Join Us At ISTE Live 24 For The Special Future Ready Librarians Event On June 23, Friends! You Can Register For Our Event Today.

 

We are so excited to announce a special event at ISTE Live 24, friends. 

Join Bill Bass, Lia Dossin and myself on Sunday, June 23, 2024 from 9:00-11:00am MST for this years Future Ready Librarians Summit, Leading from the Library Through the Future Ready Librarian Framework.

In partnership with Future Ready Schools and Follett Content, this summit, hosted by Shannon McClintock Miller and Bill Bass, is designed to help all librarians lead from the library while engaging in collaboration, innovation, leadership, and so much more. Working with the entire school community, Future Ready Librarians can support and lead beyond the library.

- Participants will be inspired to be leaders in their schools.

- Participants will understand the success and obstacles associated with leading from the library

- Participants will connect with each other throughout the session around library leadership and digital literacy.

This event will fill up fast so reserve your seat today at bit.ly/ISTE24FutureReadyLibrarians

This event is included in your ISTE registration fee. 

The May 2024 Capstone Holiday Calendar and Book List Is Filled With Special Books and Events, Friends! You Will Find It Here.

It's almost May 2024 and time for a new set of books on the May Capstone Holiday Calendar.  I love using these calendars to highlight books each month from our collection. 

It's a great way to celebrate and learn about topics that tie into our curriculum including important historical events, and other special events that our kids love to learn and read about throughout the year. 

You will find the Capstone May Holiday Calendar here, along with the other months too. 

And here is the May 2024 Capstone Holiday Calendar Book List where you will find the links to the books on CapstonePub.com.

When the Capstone Holiday Calendar comes out each year, I go through and mark the books we have in our library collection, and add the books to my list that I'd like to order for my collection each month too.

You can read all about the 2023-24 Capstone Holiday Calendar Poster here, friends. 

Special Bookmarks For The Capstone Virtual Summer Camp Adventure....Find The Template and Create For Your Readers Too!

                      

I always create special bookmarks to give our students and families as we get ready for the Capstone Virtual Summer Camp Adventure. You can find everything you need for this program here.

You will find this years bookmark that I created in Google Slides here. 

I get the bookmarks printed at Vista Print. The image of the bookmark on Slides 1 and 2 fits perfectly into the 2 x 6 template. You will find the link to the Vista Print bookmarks here.

I pass these out to our students a week or two before the end of the school year so I can explain the summer reading program to our readers. The bookmark has everything they need including the URL, QR code to scan to get to the choice board and all of the information on the different weekly themes. 

You will find all of the Capstone Summer Learning resources here on the Capstone site.

It's Here! Capstone's Virtual Summer Camp Adventure 2024 Is Now Open For The Summer For ALL Students and Families!

I am so excited to announce that Capstone's Virtual Camp Adventure is open for the summer!

All students and families can visit bit.ly/capstonesummer23 to access this 12-week long fun summer learning and reading adventure with our friends at Capstone.  

This summer we are opening the Capstone Virtual Camp Adventure early, so everyone can show your students, teachers and families around camp before summer break.  

In the Capstone Virtual Summer Camp Adventure, 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.

And this summer, we have a new addition to each...Our Virtual Summer Camp Adventure Featured Capstone Characters!  

The six bi-weekly choice boards include...

...Let's GO on a trip, 

Let's GO to the water, 

Let's GO to where our imagination takes us, 

Let's GO to space, 

Let's GO on a safari, 

...and Let's GO solve a mystery! 

They can access the entire choice board collection at bit.ly/capstonesummerchoiceboard24 now through the end of September. 

The choice board are filled with reading, making, healthy you ideas and resources, coding, stem, technology and more. 

In the bottom 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 addition to our Virtual Summer Camp Adventure choice boards with our friends at StickTogether. 

Under the STEAM column, you will see a StickTogether box. 

Every week, starting May 27, 2024, 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...

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. 

I always create special bookmarks to give our students and families as we get ready for the summer. 

You will find this years bookmark that I created in Google Slides here. 

I get the bookmarks printed at Vista Print. The image of the bookmark on Slides 1 and 2 fits perfectly into the 2 x 6 template. You will find the link to the Vista Print bookmarks here.

I hope all of the students and families have a special summer visiting Our Virtual Summer 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. 

I will be sharing flyers and a family letter over the next few days too. 

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

You will find all of the Capstone Summer Learning resources here on the Capstone site.

LIVE Today In PebbleGo...28 NEW Articles! You Can Find Them Here, Friends.

 

LIVE today in PebbleGo....28 NEW articles! 

As shared in this article from Capstone, 

On April 26th, we will be adding 28 new articles to PebbleGo in the Science, Biographies and Social Studies modules!

All articles will be added to PebbleGo in both English and Spanish.

You will find all 28 of the PebbleGo articles listed here.

Join Me For A NEW Webinar, 3 Great Ways To Inspire A Love Of Reading Within Children! You Can Register Here Today, Friends.

 

I would love to invite you to join me and Literati Book Fairs for a NEW webinar, 3 Great Ways To Inspire A Love Of Reading Within Children.  

The webinar is on Monday, May 6 at 4pm CST.  

You will leave with specific ideas for the library, classroom, and even to share with families at home....and it will be perfect for summer reading. 

There will be a live Q & A following the presentation, so have your questions ready. 

You can register for the webinar here.

We hope you can join us, friends.  If you can't attend live, sign up today and we'll send you a link to the recording to watch at your convenience. 

Join Us For This NEW Future Ready Librarian Webinar On May 2.... Supercharging Summer Reading: Connecting with Your Community and Beyond!

               

Coming up next week, our Beyond the Shelf: Navigating Innovation and Collaboration as Future Ready Librarians webinar comes at a perfect time as we plan and share our summer reading programs at the end of the school year.  

On May 2, 2024 at 5:00-6:00pm EST, three amazing teacher librarians from Brazosport ISD in Texas, Liz Fambrough, Brandye Roland, and Bronwyn Rumsey, will share lots of ways to supercharge summer reading as we connect with our communities and beyond.  

We will discuss:

• Ways to engage families and caregivers in summer learning initiatives I
• How to collaborate with local organizations for enriching summer learning and reading opportunities 
• How to strengthen relationships with public libraries and educational institutes for summer reading programs. 

You can register for this FREE webinar here.  And don't worry if you can't attend live. The recording and resources will be sent out to everyone who registers. 

We hope to see you there, friends. 

Turn The May 2024 PebbleGo & PebbleGo Next Monthly Holiday Calendar Into An Interactive Research Choice Board For Your Students & Teachers!

Our friends at Capstone create these special PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next Holiday Calendars each month. 

In this post, I share more about the PebbleGo Monthly Calendars. 

I love making paper copies of these to share with our teachers and kids. 

They hang them up in their classrooms and hang them in our library too. I also share them online through social media and as an image in Google Classroom or Seesaw. 

The teachers even use the PebbleGo Calendars for mini research opportunities throughout each week. The students use PebbleGo Create to share what they learn throughout the month with the calendars. 

Here is the PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next May 2024 Holidays Calendar. 

Last year, when I was sharing the calendars with teachers and students, I thought....Hey, this would be really fun in a choice board! 

So, I opened up a Google Slide, uploaded the PebbleGo May 2024 Holidays Calendar, and added a little chalk board with text over the top.  

Then I went through the calendar and found every special day in PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next.  

For example, Frog Jumping Day is on May 14. 

I went to PebbleGo and found the article about Frogs. I grabbed the link, as shown in the image above. 

I took that link and added a linked text box around each special date. 

Now, when the kids click on a holiday, it will take them directly to that PebbleGo article.  

If you want to use the template to create your own, you will find the Google Slide here to make a copy and add links to the PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next articles. 

And to make it a choice board, just Publish to the web, as shown in this image above. 

You will share that Published Link with your students.  

I love sharing these interactive PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next Holiday Calendars with our students and teachers. They love learning all about these special days that are highlighted each month too.

I am excited to have the May 2024 PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next ready to go for the month.I hope you will find ways to use it with your students and teachers this month too.   

Creating Monthly Novel Effect Posters In Canva For Our Special Read Aloud Library! Find The Template For Our May Poster Here, Friends!

One of the best additions to our library and school over the past few years has been Novel Effect. 

In fact, we started a Novel Effect library. This has offered our teachers such a wonderful way to bring stories to life with special and important books. You can read about how we created our Novel Effect Library here. 

Last year, we started something new to go along with our growing Novel Effect Library. 

Each month, we will bring together several Novel Effect books around special topics, events and celebrations.  This month, we focused on special holidays, events, snow and winter, and the Novel Effect books that have these topics from our library. 

Once we have our list together for the month, 

I go to Canva and create a monthly flyer for our Novel Effect books using the book covers, a Novel Effect image from their site and fun text. 

I create the collage of the book covers in PicMonkey.  You can edit a copy of this template here. 

You will find the Novel Effect images under the Additional Learning Resources on the Novel Effect site here.

And you can find the Canva template for this poster I created here where you can make a copy to use too. 

I printed the Novel Effect Books posters and passed them out to all of the teachers so they can post in their classrooms and keep track of all of the amazing read alouds to pick from each month.  

I love our Novel Effect Library and can't wait for everyone to read even more throughout the year. 

Don't miss all of the  new May book activities found on the Novel Effect site here, friends.