The Macy's Day Parade Choice Board and Ideas For Bringing It To Life!

               

With the Macy's Day Parade coming up soon on Thanksgiving Day, 

we are also counting down at Van Meter as we plan for a few of our favorite activities around this fun event. 

To start, I put together the Learn about the Macy's Day Parade choice board shown at the top of this post.  It is filled with special places to learn, celebrate and create with the Macy's Day Parade including a read aloud from KidLitTV of Balloons Over Broadway, this years parade lineup including my favorite and new balloon Ada Twist, the Macy's Day Parade site and more. 

You will find the choice board here to share with your students and if you would like to make edits you can make a copy of the choice board here. 

We use this choice board and the virtual tours to get our students ready for lots of wonderful projects using their creativity and the Ozobot robots or toy cars as they collaborate to create floats and routes together. 

You can read about these projects here. 

This year, we are using a few different robotic and technology tools. I will share with you soon! 

I hope you and your students have lots of fun planning your celebrations too!  

I Am Excited To Share Book Creator At Our 6th Annual Future Ready Librarians App Smash Webinar! Join Us, Friends.

 

I am so happy about the Future Ready Librarians 6th Annual App Smash webinar coming up on November 18, 2025 at 5:00pm EST. 

And I am very excited to share Book Creator in the webinar, along with 24 other librarians and educators sharing different digital tools and resources too. 

You can register for the webinar here. 

Everyone who registers will receive the recording and amazing resources too. 

You've Been Book'd With The Food Group Series From Jory John & Pete Oswald...And Activities For Each Too!

To celebrate the newest addition, The Humble Pie, to The Food Group Series from Jory John and Pete Oswald, I've brought all of the books together in this special choice board. 

You will find the choice board here. Just click on the book covers to find each title in Follett Titlewave, and I included the entire list too. 

I also included Book Activities from HarperCollins to download and enjoy. I found these connected to each title in Titlewave too!

Have fun sharing The Humble Pie and the entire series with your readers. They are definitely lots of our favorites!

You can make a copy of this choice board here too.

You've Been Book'd With Books For National Native American Heritage Month!

 

National Native American Heritage Month is celebrated in November every year. This is a time to honor and celebrate the traditions, languages, and stories of Native American and Alaska Native communities.

To honor and celebrate this special month, I’ve brought together 34 amazing books in this choice board. Each title shines a light on Native voices, cultures, and histories that continue to inspire and thrive for generations to come.

In the choice board, you can click on each book cover to find the title in Follett Content Titlewave, and you will find the entire list of books there too. 

You can make a copy of this choice board here too. 

Veterans Day Choice Boards With PebbleGo, Capstone eBooks, a Collection by Follett Content Destiny!

               

Next week, on November 11, we recognize our veterans on Veterans Day. This is always a very special day for us as our students learn, read and create thanks for our veterans here in Iowa and across the country.

As we prepare with activities we have planned for our students, we are bringing together resources to learn about this day too. 

I have created two Veterans Day Choice Boards.  One for our preschool to 2nd grade and...

...one for our 3rd grade and up.  

The Veterans Day Choice Boards include PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next articles about Veterans Day and U.S. Symbols. 

They also include several Capstone Interactive eBooks we have within our library collection at Van Meter. 

Veteran's Day, the Cantata Learning story and song, is always a favorite.  You will find it here on YouTube. 

Even though the Veterans Day Choice Boards hold links and resources specific to our school and library collection, you can make a copy and add links to your PebbleGo and even images that link to other resources you may have access to as well. 

If you need some ideas for what eBooks and eResources to add, check out this collection in EPIC! Books here.

You can make a copy of the Veterans Day Choice Board for preschool to 2nd grade here. 

You can make a copy of the Veterans Day Choice Board for 3rd grade on up here.

And a little tip when sharing choice boards with littles and those students who are using hand held devices.  

You can take the published link from the choice board and use a tool like QR Code Monkey to create a QR code.  Then share this with the students within the classroom, library and even online through their Google Classroom, Seesaw and other platforms. 

We do this a lot with our littles and their iPads. It's super helpful. 

I have included both of our Veterans Day Choice Boards in our newly updated Veterans Day Collection by Destiny, along with several wonderful resources for students, teachers and families. 

You will find the Veterans Day Collection here. This is public and there for you to use and share with your school community.  Please let me know if there are other resources we should add to the Collection. 

And here is a special activity for Veterans Day I added to the Collection is the Veterans Day Origami Heart from our friends at PebbleGo. 

You will find it here on their site. 

I hope you find these resources and project idea helpful as you teach your students about Veterans Day and commemorate this special day and all of the veterans that have served together.  

Together, let's thank them for their service and commitment to our country.  

Download. Display. Celebrate. The Future Ready Librarians Framework 3.0 Is Here!

Friends, as we celebrate the NEW Future Ready Librarians Framework 3.0, we would love to have you download it and share a picture of it posted in your library. 

First, you can get your FRL Framework 3.0 at futureready.link/frl3 today.  I downloaded mine and printed it on a 12 x 18 piece of cardstock or paper. 

                     

Next, take a picture of how you are using it and where you have it posted in your library. 

You will find the Canva templates here to make a copy, share your picture, and add what you do as a Future Ready Librarian.  

This will be such a special way to celebrate and advocate for being a Future Ready Librarian as we embrace the 3.0 version of our framework and share it with others within our library, school, and community too. 

I can't wait to see yours, Future Ready Librarian friends. 

The NEW Class View in Book Creator Is A Game Changer! Check It Out Today, Friends.

 

I love when we add new features in Book Creator and this one is a real game changer! 

There is now a Class View that lets librarians and teachers see all of their students' books and pages in a single, scrollable dashboard. 

I love being able to see what all of the students are working on at the same time. When our kindergarteners were working on their Perfect Pumpkin Plan books and using Book Creator for the first time, it was so helpful being able to hop into Class View and take a peak at how the project was going for all of them in one place. 

There is a filter that let's you choose how the books within each Class are organized.  When we were working on country projects last week, I filtered by Book Author to get a quick look through the class list. 

It's also the perfect way to give faster, more focused feedback to the students too. 

On the Book Creator Class View One-Pager (that is linked at the bottom of this post), it shows where to find and easy steps on how to use Class View. 

Sign up for your Book Creator account today. 

You can use the code SHANNON at the checkout when upgrading and get 1 month of premium FREE.

Book Creator brings so much joy to our classrooms, libraries and communities. I can't wait to see what your students create too. 

I Am Excited To Head To NYSCATE As A Spotlight Speaker On November 23....Join Us, Friends.

 

I am excited to head to NYSCATE as a Spotlight Speaker in Verona, New York on November 23.

I will be presenting two sessions in the ELA/Reading/Library Sciences Strand: 

November 23, 11:30-12:30pm Empowering Digital Citizens: Media Literacy and Critical Thinking in the Age of Edtech 

November 23, 2:00-3:50pm Future Ready Librarians 3.0: Leading with Vision, Impact and Innovation

These two sessions are for all librarians and educators.  I can't wait to connect, collaborate, and share with everyone at this amazing conference. 

There are so many special events including inspiring keynotes, over 200 sessions in the various strands, and so much more learning and fun. 

You can find out more about NYSCATE 2026 and register here.  

Kicking Off Book Creator With Our Kindergarteners and The Bold Pumpkin Plan!

 

It's always so much fun kicking off Book Creator with our kindergarteners every year.  This year we did it with a project using one of our favorite fall books, The Bold Pumpkin Plan. 

This is from our friends at Capstone and the amazing Katy Hudson. We love all of her books. 

Every time I read A Bold Pumpkin Plan, so many ideas pop into my head on how we can use this book.  

I love all of the research and STEM opportunities and projects we can create.  

In the A Bold Pumpkin Plan Activities Guide, there are several activities and one is...

...Design Your Perfect Pumpkin House. 

This year I thought it would be super fun to take this idea and turn it into the first project our kindergarteners do in Book Creator. 

First, Shelby, my kindergarten teacher friend and colleague, read The Bold Pumpkin Plan to her class.  

Next, we had the students create their own perfect pumpkin house on the sheet from Capstone.

They had lots of fun being creative and every one of them had an unique plan. 

Next, I showed them all around Book Creator and how they can create special digital books of their own using drawings, text, stickers, images, and more. 

I created a Library for the project and a template called My Perfect Pumpkin Plan. We had the students scan a QR code to get to this library.  

Once in the Library, 

they all had their own copy of the book template I created. 

It was time for them to try out the tools and create their perfect pumpkin plan book. 

After two sessions, 

...our kindergarteners created their first books in Book Creator.

And as you can see, they were all super proud and excited about becoming authors and illustrators using Book Creator. 

We published the Perfect Pumpkin Plan Library of their books so they can read each others, and we can share it with our families too. 

You can remix My Perfect Pumpkin Plan here for your students too. 

This was a great way to introduce Book Creator while being creative through one of our favorite fall books.  They are now ready to use Book Creator for so many different projects, learning experiences, and free choice throughout the year. 

Sign up for your Book Creator account today. 

You can use the code SHANNON at the checkout when upgrading and get 1 month of premium FREE.

Book Creator brings so much joy to our classrooms, libraries and communities. I can't wait to see what your students create too.