Friday, September 6, 2024

Join Us For The Webinar, Empowering Students With Digital Citizenship Skills: your Digital Toolbox!

 

Join Future Ready Schools’ Dr. Adam Phyall and Shannon McClintock Miller for a webinar focused on teaching digital citizenship to K-12 learners through Achievery’s online platform. 
Teaching digital citizenship is crucial in today’s technology-driven world! You don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights and practical tools to help your students become responsible digital citizens.
We are thrilled to collaborate with trusted partners who specialize in designing content and curriculum to promote digital citizenship, including MediaSmarts, Cyber Civics, and, iKeep Safe.
We will also share ideas and activities for celebrating Digital Citizenship Week 2024, which runs from October 18-22, 2024.
This webinar is for teachers, librarians, technology leaders, and principals who are passionate about equipping K-12 students with the knowledge and skills they need to navigate the digital world responsibly and ethically.

You can register for our webinar today. Even if you can't attend live, register and we will send you the recording and materials after the webinar too. 

Hope to see you there, friends. 


The September Novel Effect Read Aloud Calendar & Book Activities Are Here, Friends.

 

We love Novel Effect at our school.  Our teachers and students share Novel Effect read alouds in the classrooms, and we share them in our library too. 

Every month, our friends at Novel Effects create amazing calendars and resources to share with all of us.

On the Novel Effect site, under the Resources tab, click on Read-Aloud Calendars. 

You will find each month's calendars and events. 
I clicked on September, 
and found two great calendars for the month. You will find them here, along with other amazing information and resources. 

Check back each month to find the special read-aloud calendars. 
And if you don't already have Novel Effect, you will want to go here today to learn more about the school plans available.  This is one of our all-time favorite tools at Van Meter, and I know you will love it for your school too. 

Thursday, September 5, 2024

We Kicked Off Our Follett Book eFair This Week! Check Out How We Set This Up For Our Readers and School Community!

 

This week, we kick off our Follett Book eFair! We are so excited to start a new year with our readers hosting this special event. 

A Follett Book eFair is an online book fair. Follett Book eFairs are available to all PreK-8 schools in the US, and there is no minimum sales requirement. 

Let me show you how it works and what we are doing to kick this off for our readers, teachers, and families.
First, go to Follett Book eFairs and register here.

You sign up with the dates and details. 
A few weeks before your Follett Book eFair, a super cool box of materials will be delivered to your school. 
The box includes everything you need as you host Follett Book eFair.....
...Title Highlight Flyers to hand out to your readers, 
Promotional Posters, Goals Posters, Computer Monitor Sign, 
...and this great Coordinator Checklist and Guide. 

This box of materials pairs perfectly with the...

....Follett Book eFair site that organizes all of the details you need to set up, promote, organize and run your eFair. 
When you log into the Follett Book eFairs site, 
you will find links to Promote eFair, View Book, View Orders and download Orders Report. 
It's helpful having a few different ways to share the eFairs including a code and direct link. 
There is also a place to Manage Teacher Wish Lists. They just go to the link to manage their wish list and adding books they'd like for their classroom. 
By adding the teachers, it will also make it easier to distribute books after they are shipped to your school, because the orders are then grouped together for each teacher. 
We can also promote our Follett Book eFair by sending reminder emails to the parents who have order from previous eFairs.  As we have more and more eFairs, our list will grow and this will become a great way to promote them. 

Oh, and guess what?  There is a special Teacher Discount Code you can give your teachers. They get a 20% discount off full-priced items by entering the code in their cart. They will love this! 
As students and families log into our Follett Book eFair site,  they will see a message and the Goal that you set for your eFair. They can click on any of the images to go to that genre, and...

...choose from a drop down menu that features Picture Books, Beginning Readers, Chapter Books, and Middle Grade Fiction. 
At the very top of the page, I set up Staff Recommendations by choosing several books I wanted to highlight at our eFair and ones I know our readers will love. 

There are lots of visual ways to search for books, and books can be typed into the search bar too. 

With the details and our Follett Book eFair set up, I also wanted to download several materials to promote and celebrate our eFair. 

On the site, you will find....
.....several types of materials to download and share including Quick Start Guides, 
Message Templates, 
Digital Promotion, and...
....Posters and Signs. 
With the posters and signs, you can even type in the details and print them in color or black and white.
These were also a great addition to the posters and flyers we got with the box of materials that we filled out with a marker and hung around the school. 
I took a few of the posters and signs to make a little flyer to attach to the Title Highlight Flyers. 

It's been so much fun talking to our students about the books they see in the flyers as they take these home this week. They are very excited. 

As our Follett Book eFair continues over the next few weeks, I will give an update or two on my blog and social.  So follow along, 

Check Out The LIVE Storyvoice Author and Illustrator Events This Fall! You Can Register Today, Friends.

One of our favorite places to go and celebrate the authors and illustrators we love are the weekly Storyvoice LIVE events from our friends at Scholastic. 

There is an amazing line up of authors and illustrators this fall!  Check them out.... 
You can find out more and register for all of these special Storyvoice events here. 

Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Dot Day Choice Board...Let's Help Our Kids Make Their Mark On The World!

                            

With International Dot Day coming up soon, I put together the Let's Celebrate Dot Day Choice Board to use in our celebrations. 

Students and teachers can use the choice board by clicking on the images to read, sing, create, play and more as they celebrate this super special day on September 15'ish. 

You will find the Let's Celebrate Dot Day Choice Board here and here if you want to make a copy.


Happy Dot Day, friends.  Let's make our mark on the world! 

They Are Here, Friends....Our September Choice Boards!

                

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

This month, 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 the Our September Choice Board here to share with students.  And if you would like to make changes or additions, you can make a copy to edit here.
Within the monthly choice boards, I include other choice boards for special events. 

In September, we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. You will find the links to this choice board here.
Dot Day is coming up on September 15, so the special Let's Celebrate Dot Day choice board is included and loaded with lots of creative fun.  You will find it here in this post. 
It's also Be Who You Are Day with Todd Parr on September 30th. My sister, Heather Fox, made this choice board for that celebration which you can find in this blog post.  
In the September Choice Board, you will also find the Elementary Coding Choice Boards found here, 
Our Virtual Makerspace found here
...and the Let's Take A Trip Around The World Buncee found here
I create most of my choice boards in Google Slides and PebbleGo Create. 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. 

This is the link to the 2024 September Choice Board that you can share with your students. 

I will explain how I share choice board posters in an upcoming post. 
With each choice board, I also share the link to make edits and changes.  This is the copyable link to the 2024 September Choice Board.  Please feel free to use the choice board with your community and make changes to fit the needs of your learners and teachers. 

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. Happy Dot Day, friends.