Cozy Up to a Good Book
It is that time of the year: crisp and cold with the consistant hope of snow days to keep you feeling upbeat! With all of this in mind, we have launched a new reading celebration entitled: Cozy Up to a Good Book. The hope is to link cozy, hot cocoa feelings with reading a great story. In keeping with our current standard, a student may enter the contest with every book read…the more you read, the better your chances. The prizes? We have ten exciting gift baskets filled with a coffee/cocoa mug, hot cocoa, bookmarks, treats and surprises! The packaging is fun, the contents are yummy, and the whole goal is to spark a warm, cozy feeling! We will have a drawing for the ten winners on January 30, 2008…stay tuned!
April is National Poetry Month! As you head toward warm spring weather and out of winter hibernation mode, this is a perfect time to share your original poetry. Take a moment to share your creations and feel free to post thoughtful comments…this is a sharing blog and an opportunity to both “publish” your poetry and receive constructive feed-back. Thank you for sharing!
SHS Manga/Graphic Novel/Anime Club
Shenandoah Shares
Reading Celebrations, Books, Fun, and Literacy!
Greetings fellow teacher-librarians and lovers of books! I am a library media specialist at Strasburg High School in Shenandoah County Virginia! I am seeking like minded individuals to share reading celebrations ideas, powerful reading incentives, and fun stuff that has been met with success with your students! Let’s encourage reading for fun and enjoyment…literacy….what better way to start?
Celebrate Reading! Click here for secondary reading celebration ideas!
Welcome to Shenandoah Shares!!! As a library media specialist, I am all too aware of how challenging it has become to motivate students to read for enjoyment. There is just too much competition in the electronic world, not to mention sports, hanging with friends and after school jobs! HELP!! After struggling with new library software and feeling pretty disenchanted with the whole enchilada, I decided to take a good look at WHY I am here! My passion has been and continues to be, instilling a love of reading in young adults. After reading an article in the March, 2006 American Libraries entitled “The Greatest Challenge” by Michael Gorman, I am more convinced than ever, that our “greatest challenge” as teacher-librarians is indeed, to promote literacy and a love of reading: The decline in literacy is a grave problem in our society and libraries of all kinds must be an important part of the solution.
Using technology as a tool while teaching research skills and the importance of citations and evaluation of both print and online sources will continue to be vital in our library curriculum, however, as we become increasingly mired in electronics and library software, it is important to take a giant step backward, take a deep breath, and “hold the phone”….why are we here?????? READING! READING! READING! If our students leave us having never read and ENJOYED reading a book, what is the point?
And so….here goes…my first blog…please join me!
If you have a neat POSITIVE idea for a reading celebration, FUN activity, or would like to share some cutting edge ideas from a class or conference, please take a moment to share. Have you had success with a particular genre, author, or title? Do you have a fun idea to promote library use and reading?? Support the cause and jump right in…let’s hear those amazing ideas!!
Let’s get started…
SHS had a “Feed the Need to Read” reading celebration. VERY SIMPLE: check out a book, read it (or at least tell me you did), fill out an entry form and put it in the pot. You may enter as many times as you want. After about six weeks, we drew about 30 names. We got a deal on pizza, served soda and candy bars…yum, yum…The big thing was, we served this on the stage in the cafeteria. The winners had their special meal during lunch and the other kids were like “wow…what’s up with that???” This year, we hope that all of those folks will “Feed the Need to Read” and enter the contest! It was FUN, QUICK, EASY and we had over 200 entries….we WILL do it again.
PLEASE CLICK HERE AND ADD YOUR COMMENTS...looking for fabulous and even not so fabulous ideas!
Friday, July 18, 2008
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7 comments:
Liz Says:
September 9th, 2007
I just bought a pound of blue and yellow Jelly Bellies. (I was at the Party Co. in Manassas.) I am going to put them in a glass jar and run a contest the first three weeks of school…”Bet on the Falcons”…or whatever Joy and I think of next week! Come by the library, look around at new books and put a guess in the bucket: how many falcon eggs are in the jar!!!
Just tryin; to get em in the door!!!
Liz
Gwen Says:
September 9th, 2007
Here’s another idea. Create your own Library Groupies! We have a Library Club that meets Tuesdays after school (except when we have LMS meeting). The agenda includes helping decorate the library, create book displays, spend time reading together, and always, always SNACK! We’re talking about middle schoolers here! We do snack potluck style because otherwise they would eat me out of house and home.
Gwen
Krista Says:
September 9th, 2007
I think Shenandoah Shares is a wonderful idea and a great way to share what we are doing in our libraries to encourage reading! …I also agree that it was easy to lose focus this summer and start of the year with all the work we’ve all invested in this system change.
This summer I called several local businesses to get coupons for free meals, desserts and games. Each week I will have a drawing for small prizes and each six weeks a drawing for larger prizes. Kids enter the drawing by reading a book of course. I like Clarisse’s idea of pizza in lunch in front of everyone…so I’m stealing it for the first six weeks!
With each book a student has read I’m going to put their name and the title on a book die cut and put them up in the library for other students to see and take as suggestions. Kids are much more likely to read a book recommended by a friend of course…so I think this will be a great way to get those recommendations out in the open and take advantage of them.
Krista
I just wanted to let you know that I stole your slogan “feed the need to read”…thanks for the idea I’ll send Shenandoah Shares suggestions…I think that it’s a great idea!
Krista
Clarisse Says:
September 9th, 2007
I love the jelly belly idea, Liz…very easy, FUN, and like you said, “it gets them in the door”…thanks for a cool idea!
Herb Says:
September 16th, 2007
Nice looking blog, Clarisse.
Here’s what I was thinking, after thinking some more. What if we coordinated some pr about what we’re doing to get kids reading? From the posts above, it seems we’re all doing some things, if we put a SCPS library face on it, it might give us more umph in the county. No one would have to change what they are doing now, but could add to if they wanted. We might choose a month to do a blitz. I’m interested in what you think.
Herb
shenandoah Says:
September 17th, 2007
We need SOMETHING, that is for sure. The whole point is to motivate our students in the direction of LITERACY and I am all for anything that will show that libraries are giving 110% with that goal in mind. You are right, we ARE all doing great things and we do need to promote what we do. I have been reading about school libraries being closed in other parts of the country…as a group we need to get the message out with regard to libraries and academic achievement.
What do you think would work? A group web page?
Suggestions please!
Clarisse
Gwen Says:
October 4th, 2007
I agree that we need to get the word out about what libraries do to support reading in our schools. One idea I had was to each take a turn writing a short article about a library related topic (ie reading to kids, a short report on reading events in the county, internet resources) then all of us would submit it to our school newsletter for that month. I was thinking that I don’t have time to write a well researched or necessarily thoughtful article for our school newsletter every month, but if we all took turns that could lighten the load . . .
I thought of the school newsletter because (at least in our building) it is mailed home to all the students’ households so we don’t have to rely on the students to remember to share it.
Campus-wide events could be very cool too.
Gwen
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