Friends, Join Us For The Future Ready Librarians App Smash Extravaganza On November 20, 2024! Sign Up Today.

             

Get ready for a high-energy, fast-paced hour of inspiration and innovation at the 5th Annual Future Ready Librarian App Smash Webinar on November 20, 2024 at 5:00pm EST.

Led by Shannon McClintock Miller, this event brings together 25 visionary librarians and educators to showcase the latest and greatest in digital tools for the classroom and library.

In true Future Ready style, this app smash  isn’t just a tech demo—it’s a live exploration of how cutting-edge digital tools are transforming teaching and learning. Each of the presenters will dive deep into the practical applications of their chosen tool, sharing strategies that will empower educators to immediately incorporate these resources into their classrooms. Whether you’re looking to personalize learning, foster creativity, or boost student engagement**, you’ll leave this webinar armed with ideas and ready to implement!

Throughout the webinar, you’ll also gain insight into how each tool aligns with the Future Ready Schools® Framework, ensuring that these tools not only support technology integration but also promote equity, personalized instruction, and future-ready skills. You’ll learn how to design student-centered learning experiences that are interactive, dynamic, and deeply impactful.

You can register for the event here. 

10 Amazing Decoration Ideas To Make Your Literati Book Fairs Extra Special, Exciting and Fun!

I love hosting Literati Book Fairs in our school library.  We make our book fairs big, special events for our entire school community, that include our students, teachers, families and community. It's a wonderful event for everyone and we always want to make it super fun and memorable. 

As we get ready to host book fairs, we dream up and plan all kinds of ways to decorate the library and school.  In fact, we just hosted our fall Literati Book Fair with the theme of Galactic Adventures and had so many great decorating ideas. 

And Literati just announced the spring theme of Story Arcade!  We can't even wait for that one. I can already see our library decorated as a giant video game!  The kids will love it and it will definitely bring them to the book fair. 

In this post, Id love to share 5 decorating ideas for each book fair.  These will get the ball rolling as you put your own twist on these ideas, and dream up your own too. 

5 Decorating Ideas For Your Galactic Adventures Literati Book Fair

1. Use holiday lights to create twinkling stars around your book fair space.

2. Have students make their own planets using styrofoam balls, old CD's, markers, etc.  For a bonus STEM exercise, have them write down the name of their planet, who lives there, what the atmosphere is made of, etc. 

3. Make a constellation bulletin board.  Cover with dark blue or black and use silver paint to map out stars and create the phrase, Blast Off To Our Book Fair. 

4. Use paper plates and recycled paper to make comics and asteroids. Cut the paper into strips to make the tail. Last year, a librarian shared this idea with the Literati team.  She even used extra book fair catalogs to create lion manes. 

5. Get the school community involved by having a classroom door decorating challenge.  Have the teachers and students decorate their doors with the Galactic Adventures theme. 

You will also find lots of ideas on the Galactic Adventures Pinterest Board from Literati. 

5 Decorating Ideas For Your Galactic Adventures Literati Book Fair

1. Create a giant video game controller to go around the entrance of the door into your book fair.  

2. Gather up old video games console and games.  Use them throughout the book fair display within your library.  You can find these at Goodwill stores and ask around to see if you can borrow from your school community. 

3. Have students dream up a new video game around their favorite stories to go along with the Story Arcade theme.  They can use Scratch at scratch.mit.edu to create their story based game.  Create a Story Arcade of their games that can be shared so they can play each others. 

4. Play video game music during the book fair to make them feel like they are in a video game.  You can find lists of Spotify and other places online. Just search up “8-bit” versions or covers of songs. You will also find them available on YouTube.

5. Use these ideas from The Adventures of Ms. Smith's blog to create a glow in the dark look and give it a video game feeling.  A disco ball can also be used to create light effects around the library during the book fair.

There are lots of ideas for the Story Aracde Pinterest Board from Literati too. 

As you can see, there are so many ways to make your Literati Book Fairs extra special, exciting and fun.  I can't wait to see what you do at your Literati Book Fair too. 

Sign up here today to host your very own Literati Book Fair. 

I know you will love hosting a Literati Book Fair just as much as I do, friends. With the amazing selection of books, easy set-up, incredible customer support, and so much more, you will love bringing Literati Book Fairs to your library and school community too.

A BIG Choice Board With All 51 NEW PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next Articles For November 2024!

 

With the new PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next articles being such a hit with our learners, I brought them together in one choice board. Then our kids can learn from both choice boards from one spot.  They didn't want to miss any of the 51 new articles. They always love when the new articles come out. 

Here is a template of the choice board. 

You will find the PebbleGo New Articles choice board here...

...and the PebbleGo Next New Articles choice board here. 

Once you have the templates, you can add your own links for PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next. 

And remember, to share this with your students,  just go to File, Share and Publish to the Web. 

Have fun exploring these 51 new PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next articles with your students too. 

The November 2024 DEMCO Activity Calendar Is Here, Friends!

 

I love the DEMCO Activity Calendars that my wonderful librarian friend, Nadine Poper, creates with our friends at Demco. 

They have released the November 2024 Demco Activity Calendar and it is filled with so many amazing activities and such fun for learning. You will find them here. 

You will find all of the DEMCO Activity Calendars here. 

A Choice Board For Your Students To Explore The 26 NEW PebbleGo Next Articles Released This Week!

 

With this weeks NEW PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next release, I wanted to create a special place for our students to go and explore the 26 new PebbleGo Next articles.  You will find the blog post with all of the new articles here.

First, I put together a choice board for the NEW 26 PebbleGo Next articles.  

I create the choice board in Google Slides.  You can make a copy of it here.  Once you have a copy, just add your own links from PebbleGo. 

To share the choice board with your students, just to to Share and Publish to web. 

This will give you a link to share with the students.  When they click on that link, it will take them straight to the published choice board. 

I also created one for the 25 NEW PebbleGo articles too. You will find it here. 

2 Great Calendars For November Read-Alouds from Our Friends At Novel Effect!

I love the calendars that our friends at Novel Effect put together for us each month. 

They are now sharing two great calendars for November. 

You can find them here. 

The Webinar Recording and Resources For The October Follett Software Webinar, Empowering Digital Citizens, Are Here, Friends.

 

On October 24, I joined my friends at Follett Software for the webinar, Empowering Digital Citizens: Media Literacy in the Age of Edtech.  

As shared by Follett Software, 

Join us during Global Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Week for an enlightening webinar featuring Shannon McClintock Miller, renowned district teacher librarian, educator, thought leader - the list goes on! In this session, Shannon will share her insights on fostering media literacy in today’s digital-first world, where students are constantly navigating a complex web of information.

You will find the webinar recording and resources here. 

Here Is The "November 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 November Choice Boards poster that can be found here to make edits and additions.

I hope you find these choice board posters helpful too. 

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

 

It's November and time for a new set of books on the November 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 November Holiday Calendar here, along with the other months too. 

You will find all of these books at 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 2024-25 Capstone Holiday Calendar Poster here, friends. 

It's Here, Friends...Our November Choice Board Filled With Reading, Learning, Making, Coding, Technology and Fun!

                              

It's here, friends!  Our November 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 November 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 board, I do include other choice boards and links to special events and celebrations. 

I also include 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 Canva. 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 November Choice Board that you can share with your students. 

I also explain how I create and share choice board posters each month in this post. 

With each choice board, I also share the link to make edits and changes.  This is the copyable link to the 2024 November 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.  

Also, last year around this time I had a Follett webinar on choice boards that you will find helpful when learning more about and how to use choice boards and Collections by Destiny. You will find the link to the recording and resources from the webinar here in this post. 

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.