Nonfiction Book Tasting

While we've hosted book tastings in the library before, we had a first-time request this week: Can you host a nonfiction books *only* book tasting? 

Of course we can!

After pulling several titles, commonalities began to emerge, like memoirs and biographies, sports-themed books, and narrative nonfiction titles. After putting all of the books together, broad categories became clear: memoir/biography, sports, military, narrative nonfiction, World War II/Holocaust, survival, and true crime. Using a template from earlier book tastings, we created table signs to help students move about the library to find a book.

Students in each class that visited would have time to browse the collected books as well as the nonfiction books on shelves. However, one teacher specifically requested book talks to accompany the activity, while another teacher preferred broad information about each category. In the end, nearly 65 nonfiction books were checked out!

If you're looking to host a nonfiction book tasting, you can use similar table signs that are available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. 

📚 New Term, New Round of Book Talks

With students beginning all new rotations of English and reading classes at the new term, teachers have been bringing groups into the library for check out, as well as book talks. Below is the latest round of featured books, some new to the collection and others that have been included for a while:

Books are showcased "by the numbers," meaning each title has some kind of connection to numbers. Some are obvious--like Five Survive and 3 Things I Know are True--while others are less obvious. For instance, the hotel in Hotel Magnifique changes locations every 24 hours and there are eight players on the basketball team in Dragon Hoops. The final book in the presentation, The Serpent King, shows the number one because it is my Number #1 read in the last semester. :)

See something you might want to check out or learn more about? You're welcome to stop by--and if the book you're looking for isn't available, we'll get it on hold for you and recommend something else! :)

🪄 💻 A Harry Potter Themed Breakout

After the success with a recent digital breakout from VirtualEscapeRooms.org, it was time to try another one, this time based on the world of Harry Potter!

Click the image to access the site.

Matt Miller from DitchThatTextbook.com has many free digital escape rooms--and tips & planning templates, too!--available on his site, and sometimes he features particular breakouts. This one, along with the Winter Wonderland breakout, were featured in December.

Today students could choose to work individually or in small groups to work thorough the screens from this breakout. Shortly after getting started, though, most kids were talking with one another whether they had formed groups or not!

Breakouts are a great way to encourage collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving, and many times students learn to manage their expectations and work through frustration if their first responses don't allow them to move on or unlock the next page.

National Rubber Ducky Day

January 13 is National Rubber Ducky Day!

Photo by Jason Richard on Unsplash

To recognize the day and have a little fun on the last day of our semester, students could sign up for a 1-pager activity in advisory. To kick off our work, we began with a read aloud of the Eric Carle book 10 Little Rubber Ducks.

After the read aloud, students could access the 1-pager, which included a link to an article explaining some of the history behind National Rubber Ducky Day, a video compilation featuring songs about the Sesame Street rubber ducky, and a design-your-own rubber ducky pixel art activity from Eric Curts at Control Alt Achieve. 

CLICK HERE to access the 1-pager

Much smiling and reminiscing and singing along to the rubber ducky song as students watched and designed their own duckies today!

And look at this raft of ducks!

🎧 💻 🎙 Media Response Activity

Podcasts and videos are two popular forms of media for students, and choice boards continue to be popular, so why not combine the two? This activity also allows for both student choice related to what information they access and how they respond to the information. 

CLICK HERE to access the activity

While students have several choices related to author interviews, TED talks, and podcasts, they do have the option to find one of their own and respond to it with teacher permission. After choosing something to watch and listen to, students choose their responses to show everything from connections made to opinions formed to questions remaining. Students could respond digitally or in print, or small groups and full classes can watch or listen to an item before responding in a discussion.

With so many options, students are sure to find something engaging and respond in a way that makes sense to them!

📚😍 New Books!

Back from the holiday break, students can now browse and check out new books that have been recently added to the collection.

Clip art from EduClips

Many of the new books are fiction, but also included in the order are poetry books, narrative nonfiction, and graphic novels. Many are by authors already popular with students. You can see a lot of them below:

Students could also visit the library during advisory to watch book trailers for some of the new books. They accessed a Google Doc with links to YouTube trailers.

CLICK HERE to access the trailers document.

Feel free to stop by to take a look at the new books! Happy reading!

❓💭 Would You Rather...Questions

Earlier this fall I started posting Would You Rather...questions weekly at the circulation desk. A fellow librarian had shared that it was a great way to start conversations with students as they came into the library, so I started my own weekly voting, hoping that students who might not otherwise come into the library regularly might do so to check out that week's question and maybe spend some time in the library. This was the first question:

The participation and response have been fantastic--even staff members make a point to come in each week to vote and chat about why they voted in that way. :) Often students come into the library in small groups, and while maybe only one in the group checks out a book, they *all* vote. So many fun conversations, big smiles, and lively debates about the "right" choice! This has definitely been a passive programming win!

Because of the positive reactions, I've added a free resource in my TPT store with some of questions that were popular with students. The download includes six pre-made choices, as well as a blank template that you can customize and continue to use to keep the conversations flowing. 

While I've been using these at the library circulation desk, the questions could work for you in a variety of ways--as an attendance or bellringer question, as a writing prompt, or as a team building classroom activity. I even used questions like these in my elementary library centers when I was an elementary librarian. Why not visit my store to see if they might also work for you?

I Have a TpT Store!

In the time that I've been a teacher librarian, I've often found myself searching for resources to use both at the elementary and secondary level. Like a lot of my colleagues, I turned to Teachers Pay Teachers, now TPT.

Finding secondary-level library and literacy resources was sometimes frustrating, as I felt so many of the things I found were geared toward younger students. This and other considerations lead me to create my own TpT store--Sandi in the Stacks.

This is where I'll share many of the literacy and reading activities I've used with my middle school students in the past and the things I'm currently using with my high school students. Even though I just opened the store, I do have a few resources available already, including a winter reading challenge.

CLICK HERE to access the item in my TpT store.

When you access the item in my store, you can download this color version of the challenge, or you can choose a black and white copy. There's also a blank template to be tailored specifically to your students, library, or classroom. I'm excited to set these out in my library and talk with students about their reading! I'm even considering a small "book-ish" prize for students who earn a reading bingo before our spring break in March, and from those entries, I may have a "grand prize winner" from a random drawing.

Feel free to take a look at my store, and I'd appreciate the follow if you think my resources might also benefit you and your students! And check back here as I'll be sharing resources as I always have! Thanks!