Victoria Coe Revealed The NEW Fenway & Hattie To Our 2nd Graders Today!

Today, our second graders and several teachers were part of a very exciting and fun event! 

Our friend and author, Victoria Coe, connected with all of us and revealed the cover of her fourth Fenway and Hattie book coming out at the end of the school year. 

I don't want to reveal it to you....You and your students will have to watch the 10 minute reveal video too.  

Thank you, Victoria!  We can't wait to read all of the Fenway and Haddie books this year!

The AASL Standards Crosswalks Are Here For The Future Ready Librarians Framework & ISTE Standards!

We had wonderful news from AASL today! 

I couldn't be more excited with this announcement and I know all of you will be too.  

The AASL Crosswalks for the Future Ready Librarian Framework and the ISTE Standards for Learners and Educators are here!  

Earlier this year, AASL brought together the AASL Standards Crosswalk Task Force to develop crosswalks between the AASL Standards, ISTE Standards and the Future Ready Librarian Framework.  

These join the Future Ready Librarians Framework and ISTE Standards for Educators Crosswalk that was released in June 2018 at the annual ISTE Conference in Chicago. 

ISTE teamed up with Follett and Future Ready Librarians to create a crosswalk showing the relationship between the FRL framework and the ISTE Standards for Educators.  

You will find the framework and other amazing information and resources on the new ISTE Librarian site that was also introduced at ISTE. 

Let me show you where you can find the AASL Crosswalks too. 

The AASL and Future Ready Librarian Crosswalk can be found here and....

....the AASL and ISTE Standards for Learners and Educators Crosswalk can be found here. 

This was such important work that this committee accomplished and I can't wait to see this put into motion within our library, school and others across the country.  

According to the announcement on the AASL site,  

A searchable, web-based crosswalk will follow, launching in 2019, allowing users to filter their results for collaborative planning. Plans also include professional learning resources to assist practitioners in developing their own local crosswalks as needed to supplement the national crosswalks created by the association.

TCEA 2019 Is Coming At Us Fully Charged!

One of my favorite conferences every year is the TCEA Conference in Texas!

They know how to put on an amazing annual conference and are always FULLY CHARGED with incredible presenters, events, vendors and all around great learning, sharing, connecting and fun!

They have announced a few of the special people involved this year.

TCEA shared in this post,

We're so excited to announced that the opening keynote for the TCEA 2019 Convention and Exposition is the remarkable physician, engineer, social scientist, entrepreneur, educator and wanna-be dancer Dr. Mae Jemison.  Oh, and she just happens to be a former NASA astronaut and the first woman of color to travel into space.  She is an advocate for STEM learning, and she has a powerful message to share with our 2019 attendees.  

I cannot wait to be inspired by Dr. Jemison!

Also, TCEA has given us a sneak peak at a few of the featured speakers!

I am so excited and honored to be part of this group and look forward in sharing with all of those at TCEA in San Antonio!

Be prepared to be Fully Charged at TCEA 2019 as registration opens on September 13th!  

You can read all about it and follow along here. 

Picture Books for Social Emotional Learning

We love finding the perfect books for our teachers and students.  

When Amy Garrison, who teaches 3rd grade at Van Meter, wrote down that she would like books on mindset, gratitude, teamwork, etc..., I gathered a few books together from our collection in the library and dropped them off in her classroom.  

That night I started gathering more up on this Padlet.  There are so many wonderful books that fit into these different themes within social emotional learning.  

I have a column for Social Emotional Learning and then split it into different columns like Empathy, Gratitude, Growth Mindset, Mindfulness and Teamwork too.

And today, I made lots of updates to the SEL Padlet... by adding more columns and lots of new books to each.

...by adding more columns and...

...lots of new books to each. 

You will find the Padlet for Picture Books for Social Emotional Learning here.

Let's keep adding to this over the summer and make it a special resource for all of us to use and share with others, including the families within our communities too. 

Let's All StickTogether With This Special Colorful, Collaborative, Community-Building Activity!

As we kick off a new year in our library, we added something very special that has brought a collaborative, colorful, community-building activity to our space and community.  

It is called StickTogether!  

They are sticker mosaic puzzle posters that are fun and an easy way to get everyone to work together.  This is just what our library needs as we kick off a brand new year together. 

By adding StickTogether to our first day, we were able to add one more thing that brought lots of opportunities for collaboration, talking, creating and having so much fun together.  

I loved watching the excitement around StickTogether unfold as the day went on. 

 

Our StickTogether gave our little friends a chance to reconnect on the first day back.  

Our StickTogether gave Jessica and....

...I a chance to get to know everyone we had for our elementary library classes.

And StickTogether gave our secondary students the perfect opportunity to sit down together and have some fun as they contributed to a beautiful sticker mosaic puzzle. 

StickTogether can be ordered from their site or from DEMCO.   

Everything that you need comes with the kits including the large poster, stickers, sticker key and of course, a picture of what the complete puzzle will look like.  

There are lots of wonderful designs....something for everyone. 

We are super excited because our StickTogether is a custom design!  They created one for us that consists of three large panels and will fit together when our students have completed all of them.  

Currently Custom StickTogethers are unavailable, but will be back and better than ever, very soon!  You can read more about this here. 

We saw during our first week back that StickTogether is perfect for all ages and for any space.  

This year let's all stick together with their special colorful, collaborative, community-building activity! 

Celebrate With Victoria Coe and the Van Meter 2nd Graders For The NEW Fenway & Hattie Cover Reveal!

We love to connect with authors, illustrators, students, school libraries, teachers librarians, experts, animals and more in our library and classrooms at Van Meter.  

To kick off our year of making wonderful connections, we will be connecting with author Victoria Coe on August 30 at 8:30am CST.  

And guess what?  She has asked us to be part of....

the cover reveal for the next Fenway and Hattie series.  As you know, Fenway and Hattie was 

Our 2nd graders in Staci Braun, Tracy Ferguson and Megan Warwick's classrooms will be gathering together to hear from Victoria.  They cannot wait to see what the new cover will look like and to meet Victoria. 

All you have to do to watch with your class is to tune into the link below at 8:30am CST for the short, 10 minute connection with Victoria and our 2nd graders.  

We hope you will be able to join us and celebrate with our readers and Victoria too! 

What Your Teacher Librarian Can Do For You.... A Program & Ticket For A Successful Year!

This week kicked off a brand new school year at Van Meter as we learned with our administrators, teachers and friends. On Wednesday, we were given some time to connect with the teachers to share information about the library program.

As we prepared for this time together, I started thinking about all of the amazing ways that librarians on the Future Ready Librarian Facebook Page have shared.

I especially love....

the menus Charles Scardina, 

Kelsey Erin and...

James Allen created.  Not only were they filled with wonderful information, they were all so cool too!

Jessica and I started brainstorming and decided to put a little twist on ours.  We made it like a movie or production by starting it out with...

The Van Meter School Library Presents A Special New Feature During The 2018-19 School Year! 

We then split it into categories tying into thetheme.... Starring, Setting, Acts and Special Features.  And of course included all of us as Friendmoji's too.  

It was such a good exercise to sit down and put all of these skills and thoughts onto paper.  

And of course, while I did this, I had the Future Ready Librarian framework sitting right next to me so I could reference and tie it into the work we will do with our school community.  

Then I thought....

After we give them this program, we should create something to get them even more engaged in these ideas. How could we get them thinking about how they will use the information and put it into action to help them in their classroom and throughout their work too?  

We got it!  A ticket!  What a perfect tie in to the theme! 

As you can see on the ticket, we tied in the same theme and lots of the same verbiage as the program. 

They will even find a little ticket at the bottom of their flyer to encourage them to look for a ticket that....

..,,will encourage them to think about how we can help and write down their needs to give to us in our library...one more way to get them into the library too.  

To go along with the movie theme, we attached microwave popcorn...

and the big boxes of movie popcorn with red and white yarn.

It was so much fun to put these together with the tickets.

We put all 70 of these little gifts into a big basket to bring with us.  

So, Wednesday was the day! 

The day that Jessica and I were going to kick off this awesome new partnership between us and with all of the teachers, students, administrators and families within our school community. The first impression we made on that day, will have a lasting impact all year long...and into the future.  

As we finished up meeting and talking with all of the secondary teachers, we made our way down to the elementary library where we had set up a special place for them to come in the afternoon.  

We put the little ticket packages and the What Your Teacher Librarian Can Do For You posters on each table where the teachers would be sitting.

As they arrived at the library, we spoke about all of the special things we can do as their teacher librarian and how we can work together all year long.

At the end of our time together, I was so happy to see our friend Amy give us this note.  

It worked!  

It was successful in bringing together communities in useful and special ways that will impact our students every single day.  

The NEW PebbleGo Next Biographies From Our Friends At Capstone!

PebbleGo is the go-to resource for research for our elementary students.  When PebbleGo Next came on the scene a few years ago with two databases, we all really hoped that they it would follow in PebbleGo's footprints and add Biographies and others to PebbleGo Next someday. 

Well, guess what?  

Our friends at Capstone just announced that PebbleGo Next Biographies is here!  This is the newest database for PebbleGo and includes historical and contemporary biographies which are targeted for to the grades 3-5 national curriculum.  

Within PebbleGo Biographies, there are 164 biographies which explore Advocates, African Americans, American Indians, Artists and Authors, Asian Americans, Athletes, Business Leaders, Composers and Entertainers, 

Explorers and Pioneers, Hispanic Americans, Scientists and Inventors, Women and World Leaders. 

I took at look inside at....

Women and Athletes.  I wanted to learn more about Lindsey Vonn, one of my favorite athletes, so I clicked on her picture to pull up...

an article loaded with wonderful information including....

...a new timeline component, 

an activity to explore in each subcategory, 

and video and critical thinking prompts for each article.

In the official press release Darin Rasmussen, Vice President of Digital Product Development and Management, shares, 

“We’re thrilled to share the life stories of the famous and the infamous, the tenacious creators, the people who’ve challenged the status quo, and the leaders who’ve achieved the highest levels of success in their fields. Our team has worked to include a range of life stories that serve as a window into history as well as more contemporary times, which can help students see the world in new ways, inspire self-discovery, and provide great life lessons. This collection builds on the success of our PebbleGo Next databases to provide a valuable resource to elementary schools.” 

As our students come back to school this Thursday, we have already had lots of questions about resources, collaborating and projects that will fit into the curriculum.  Biographies is definitely one topic that has come up and I can't wait to share that we will now have the perfect place to go for our older elementary students too.