Term 1 Statistics

Our term ended today, so it's time for some quick statistics about our first nine weeks of school! Thanks to Canva, it's easy to create colorful, detailed posters--like this one that highlights some of the things going on in the library since August:

Here's to the second term! More good things to come!

Wrapping up National Hispanic Heritage Month

September 15 - October 15 is traditionally celebrated as National Hispanic Heritage Month. In the past, library displays and advisory activities have helped introduce students to the people, culture, history, places, and more related to this month of recognition. (You can read an earlier blog post HERE.) 

CLICK HERE to access the 1-pager.

Several books in the library feature Hispanic characters or are written by Hispanic authors--you can see a few of them below:

Want to know more about the books or find others that relate to National Hispanic Heritage Month? Check out this playlist of book trailers:

Hope to see you soon in the library--maybe even to check out one of the featured books here! :)

Reading and Book Memes

Today's advisory offering was inspired by other work students completed for a science teacher--memes! Students had access to a 1-pager with directions, and then the creating, fun, and laughing began!

Students visited a free meme generating website and started working from there. So much fun conversations about their reading and the books or characters they had in mind when creating their memes. Even some book recommendations among classmates!

A few examples that generated a few laughs:

Students often created several memes in the time we had together, and with so many clever examples, it was time to update the gallery wall display with their work. 

📚Fan Art

Today's offering in advisory was YA lit fan art, a joint endeavor with a colleague, and was one of the Wellness Wednesday choices students could choose to attend. After a brief Slides presentation to share examples of personal fan art and general ideas, students had time to choose from several things: explore examples online, share their own art with one another if they had it with them, and create.

Students were encouraged to look online for inspiration.

Some students even brought along their own sketch books.

Some students' work appears below, and many more pieces will be included along with these in a display featured near the bookshelves.

Behind the Circulation Desk

After a visit from a local public librarian, when she talked about services and programming related to our two local public libraries, students in Novels class visited the library for a presentation and activities related directly to their own school library. The presentation was called "Behind the Circulation Desk" and focused on book recommendations, book selection and purchasing, and book processing.

 

Part of the presentation included discussions about choosing books for the library using the criteria we librarians use. Considering descriptions and reviews from our vendor's website, students evaluated a new fiction release by a popular author, a series book, a poetry book, and an older fiction book. Each group of students shared whether or not they would include the title in the collection and defend their choices using the criteria we'd discussed.

As part of the book processing piece of the presentation, students themselves covered paperback books for the English department. Following a step-by-step process, students were able to independently cover trade paperbacks from a classroom set--learning a step in the school library process while helping one of their English teachers at the same time!

Back-to-School Book Talks

Welcome back! It's been great to spend time with so many of the reading and English classes on these first days back to school! Several classes came in to hear about the new genrefied fiction section and how to use the catalog effectively when searching, and other students participated in a book tasting during their visit. Others listened to the book talks included in the Slides presentation below:

Several of the featured books have been checked out already, but you're welcome to stop by to put a book on hold. Or, you can browse the dozens of new books on display and on the shelves to find something different to check out! Happy reading!

🌞📚 First Meeting of the Summer Book Club

Such a great time to finally meet with students for our first ever summer book club! 

After inviting students from our 7-8 building and high school, we teacher librarians arranged to have multiple print and electronic copies of Fighting Words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley available so we could read it in June and talk about different aspects of the story.

Given the content and themes of the book, we reached out to our Employee and Family Resources staff to ask about a guest speaker visiting during our meeting to talk about foster care and family trauma in our state and communities. A special thank you to Mary, who not only visited to share information and statistics, but also read the book to be able to join in with our discussion!

We began with favorite moments/characters--like Francine and Friday nights at the grocery story--and questions we had before moving on to an introductory video featuring the author:

Kimberly Brubaker Bradley Introduces FIGHTING WORDS from Penguin Classroom on Vimeo.

Next, Mary shared with us several statistics about child abuse in Iowa:

•  In 2021, there were more than 35,500 reports of abuse in Iowa. Nearly 9400 of those cases were founded/confirmed, with the majority of those cases (around 5300) involving children five years old or younger.

• Neglect contributes to 55% of the cases reported.

• In Polk and Dallas counties, where our communities are located, more than 5700 cases of abuse were confirmed in 2021.

Mary talked with us about the foster care system, including placement in emergency care, in a family setting, or in a group home, and she explained how someone like Suki from Fighting Words might age out of a system like the one we have here in Iowa.

Finally, Mary suggested things we can do if we are worried about any of our friends and are concerned for them: be supportive but not hovering; be there and remind friends that you're available; know about available resources; and, ask about today's feelings and actions.

We finished our discussion of the book by talking about our interpretations of the book cover, Della's conversation about superpowers, supporting characters, and adults who help vs. adults who ignore. Many students had already finished the whole book, but we tried to limit our conversation to Chapters 1 - 13, as we plan to meet again in two weeks to talk about the entire book. We'll also talk about our July read--which might be a variety of titles with the same theme. If you couldn't join us this time, we'd love to see you then!