We Have New Library Branches Popping Up Within Our School

We have something very exciting popping up around Van Meter School!  

We are adding four new little branches of our library collection around the school....one in the secondary and three in the elementary. 

To kick off this project, we are going to be adding one to our secondary in the collaboration space upstairs.

This is a place our students can go to collaborate, work, read, learn and just be together.

Jessica, Diana and I, along with the freshman reading class and their teacher Renee Martin, will be collaborating on this project for the secondary library branch.  In fact, next week we will be meeting with Renee's class as a few of them work on this as part of their PBL project the last week of school.

As I prepared for this work over the weekend, I created a Wakelet Collection to collect and share resources with the students and my colleagues.

You will find the Secondary Library Branch Design Project Wakelet Collection here.

This will be helpful information and resources as it contains a Google Document with our library collection and the genres it is organized in; digital tools to create and print unique library signage;

 an online library layout tool; several places to order posters, signage and frames;

and a few articles and posts to get them thinking about how to design a library that draws people in and gets them excited about the books that are in the collection and reading.  

We want all four of the branches to have unique names, created by our students, so they will take ownership and pride in their little library and those throughout the school.

The 5th graders worked together to come up with the name of the library branch in the 4th and 5th grade area. It will be called....

...House of Books...the 4th and 5th Grade Van Meter School Library Branch! 

It will also be helpful as Diana puts each branch in as a sub-location within Destiny Discover for the books and resources that are located there.

As we go through this fun journey and process with our students and teachers, I will make sure to document and share along the way.  One thing we will be doing is to track circulation statistics to see what happens to the secondary collection as we move the location and get it with our students in their space.  

We hope that all of the libraries put more books and reading experiences, connections and inspiration in front of our students and teachers throughout the day.  We want to use these as a way to enrich our curriculum and the reading and learning experiences we provide for our students. 

And plain and simple.....to celebrate our lives as readers at Van Meter. 

It is going to be an exciting adventure!