Do You Want To Share Your Story & Work On Season 8 Of The Future Ready Librarians Podcast, Friends?

 

We are getting ready to kick off Season 8 of the Future Ready Librarians Podcast! 

Over the last seven seasons, I have welcomed so many wonderful librarians, educators and industry leaders to share their stories, passions and to discuss important and relevant topics to all of us as we lead within and from our libraries. 

You will find the Leading From The Library podcast page here. 

As I get ready to start recording Season 8, I am looking for new guests to join me. If you have a topic and story you would like to share and talk about, please reach out by emailing me at shannonmcclintockmiller@gmail.com and let me know. 

Thank you so much. I would love to hear from you, friends. The best part of the Future Ready Librarians Podcast is all of YOU.

You've Been Virtually Book'd With These Special Books For World Poetry Day and Poetry Month....A Special Program and List I Use Within Our Destiny Discover & Library Each Month!

 

We love celebrating, reading and sharing poetry, and books written in verse, throughout the year in our library.  

There are two special events coming up to celebrate poetry too. 

On March 21, 2024 is World Poetry Day and...

...April is Poetry Month. 

As we get ready to celebrate at our school, I have brought together a set of 18 special books.

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 18 books I included in the list.

Second, I went to our Destiny Discover and grabbed the links to each book. 

This is easy to do.  You just search for the book, click on the three little dots in the entry, 

and the drop down menu shown in the image above will appear. 

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

I love how I can also download the QR Code.  Isn't that cool? 

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 Poetry Month choice board will pop up. They can then click on each book cover to find them in our Destiny where they can read more about the book, find them in our library and even put them on reserve. 

I am excited about this list of 18 special new books I put together in Titlewave.  In this choice board, you can click on any book cover to view in Titlewave and find the full book list there too. 

If you want to make a copy to add your own Destiny Discover links from your library, click here. 

I hope you enjoy celebrating poetry and these beautiful books written in verse too, friends. 

Join Me For The LUV for Libraries Webinar On March 7, Friends! Learn How You Can Transform Your Library Into A Hub Of Creativity, Collaboration and Meaningful Connections.

 

Friends, I am so excited to invite you to very special webinar I am hosting on Thursday, March 7th.  

In the webinar, you will discover how you can transform your library into a hub of creativity, collaboration, and meaningful connections through a new initiative called LUV for Libraries. 

LUV for Libraries empowers teacher librarians to connect and collaborate with peers nationwide with project-based courses aimed at enhancing critical library and technology skills. 

You can register for this webinar here.  

I hope you can join us, friends as we share how you can be part of LUV for Libraries too. 

We Are So Excited To Bring Stairway Decodables To Our Readers This Year! Read All About It Here.

Today, we kicked off using the Stairway Decodables by Capstone in our kindergarten through 2nd grade classrooms.  

We are very excited to bring these to our students as they will take reading instruction one step at time. 

There are 6 steps of Stairway Decodables. 

As shared on the Stairway Decodables website, there are lots of amazing qualities that make this reading program stand out. 

To start, we are adding the 36 engaging, authentic texts to our classrooms and can't wait for more books and eBooks this fall.  The teachers will use these for small group instruction with the sets of 6 we have, and they are perfect for independent reading too. 

The before, during and after reading suggestions will be great at activating background knowledge.  Plus, the front and back matter instructional support will be very helpful to our teachers as they use these new books with their readers. 

On the Stairway Decodables site, you can explore Steps 1-6. This will give you details on which books are included in each Step. 

You will also find the Stairway Decodables brochure at the bottom of the site here too. 

I will be sharing our journey with Stairway Decodables.  We are excited to start!  

A Choice Board To Learn More About The Eclipse On April 8, 2024!

 

On April 8, 2024, there will be a total eclipse that will pass across the United States.  

This article from USA Today has lots of details that would be very interesting to share with your students too. 

From this information, I wanted to create a choice board filled with a few books, article and videos for our students, teachers and families to use as we all get ready for the eclipse.  

And I wanted to share the eclipse choice board with all of you too! 

First, it is very important for everyone to understand how to safely view a solar eclipse so I added this to the very top of the choice board.  

Under that, I added a site where you can go to view what the eclipse will look like in your location.  You just add your location at the top and then use the slider at the bottom to view during the time of the eclipse. I added in our location of West Des Moines, Iowa but you can change that for your school and just link it to the image. 

In the middle of the choice board, I went to PebbleGo and found the Capstone Interactive eBook Eclipse,

the PebbleGo article, Eclipses,

and the PebbleGo Next article, Sun to include. 

From the Eclipse Choice Board found here, you just have to make a copy and add the link to the PebbleGo Next article and eBook so it is from your account.  You can make any changes you would like. 

I loved finding Totality! A Eclipse Guide in Rhyme and Science on Story Time from Space a few weeks ago.  

On the site, you can watch astronaut, Steve Bowen, read Totality! and do a solar eclipse demonstration.

It's really awesome to learn about the eclipse with Steve!  You won't want to miss this special event.

And on the left hand side of the choice board, you will see two other videos perfect for all students as they learn about the eclipse.  

You can find the choice board template to copy here.

What resources are you using, friends?  I would love to add them to this choice board too. 

Diversity and Awareness In Early Chapter Books....Watch This Amazing NEW Capstone Webinar Here, Friends.

This week, I loved listening to the wonderful new Capstone webinar, Diversity and Awareness in Early Chapter Books. This was part of the For The LOVE Of Reading Webinar Series from our friends at Capstone. 

In this webinar, Miriam Moore-Keish, Content Strategist at Capstone, welcomed special guest authors, Bryan Patrick Avery, Saadia Karuqi and Anita Nahta Amin, for an amazing conversation. 

You can watch the webinar here. 

I also put together a choice board filled with lots of special books and eBooks from these three amazing Capstone authors. You will find it here where you can learn more about these books and find the book list.

A Fun and Interactive Place To Share Our New Capstone Books and eBooks! You Can Use This Template For Your New Books Too, Friends.

I love finding fun and new ways to share the new books we have in our library and online.  

This week, I took all of our NEW Capstone books from the Spring 2024 collection that we just added to our library in print and digital...

... and created this interactive choice board. I will display this by the new Capstone books on the shelves and share the link with our teachers and students. 

To create this interactive choice board, I went to Capstone Interactive and search all of the new books by title. 

When the book popped up, I clicked on Open and...

...copied the link in the upper right hand corner. 

Then I went to the choice board, and hyperlinked that link to the book cover of The Kindness Booth.  

I did that for each book. 

When all of the links were added to the book covers, I went to File and down to Share and Publish to the Web. 

This is the link that you will share with students and teachers so they read and listen to these new Capstone eBooks. 

In this special choice board, you will find these books and eBooks 

Here is a template of this choice board that you can make a copy of to add your own links. 

And here is the list of these Capstone books and eBooks where you can find information on each title.

I love sharing eBooks with our school community in this way. It is a great way to get even more books into the hands of our readers at school, home and on the go.  I hope you find it helpful too, friends. 

Turn The March 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 March 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 March 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, National Pig Day is March 1st. 

I went to PebbleGo and found the article. 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 March 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.