Picture Books That Connect With Our Making & Makers!

One of the best things about Makerspaces that we create and bring to our libraries, schools and communities is the fact that they can include so many amazing things and connect to the passions and interests of everyone.  Makerspaces not only support our makers in the their passions and interests, but we can find and offer dozens and dozens of ideas to connect to our mission, vision and curriculum for our school and within the library, classrooms and other subjects too. 

As we head into a new school year and prepare our Makerspaces for our students, teachers and school community, I have been thinking a lot about these passions, interests, visions, missions and all of the amazing things I have seen over the summer and throughout the year.  

One of my goals and personal interests this year has been searching for and gathering up all of the picture books, nonfiction books, biographies, graphic novels, chapter books and other literacy experiences I can find that fit into each one of these special Makerspace categories shown above.  

Not only have I gathered these resources together to use in our library and classrooms at Van Meter, I have also been dreaming up ideas on how to bring literacy to life through making with our students this year in each one of these Makerspace categories too.  

Last week, I shared these ideas with lots of teacher librarians and teachers in Texas, and this week I will share with new friends Hawaii and again in Texas too. 

As I get ready for another week of sharing, my friend Laura Sheneman mentioned how neat it would be to share all of these books and then see what others have used and found awesome for our makers too.  

Yes!  I love this idea and want to create a place to share and crowdsource even more ideas for using literacy within all of the different themes and activities that are found in Makerspaces. 

I have put together this new Padlet to gather even more ideas for tying in literacy to our Makerspaces.  

You will find the Padlet here. 

I have tried to think of all of the different categories we need, but please feel free to add more columns.

Please share what you have found, used and new ones as they come up too.

As we head into the a new year with our students at Van Meter, I can't wait to collaborate with all of our teachers to create amazing experiences for our students that bring together literacy, making and so much more. I know this will not only feed our students passions and interests, it will also spark new ones that will lead to a whole new world of making, learning, connecting and embracing of the maker and their voice within themselves too. 

Please share books that have inspired and connected with your makers...and you as a maker.  Feel free to add more columns of Makerspace topics too.  You will find the Padlet here, friends. 

Watch & Celebrate The Newly Updated Flipgrid At #FlipGridLIVE Here!

Tonight as we all watched #FlipgridLIVE, I couldn't help but be SOOOOO excited for what is NEW and all of the possibilities for celebrating student voice even more this year with Flipgrid, Microsoft and others around the world. 

As I go back to the Van Meter School Library as the teacher librarian, I can't wait to use Flipgrid in so many ways within our library, classrooms and community.  And I really can't wait to empower our teachers and students to do the same! 

With these exciting new updates and all of the things we have been celebrating in Flipgrid, this is going to be the best year yet with one of the places that will make a difference for all of our students...and so much more.

Thank you Flipgrid friends and family.  You are all amazing...and making such a difference for student voice and so much more. 

Standards For Collections Are Here!

As we start planning lessons, dreaming up projects and kicking off collaboration with others within our school and community, it is always exciting and helpful to learn of tools and tips to make this process the best it can be for a new year.  

Well, guess what?  Our friends at Follett released something today that is going to just that! 

It is called Standards for Collections and is going to do just that! 

We can now attach National and State Standards to any of our Collections by Destiny.  You will find Standards in the drop down menu in the left hand corner of a Collection. 

This will allow us to easily align Collections to locally used state and national standards which support our curriculum.  I love how handy this will be as a teacher librarian and teacher in our planning efforts and teaching, as well as when we collaborate and plan together throughout the year.  

As I worked on the Collections I am creating my teachers and students at Van Meter Community School in this Collection Set, I enjoyed being able to go to each and add which standards in each grade level fit. 

Let me show you show how I added Standards for Collections too!  

First, I clicked on Standards as I showed in the image above. 

Next, I clicked on the State, Iowa, and it brought up all of the standards associated with Iowa. 

I scrolled down to find the one I wanted to focus on within the Digital Storytelling Tools and Resources Collection. 

 I clicked on 21st Century Skills for 2nd grade....and then all elementary. 

I was then able to click on 21st Century Skills and look at all of the standards that fall in the categories or concept of Technology Literacy. 

As I clicked on the standards that I wanted associated with digital storytelling, they popped up as Attached Standards on the left hand side and....

...on the Collection itself towards the bottom on the left hand side.

You can see now under Standards all of the Technology Literacy standards that are included in this Collection. 

This new update also gives us the ability to discover other Collections aligned to a particular standard through a built-in search feature, which you will find at the top of the page.  

This is really going to come in handy too! 

I have lots of planning and collaborating coming up over the next couple of weeks with all of our teachers in kindergarten through 12th grade.  I am not only excited to share Collections by Destiny with all of them, I am really looking forward to showing them how Collections will help them with this step of their planning and teaching too.