A Little Library & Makerspace To-Go For All Students To Use At School & Home

Tomorrow we kick off a new school year and I have been working on lots of little projects to make sure our students and teachers have everything they need, while learning together at school and at home.

Last week, I shared how we would be using new marketing materials focused around our Van Meter Library and Makerspace To-Go. I wanted to create a marketing plan that would work in meaningful,  fun and exciting ways if we were in person or virtual.  

You can read all about it and find the materials I created here. 

As I thought about how to not only share important library information together in the classroom and at school, I also wanted to create something special for all students to take the "library" home and on-the-go too. 

So, over the weekend I put together a little library and Makerspace to-go for every one of our students. 

In a gallon size Ziploc bag, students will find information and resources they will use throughout the school year and a few we are using to kick off the new year. 

To start,  I made a template in a Google Slides presentation.  Each slide has two students library and Makerspace to-to sheet.  I used the standard layout as that will print nicely. 

Within the template, I added the students name to the top to personalize their library and Makerspace to-go. For the purpose of this post, I took out the unique username and passwords for Van Meter, but on the students, they will have their username and passwords.  This will be like their library card for everything we use throughout the year.

It will give them the login, along with their username and password to our Destiny Discover,

 our eBooks in My Capstone Library,

databases like PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next, 

and links to our Symbaloo, Collections by Destiny,

and Virtual Makerspace.

In each library and Makerspace to-go, I will include information for the Iowa Association of School Libraries book awards, as we focus on these throughout the year so they can vote in the spring for their favorite books. 

This year, as they will not be coming to the library for related arts and we will be coming to them, I made up a little Buncee for the different nominees.  Our students and teachers can view these online in the Buncee.  When they click on any book cover, it will take them to the eBook.  

For their library and Makerspace to-go, I printed this Buncee off on cardstock so they can use it as a place to mark what they read and listen to throughout the year.  There is a tiny box to check next to each book.  

You will find a copy of the Buncee here. 

I also included a Collection by Destiny for each award list.  In the Collections, I added all of the records for the print books we have in our library.  This will allow students and teachers to find them and place holds, or read them online too.

One more thing I included was some fun information about the upcoming Follett eFair we will be kicking off the year with. 

I included a cute flyer with the url and code to our eFair,

 a bookmark and...

 ...an adorable bookmark they can color.  We will be sharing the eFair information right away as a special event for the beginning of the year, so this is the perfect way to get that into their hands too.

You can read more about Follett eFairs here and in my next post.

Once our students have their library and Makerspace to-go bags, they can take these home since we will provide another card for them to keep at school in their desk.

This is really important as we may need to switch to learning at home throughout the year, and also for our students and families who have decided to learn at home to start the year. 

I want to make it easy and equitable for everyone to get to our library resources anytime all year long.  We need to always be prepared. I hope that our Van Meter Library and Makerspace To-Go helps with this and is fun, educational and exciting for all!