The Healthy Tip Corner

Tuesday, May 31, 2022

"Silent Messages Speak Volumes"....A New Episode From Season 4 of the Leading from the Library Podcast Series!

 

This week, I welcomed Hilda Weisburg to the Future Ready Librarian podcast, Leading from the Library. Hilda was a school librarian for over 30 years and is now an author, speaker, and adjunct instructor at William Paterson University (NJ) and Montana State.
You will find this podcast here on the All4Ed website and on YouTube.
You can listen to our podcast from this page, or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. 
In each podcast service, you will find Seasons 1, 2 and 3 of our podcast series too. 

We have a few more coming up in this part of Season 4 and I can't wait to share the upcoming librarians with all of you. 

A big thank you to our friends at Follett for sponsoring the Leading from the Library podcast and for all of your support. 


Stop The Summer Slide With PebbleGo and These Wonderful Activities For All Kids!

My students LOVE going to PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next to research, read, learn and find so many things that are interesting and fun for them. One of our favorite things about PebbleGo is that it gives students lots of choices and a place to get super excited about learning. 

Our friends at Capstone have created a very special PebbleGo Summer Activities Guide to keep our students engaged throughout the summer and to help stop the summer slide.  
On the Stop the Summer Slide With PebbleGo! page found here, you can sign up to receive the PebbleGo Summer Activities Guide to keep your students reading, exploring and learning wherever they go this summer with free PebbleGo activities. 

Once you are signed up, you will receive....

...the PebbleGo Summer Activities Guide in your email to download. 
In the activities guide, you will find Questions of the Day, Bingo, Fortune Tellers and More Activities and Ideas. 
There are 13 weeks of Questions of the Day, which kids will love finding the answers to using PebbleGo. 
There is also a template that let's you fill in and create your own. I plan to do this a few times throughout the summer and will post on my library Facebook and Instagram for families to find and complete together. 

There are two PebbleGo Bingo cards and....
...a template to make your own PebbleGo Bingo. 

You will also find four Fortune Tellers for each of the PebbleGo modules and...

....a template to make your own. 

As you can see, Capstone has done an amazing job putting together the PebbleGo Summer Activities Guide. There is something for everyone. 

Monday, May 30, 2022

It's Week 2 of the Capstone Virtual Camp Adventure...Let's GO To Space!

 

It's Week 2 of the Capstone Virtual Camp Adventure...Let's GO to space! 

ALL students and families can visit capstonepub.com/summerchoiceboards to access this 12-week long fun summer learning and reading adventure with our friends at Capstone.  

On the capstonepub.com/summerchoiceboards site, there are six bi-weekly Where Will You Go This Summer? themes that include a choice board and set of 20 FREE Capstone Interactive eBooks for each. 

The choice boards can be accessed by clicking on Open Choice Board under each tile.  

When they click on Open Choice Board, it will take users straight to the choice board that is filled with reading, making, moving, coding, stem, technology and fun virtual field trips around the world.  
In the left hand corner, they will find a place to click to GO to eBooks around the six different themes. 
All they have to do to read and listen to the Capstone Interactive eBooks is click on the eBook covers.  They are directly linked so a username and password is not required. 

If you want to make any changes or edits, you will can make a copy of the entire 12-weeks of choice boards here.  This post will be helpful in doing this too. 
I am excited about a special new addition in this summers Virtual Camp Adventure with our friends at StickTogether. 
Under the STEAM column, you will see a StickTogether box. 
Every week, starting May 23, 2022, we will be adding a special virtual stickerboard that StickTogether created around each weekly theme

All students will be able to collaborate together to complete these weekly virtual stickerboards.  The images they reveal are amazing and our kids will love this wonderful global activity. 

As the students and families use the choice boards and need help, there is a Family Help button on each choice board slide and...
...on the bottom of the capstonepub.com/summerchoiceboards site.  You can find it here too. 
This document includes How To Use The Virtual Camp Adventure With Your Children This Summer and...
...Directions For Using The Virtual Camp Adventure Choice Boards. 
At the very bottom of the page, there are two FREE downloads that will help when promoting Capstone's Virtual Summer Camp Adventure. 
You can find the flyer here where you can copy or edit, and....
...and the special bookmarks I created in Buncee by Capstone here.  You can print as is or make a copy to edit this too. 

The post, Here's The Family Letter, Bookmark & Posters To Kick Off Capstone's Virtual Camp Adventure With Your Students and Families Too!, found here will be helpful too. 
I just had mine printed using Overnight Prints and they do an amazing job. You will find the link here

I hope all of the students and families have a special summer visiting Our Virtual Camp Adventure.  I can't wait to see and hear all of the different ways it is used and what is learned, read, and created from this amazing summer experience. 

Please let me know if you have any questions...I am happy to help you, friends. 

Creating A Google Classroom For Our Library! Step 2...Adding A Welcome Message To The Stream.

One of my big summer projects for our school library is creating a new Google Classroom that will serve as a one-stop for our students, teachers and families.  I will still have a library Google website but I will be using our Google Classroom as a place to find all things about our library including Destiny Discover, the state online resources, book and eBook collections, special library events, technology we use, monthly and themed choice boards, research help and so much more. 

In a new series of blog posts, I will share the steps I used in setting up a Google Classroom for our library.

In the first blog post, I shared how to set up a new Google Classroom. You will find this blog post here.
Today, I am going to share how I will use the Stream to share messages, news and information with our patrons. 
The first thing I did was go back to the Future Ready Librarian podcast I did with my friend Karina Quilantan-Garza (@cuethelibrarian) last year. 

In the podcast, Planning for Patrons and Programs, Karina shared tips and tricks on how she set up a library help desk in Google Classroom. You can listen to the podcast here.  

I asked her a few questions after our podcast which helped me wrap my head around how I wanted to set up and use this Google Classroom for our library in a different way than I have in the past. As I shared in the first post, I have used Google Classrooms for different library things the last several years, but now I want to use it as that one-stop shop. 
So, to start...the Stream will be that place to share messages, news and information. For example, I can share book fair details; special author, illustrator and expert visits; summer reading activities; monthly choice boards; and even more.  

To get Our Library Google Classroom ready to go in the fall, I added a message under Stream this morning.  This is the first thing all students, teachers and families will see when they login. 

My first message is set and next I will be ready to start adding categories and information to our Google Classroom. 

I can't wait to hear about the Google Classrooms you are setting up for your libraries too! 

Sunday, May 29, 2022

Join The Future Ready Librarians Summer Reading Book Club Today....Link In This Post, Friends! We Kick Off This Week!

We are excited to kick off the Future Ready Librarians Summer Reading Book Club this week on June 1, 2022! 
This summer we will be reading Culturize...Every Student. Every Day. Whatever It Takes. by Jimmy Casas. 

You can order Culturize here.  It is available as an eBook too. 

We will start the week of June 1 with Chapter 1, Just Talk To Me. 
As we kick off our book club this week, go to the Future Ready Librarians Summer Book Club Facebook Group here and join.  

You will find a post to get us started by introducing ourselves.  I will be doing this today too. :) 

Be on the look out for a message from Jimmy and I this week to kick us off! 

Hope you can join us for this wonderful book club conversation, learning and connections throughout the summer.  It's going to be a fun and rewarding summer of reading and learning together, friends.  

Saturday, May 28, 2022

Subscribe To "The Library Voice Weekly Newsletter", Friends! We Have Exciting Updates, News, Tips and Fun Every Week!

               

We have some very special news, friends! 


Join Brianna and I for The Library Voice Weekly Newsletter that comes out at the end of each week. 

We are so excited to share the latest library tips, trends, news, best practices and more.  

You can click here to subscribe today. 

A Fun and Important Project For The Summer....Creating A Google Classroom For Our Library! Step 1...Setting Up A New Google Classroom.

Every summer, I love picking a few big projects for our school library that I can work on throughout the summer months. 

In fact, my family and I watch lots of movies and shows at nighttime, so this is when I pull out my laptop and get creative with library materials and lessons.  I find it to be so much fun and relaxing. 

Well, tonight as we watched a new series on television, I got started on the first big project for our library that I have been dreaming of creating for the last few months.
I am creating a Google Classroom for our library! 
As our teachers, students and families use Google Classroom for so many things at our school, I think that our library needs a place here too. I have a Google Classroom for the library already, but it is a simple spot and one I use to share resources and project guidelines with our students as I co-teach and collaborate with the teachers throughout the year. 
I also have a library site in Google Sites. This is the place I have spent dozens of hours building and a place I hope our students, teachers and families visit to connect to books, reading, learning, technology, our library and so much more. But....reality is, I really don't think it is visited as often as I would hope. 
So, here I am....planning and creating the Welcome to Our Library at Van Meter Elementary Google Classroom to take care of these things, thought and more. 

This summer, I am going to be sharing this journey from start to finish on my blog. 

First step, let's create a Google Classroom and get it set up to start adding, organizing and bringing it to life. 
Within Google Classroom, click on the + sign in the upper right hand corner. It is circled with an arrow in the image above. 
Click on the + and choose Create Class. 
A pop up will come up on the screen where you can...
....Create your class with the details of Class name, Section, Subject and Room. 

Once those details are filled in, click on Create in the bottom right hand corner. 
Once your new Google Classroom is created, you can then Customize the banner by clicking in the upper right hand corner. 
When Customize is clicked on, you can...
....Select a Photo from images they have placed into several categories or Upload a Photo. 

I love customizing Google Classrooms and Google Sites with headers I create using Buncee, Canva, Google Slides and more, so Upload a Photo is what I usually select. 
For Our Library Google Classroom, I created a header in Canva. 

In Canva, if you search Google Classroom, dozens of header templates and examples will pop up.  I picked one, made some changes and added my library associate, Diana, and myself using the Bitmoji Chrome Extension
Once it was created, I Downloaded the image as a PNG...
...and Uploaded it into the Google Classroom. 
Once the header was uploaded, I also Selected The Theme Color. 

Everything looks good! I know the kids will love seeing Di and I in the library Google Classroom. 
Now, I am set to start adding things to our new library Google Classroom. 

In the next post, I will share how to do this. I hope you create your Google Classroom and come back for the next steps too, friends.