Connect and Celebrate With One Another For World Read Aloud Day On February 1, 2023. Find Other Librarians & Teachers To Connect With Here, Friends.

One of our favorite events every year is LitWorld's World Read Aloud Day!  This year we are celebrating on February 1, 2023.  We plan to celebrate throughout that entire week…January 30-February 3, 2023.

Over the last 12 years, we have read, celebrated, learned, connected and created with others around the world in honor of World Read Aloud Day, literacy and reading aloud. 

The best part of World Read Aloud Day for me are the connections that libraries and school communities make with other children, teachers, librarians, authors, illustrators and friends globally. 

We have Skyped with our friends in Iowa, Georgia, Chicago, Florida, Philadelphia, New York, Texas, Connecticut, Australia, China, India, Oman and others around the world.Whether it is listening to them read, reading a book together, or singing along to the words, the celebration of reading aloud is what we lift up on this day.

At Van Meter School, we have connected with several of our favorite authors over the years, including Katherine Applegate, Robert Forbes, Seymour Simon, Tom Angelberger, Cece Bell, Erica Perl, Donna Gephart, Laurel Synder, Jesse Klausmeier, and many others. 

As you and your school community plan World Read Aloud Day, I created a Google Document for all of us to start making plans with others around the world.  

The World Read Aloud Day 2023 Google Doc can be found here.

If you are interested in connecting with others on this day, please add your name, contact info, occupation, school, location, schedule, and ideas to the information below.  

To support our connections, let’s group our schedules by time zones. If your timezone is not represented, please add it as a heading and we will update the table of contents.  Look for others to connect with and sign up on their schedules too.

Be sure to use your name and contact information when you sign up on others’ schedules.

And as we plan our special connections, the amazing author Kate Messner has brought together the best place to find authors and illustrators to connect with for World Read Aloud Day.  

On her site, you will find Kate's post on virtual read-alouds for WRAD with this list...

..that is filled with dozens and dozens of amazing authors and illustrators who will love connecting with our students for this special event. 

We can't thank you enough Kate, and all that are participating, for making this possible for everyone.

You will find the WRAD Packet which is filled with wonderful resources. 

The packet lays out the so many things including Top 3 Reasons To Celebrate, 

Read Aloud Tips, 

directions for creating World Read Aloud Day Reading Crowns, 

which can be made from paper bags, 

super cute bookmarks, 

 

a World Read Aloud Day banner and so much more.  

Let's share our plans and events by using #WorldReadAloudDay and tag @LitWorld on Facebook, @litworld on Instagram and @litworldsays on Twitter when sharing on social media.

Have fun planning your celebrations and getting ready for the best World Read Aloud Day yet, friends. It's always such a great way to kick off another special year of reading aloud and sharing our love of literacy.

Learn How To Add Choice Boards, Photos, News and More To Your Destiny Discover!

This week, I have been working on a few things to get ready for our new year.  Today, I added Our January Choice Board (that you will find in this post) to our Destiny Discover. 

As our students and teachers visit Destiny Discover throughout the week, I love how I can make it a place to also share choice boards, photos, news and more from our library. 

This is the first thing our library patrons see when they visit our Destiny Discover, so I want to make it an awesome place for finding books, online resources, special events, news and so much more. 

It's so fun adding our monthly choice boards and the kids love finding them here too. 

Let me show you how you can add these things to our Destiny Discover. It's just a few easy steps! 

You can watch this YouTube video that I made here.

And here are the steps below...

Log into your Destiny Discover and click on Admin...

...at the top under More. 

Once inside of Discover Admin, 

go to Display Options and Featured Content. 

You can change Column A, Column B, and the categories that are featured underneath. 

I add the choice boards to Column B. 

I click Title and add a title, something like, Check out our January Choice Board. 

Then click on the little pencil, 

and it will take you to Your Content where you can add photos, text, links, videos and more. 

I add a screen shot of the choice board like I did with Our January Choice Board, which you can find here. 

To link it, I first have to grab the published link to the choice board in the Google Slide. 

I go back to Destiny with the link. If you highlight the image and click on the Link at the top, it will bring up a little pop up that asks you to Enter Link.  

Paste the link from the choice board here and click Save. 

It's also important to always click Save at the bottom in the right hand corner every time too. 

You are all set!  Go back to Destiny Discover and make sure everything is working on your homepage. You will be able to scroll on the choice board to see the entire slide. 

And to get to the choice board, just click and go. It's that easy! 

Hope you give it a try and add a little fun and excitement to your Destiny Discover, friends. 

Here Is The "January Choice Board Poster"....Making Choice Boards Easy & Organized For All Students To Access & Use

                    

Hi friends, 

I want to share a little tip that I have been using for all of the different choice boards we use each month.  This will help when organizing and sharing choice boards with students at school and those learning remotely.  

Each month after I have my choice boards done, I pull them together in another Google Slide choice board.  

I add each choice board as an image and link the choice board to that image.  Under the image, I add a QR code that I make in QR Code Monkey for each choice board too.  

Our teachers can share the monthly choice board posters in Seesaw and Google Classroom.  This works great for our students at school and those learning at home.  

We also print the posters so our students with iPads can scan the QR codes.  This can also be projected on the screen in the classrooms for students to walk up to and scan.  

For this month, I have created Our January Choice Boards poster that can be found here to share with your students and here to make edits and additions.

You will find the January Choice Boards, with directions on how to share, in this post too. 

I hope you find these choice board posters helpful too. 

Kick Off The Year With You've Been Virtually Book'd With Books About Kindness...A Special Program and List I Use Within Our Destiny Discover & Library!

 

It's time for a new year, friends and the perfect time to share books about kindness as we head back to school with our students and teachers. 

To support kindness throughout our school community, I brought together 14 kindness themed eBooks and print books from our Destiny Discover in a choice board to share with everyone. This makes it very easy for my readers to find and read these eBooks and print books easily anywhere they are reading and sharing. 

Let me show you how I set up this choice board for my school community. 

First, I created the choice board in a Google Slide.  I added the covers of the 14 eBooks I included in this choice board. 

Second, I went to our Destiny Discover and...

...grabbed the links to each eBook.  

This is easy to do.  You just search for the eBook, click on the three little dots next to Open, and this drop down menu will appear. 

Click on Share and the link to the book will pop up. That is the url to share in the choice boards. 

Take the copied link and add it to the book cover.  

When every book cover is linked, you are ready to share the choice board. 

Go to File and down to Publish to the web.  

This will give you a link to share with the students and teachers.  

When they click on that published link, the You've Been Virtually Book'd With Books For The Hour of Code choice board will pop up and all of the eBooks can be read from there. 

I am excited about this list of 14 special new eBooks I put together in Titlewave.  In this choice board, you can click on any book cover to view and find the full book list from Titlewave there too. 

If you would like to edit this and use for your own library, you can make a copy here. 

Our students will love these books that celebrate reading and that are part of our You've Been Virtually Book'd program.  And I love how we can keep this program going all year long!  It brings so much joy to our readers each and every month.

It's Here, Friends...Our January Choice Board!

                  

It's here, friends!  Our January Choice Board where reading, learning, making, coding, technology and music can take you on adventures all month long. 

For January, the choice board is filled with so many new and exciting things!  I can't wait to share it with our students, teachers and families, and all of you. 

You will find Our January Choice Board here to make a copy to use with your students and school community.  This is the published link to share with your students. 

With the monthly choice board, I do include other choice boards and special holidays and celebrations. 

You will find the New Year's Day Choice Board link here to share with students....You make a copy to edit here.

You will find the Lunar (Chinese) New Year Choice Board link here to share with students.  You can make a copy to edit here. 

You will find the Martin Luther King Jr. Choice Board link here to share with students.  You can make a copy to edit here. 

I always include the Coding Choice Boards, along with a special coding activity. 

You will find the Elementary Coding Choice Boards here. 

And I always include the Let's Take A Trip Around The World Buncee found here. 

I create most of my choice boards in Google Slides and Buncee. With each choice board in Google Slides, I share this with our students and teachers by publishing it to the web. 

In the image above, you can see how to do this by clicking on Share and Publish to the Web. 

The Publish to the Web window pops up that will direct you to publish to the web. It will give you a link that you will copy to share with students and teachers through Google Classroom, Seesaw and any other place you want to share this like social media and through QR codes. 

You will find Our January Choice Board here to make a copy to use with your students and school community.  This is the published link to share with your students. 

Please let me know if you have any questions or need help sharing and creating choice boards.  

I hope the monthly and special choice boards will give you and your students special opportunities for reading, learning, creating, collaborating and having fun all year long.