity" to carry you into the holiday break? Or maybe you're looking for an extension to use with students as they wrap up their work this time of year? Or, like me, you have a small group of students visiting the library and need an activity for them? It might be a good time for a digital breakout!

We've both hosted classroom breakouts and worked through several library or advisory breakouts--both physical and digital--over time (you can read about them here), and today's breakout is very similar to others we've used. Today's breakout, Locked in a Winter Wonderland, comes from VirtualEscapeRooms.org, which was featured recently on Matt Miller's Ditch That Textbook.

In fact, Matt Miller and Virtual Escape Rooms have a limited-time offer for this particular breakout, and you can get it for free when you enter the code "ditchbook" at checkout. You can access the breakout here. 

Students could sign up to participate in the breakout during advisory today, and after listening to the introduction to the activity, students could choose to work in groups or individually to tackle the breakout.

Once students got into the breakout and clicked around a little bit, the sleuthing and unlocking happened quickly! The largest group seemed to have an effective problem-solving approach and worked through the pages efficiently, while other groups took their time, but in the end, each of the groups was able to solve the lock combinations.

A great activity to get students using their problem solving skills and thinking critically--and to enjoy the season! ⛄

🌎 Cinderella Stories from Around the World 🌎

We're celebrating Culture Week this week, and we teachers--along with many students--are offering advisory sessions that students can choose to attend. (You can read about how we recognized Culture Week last year with diverse titles and book trailers HERE.) This year, students can visit to learn about, read, and discuss Cinderella stories from around the world.

First, students gained some background knowledge about Cinderella stories with a Slides presentation:

The Slides also included brief descriptions from the online catalog to give students a quick idea of the stories. After forming groups of their own choosing, students moved to tables where the books and a T-chart for similarities and differences awaited. 

As they read, students considered the traditional Cinderella story with which they were already familiar, then added sticky notes with examples for the T-charts. As our time together came to a close, we shared out information from sticky notes and other points or connections from their reading.

Some examples of their work appears below:

With a limited amount of time during our session, students weren't able to rotate through more than 2-3 books, and some groups chose to focus on one book rather than skim several books and work quickly. Altogether, nine examples of Cinderella stories were featured:

🌎 Holiday Traditions Around the World

With holiday break approaching and with a building focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, students could choose to attend a library advisory session featuring holiday traditions from around the world. In our time together, students accessed a one-pager that included galleries, a quiz, and an activity.

CLICK HERE to access the one-pager

Students could choose to access different galleries from the Travel Channel or Newsweek, both of them showcasing holiday traditions from a variety of locations around the globe. Students could also work individually or in groups to take a Google Earth holiday quiz that included geographic and cultural information. Finally, students could design or decorate their own holiday tree with an activity from Eric Curts and Control Alt Achieve.

More advisory activities to share next week!