It's Time For Our November Choice Board and Collection By Destiny! You Will Find The Links Here, Friends.

It's time for Our November Choice Board, where reading, learning, creating, coding and signing can take you on adventures all month long.  

You can share this published link with your students and families so they can do all of these activities, read and listen to books, engage with virtual reality tours, complete a BreakoutEDU, build a turkey in a Google Slide template, code an Ozobot virtually, learn how to draw with Art Hub for Kids and so much more. 

This choice board has been added to our NEW Monthly Choice Boards website that you will find here.

And remember, October is there too. 

In the right hand corner of the November Choice Board, you will find this awesome November Resources Collection by Destiny filled with the resources in the choice board and so much more.  You will find the Collection here.  This is public and can be shared with anyone. 

Our November Choice Board can be found here to share with your students, teachers and families here.  This is a published link so all they will see is the choice board without the other tools in Google Slides. 

Choice boards are something that can be accessed anywhere and is perfect for our face-to-face, virtual and hybrid learning situations.  

If you would like to make changes to the November Choice Board, you will find the link to make a copy here.  And please let me know what else we should add.  

Have fun sharing this with your school community.  I am excited for all of the monthly choice boards throughout the school year, friends. 

A New Collection by Destiny For Our Future Ready Librarian Podcast Series, Leading from the Library

Our Leading from the Library Podcast Series from Future Ready Schools® is off to such an amazing start, friends.  I have loved every conversation and we are now up to six podcasts in this first season. 

Our podcast is available in several different places, so I brought all of them together into a new Collection by Destiny, Leading from the Library, Future Ready Librarian Podcast Collection that can be found here.

Let me show you how you can listen and subscribe to Leading from the Library from these places too.  Visit the Leading from the Library podcast page here.

You can Listen On... 

Apple Podcasts, 

Spotify, 

and Stitcher. 

You can also find the recordings in the Future Ready Schools® YouTube Channel here. 

This is our podcast as Future Ready Librarians, so please let me know if you'd like to be a guest or if you have an idea for a topic of special guest.  I want this to be helpful and meaningful to all of us. 

Hope you listen along with us, as we lead from the library. 

Today's Future Ready Librarian Webinar Recording, Resources and Collection by Destiny Are Live & Can Found Here, Friends

Today, I had the honor of hosting a wonderful Future Ready Librarian webinar, Building a Collection and Library Program That Celebrate Diversity and Inclusion with special guests from Baltimore County Public Schools and Denver Public Schools. 

The six amazing teacher librarians who joined me for this conversation were, 

• Terri Faulkner, Library Services Coordinator, Denver Public Schools (CO)
  
• Tatanisha “Tiki” Love, EdS, Library Media Specialist, Baltimore County Public Schools (MD) (@tlovesbooks, @thelitlc)
• Lori Micho, Library Services Coordinator, Denver Public Schools (CO)
  
• Ellon Ruschell, Library Media Specialist, Timonium Elementary School, Baltimore County Public Schools (MD) (@TimoniumES_lib)
• Amanda Samland, Library Services Coordinator, Denver Public Schools (CO)
  
• Suzi Tonini, Collection Development Supervisor, Denver Public Schools (CO) (@DPSLibraries)

You can view the recording of our webinar above or by clicking here.  

Our slide deck can be found here in Google Presentations. 

And I put together a special Collection by Destiny here that is filled with resources they shared.  I cannot wait to dig into these more and use them as I work to weed and grow our collection and the work I do within my library and school community too.   

Thank you, friends for joining me for this webinar.  You all make such an important difference within your communities and within our profession. 

Together We’re Better, Together We’re Future Ready. Join the All4Ed Future Ready Schools® (FRS) Digital Learning Day Network, Friends!

Now, more than ever, digital learning is no longer confined to a school or classroom. Instead, learning is mobile and should be available to students anytime and anywhere. 

As we prepare for Digital Learning Day’s (DLDay’s) tenth birthday on February 25, 2021, the Alliance for Excellent Education (All4Ed) invites educators to join our Future Ready Schools® (FRS) DLDay network because together we’re better, together we’re future ready.    

When All4Ed started DLDay, many districts, schools, and educators felt uncertain about the role digital learning could play in their classrooms. Now, almost ten years later, digital learning has become a lifeline as districts leverage high-quality research-based strategies to teach students remotely and in hybrid environments during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

 

Join the network of educators from across the country committed to ensuring that all students have access to high-quality learning everywhere, every day! 

By signing up you will receive access to a digital badge for email, Twitter, and Instagram and a profile frame for Facebook.

 

Be part of the first 500 educators to join the new DLDay Network here.

Our Elementary Library Lesson Choice Boards For Rotation #3!

We are already onto Rotation #3 of our related arts schedule at Van Meter.  That means a new round of activities that focus around literacy, new technology tools and experiences, making and lots of fun. 

Back in September, I wrote about how we are using Google Slides to create lessons in a choice board format to make it handy for all students to access and use the materials and links included on each. You can read the first post here.

I wanted to share Rotation #3 with all of you.  Just a note...I did take out any links specific to my students, but you can create your own and add them to the Google Slides if you make a copy for yourself. 

You can access it as students would here.   You can make a copy to edit here.

During this rotation, you will find the Halloween Choice Board, crafts and read alouds for our littles, BreakoutEDU, QuiverAR, Buncee, Keva Planks, Our Virtual Makerspace Choice Board and more. 

I hope you find these useful.  I sure have fun creating them and can't wait to start sharing with our students tomorrow. 

Creating Helpful Library Procedure Posters With Photographs and Buncee

Our library is now open and we couldn't be more excited.  

Last week in this post, I shared how we were going to be using Destiny Discover and little shopping lists for the kids to write down the books they wanted to find in the library.  This is going great and the kids are really enjoying using Destiny to find what they want before they come into the library.  

After a week of having the library open, we also think that a few new signs with pictures will be helpful, especially with our youngest learners coming in this week too.  

This weekend, I created signs to put into the plexiglass holders we have on the tables with lots of books and to post on the shelves, desk where they check books out and doors as they come into the library. 

I used Buncee to created the signs. 

I picked three of my favorite Templates in Buncee. 

I took pictures of our students in the library last week and used those in the posters, along with text. 

I used PicMonkey to make the pictures into circles and then uploaded them into Buncee. 

That goes along really well with the theme of the templates too. 

The new posters will be helpful reminders on how we want our students to use their Destiny Library Shopping Lists and their eyes to look for the books they want to check out.  

We are doing everything we can to keep our students safe with these little reminders posters and the procedures we have put into place. 

If you'd like to use this Buncee template to create your own posters, you will find the Buncee here.

Halloween Can-You-Find-It Buncee Project...A Fun & Creative Writing Project For The Week!

To celebrate Halloween with our 2nd graders, we are going to do a fun Halloween Buncee creative writing project based on the...

...Can-You-Find-It and Spot-It Challenge series from our friends from Capstone and iSpy books by Jean Marzollo and Walter Wick. 

To kick off the project on Monday, I will share this choice board where I pulled together a few things to introduce the project.  

First, I found a super cool video about how Walter Wick makes iSpy books.  

I also added links to his website where the students will be able to see in more detail how he creates the pages in the books. 

For this project, the students will be creating their very own Halloween Can-You-Find-It Buncee by choosing 5-10 different objects of various numbers that will be included throughout their Buncee. 

I created an example Buncee to show the kids.  One page is my Halloween Can-You-Find-It Buncee...

..and the second page shares what they will be finding. 

I really love how the Capstone Spooky Sights, A Can-You-Find-It book by Sarah L. Schuette shows the different items they are looking for in each page spread.  

You can find Spooky Sights and 7 others in this series here.

I did something similar in my Halloween Can-You-Find-It Buncee here. Feel free to use this as an example. 

Once they have created their Buncee's, they will add them to the Halloween Can-You-Find-It Buncee Board. 

To do this, they click on Share in the right hand corner. 

They can copy the link to share on the Buncee Board or...

...click on Share To Boards and put in...

...the code that we will provide them. 

Once they have put in that code, it will tell them they have shared successfully and give them a chance to click on View Buncee Board to...

...see what all of the other 2nd graders are creating too. 

They will even be able to leave reactions and comments.  This is one of their favorite parts. 

If you would like to view the choice board I created for this project, you can find it here as students will see it or feel free to make a copy to use with resources you have too. 

Have a wonderful week celebrating Halloween in creative and fun ways, friends. 

Don't Miss This eSchool News Article, How School Librarians Are Getting Creative In A Pandemic by Britten Follett

 

As the new eSchool News article How School Librarians Are Getting Creative In A Pandemic by Britten Follett states, 

In many districts across the country, the librarian’s job description had not been updated to reflect a “future ready” world that includes the delivery of digital resources, curriculum partnerships, and community connections. When you layer on a pandemic that includes hybrid and remote learning, there is no job description available. But resourceful school librarians from coast to coast are finding innovative ways to work in a system that has no precedent.

In the article, Britten shares survey information that has been gathered over the last 8 months and the ways several librarians are getting creative during this time.  It was inspiring to read what others are doing across the country within their libraries and community, and how we, as librarians, are making a huge difference for the students and families we serve. 

You will find this article on eSchool News here.

It's A Halloween Choice Board, Friends!

With Halloween next week, I created a special choice board. 

It is filled with online activities, books to listen to, songs to sing, games to play (like BreakoutEDU), things to make and draw, coding, typing and more. 

You will find the Halloween Choice Board here to share with your students. 

And if you want to make changes for your own school, please feel free to make a copy here.

I added a new page to the Monthly Choice Boards site called Special Events Choice Boards.  You will find this one there.  I will add other choice boards created around special events and celebrations to this space. 

Enjoy, friends.