We knocked out some new bookmarks for the end of term.
Lots of borrowing happening and the cactus bookmarks were very popular, so I threw these together with some stock Canva images. Students seem to like the bold colours and images.
We decided to do a Fake News Challenge as part of 2021 Library and Information Week.
Each lunchtime students could collect the slip for the day and then at the end of the day we announced winners where they could collect lolly pack.
I'm always on the lookout for activities for Write Club to do that are a bit different and hands on.
So I copied some magnetic poetry words onto coloured paper and make some offline kits for students to play with during "Library and Information Week".
These cactus reading bookmarks have been very popular in the school library.
We make them in house using Canva and then print them off on the thickest card we can feed through the copier.
The Library Team had a request for "something different" from the Year 8 English teachers.
Normally we would talk to them at the start of a wider reading session and talk about the new books on offer, some of these would be picked up for the session, but often most students would go to the area or genre that they like every week.
The idea was to expose students to more books than they would normally look at. After some discussion we came up with the idea of tasting and then came the placemats and bookmarks.
The tables looked lovely with the placemats and bookmarks!
At each table we had a sign with the name of the genre, a QR code to the catalogue for that genre and a selection of 4-6 books. We opted not to list the books on the sign, as each class might be presented with different books. We had six Year 8 classes to cater for!
If you want a copy of my genre tasting files (canva), just shoot me a message konstantkaos via gmail.
February 14th is Library Lovers Day.
It is the chance to celebrate your local library and in our school library, we were meant to have our celebration on the 15th, but we went into lockdown for a week. So we are having it on the 24th February.
We got our three 3D Printers delivered at the start of February and we started to put them through their paces.
Firstly, a print off of Benchy the tug boat. A diagnostic print designed to test the thresholds of your printer.
One of our science teachers wanted an Apollo Astronaut printed for his Year 10 STEM class.
As we start our 2021 in Australia, it is good practice to set you and your team some goals for 2021.
They might be to increase senior readership or increase understanding of the research process, but it is also important to continue to build our social capital within our school community. We can get so bogged down in what we are doing that we become invisible because we are so busy.
Building social capital is also about building reputation and positioning our school library as the essential service that we are.
So consider the following ideas as possible goals for your school library.
We will touch base with EVERY pre-service teacher in our school to promote the role of the school library and library science professionals.
An easy one to measure, what % of pre-service teachers did we speak to? Create a pack of pamphlets advocating the school library and the role of how library professionals might support them with their teaching . How can you help them resource their lessons. Return on investment for this goal isn't one that you will see, but perhaps the pre-service teachers will develop an appreciation for school libraries and will engage with them when they get their first contract.
We will make sure that the school library is "on the radar" by being present or being on the agenda of every curriculum meeting in the school.Reflecting back on 2020, it has been interesting to look at my role and how it has grown throughout the year.
It was only five years ago that I was just starting out as a Teacher Librarian, however I did have 20 years of teaching and leadership roles behind me. I was blessed to find a great School Library leadership role with a fabulous team in a school with a Principal that is supportive of what we are trying to achieve.
It has been interesting to watch the profession and how it has changed throughout 2020.
School Library leadership roles, that had once been held by teacher librarians have been watered down into Education Support roles, but they still have curriculum development requirements tacked onto the job description. Those schools that liquidated their TL roles the year before found they didn't have any support from their library staff during lockdown. Many of those school libraries have just disappeared from the "radar" of educators in their schools.
I was adamant that in 2020, I was going to promote my role as a teacher librarian and what we are doing in the school library.
A school specific school library Instagram wasn't going to happen easily, but I wanted to seperate what I was doing on my @konstantkaos Instagram from my active school library work.
@LovemySchoolLibrary was formed. Instagram is a great way of documenting what you are doing in your school library and celebrating what you are achieving. Using tools such as Prinkl to print out posters which show what you have achieved throughout the year.
When the first lockdown hit us, I was adamant that the School Library would not become invisible.
Library staff are good at just hunkering down and getting the work done, but when things move online you tend to become invisible. Invisible departments can't argue for more money or resources come budget time.
So what did we do:
The "Students need School Libraries" website invited feedback from school libraries on what they did during Covid. Check out our response.
As we move forward into 2021, what will your social capital goals be? What will you put in place to make yourself more visible to the school community?
As a treat we had a mystery box in for our Writers Club at lunchtime.
In the box, a variety of objects that students could use to weave a story. We pulled them out one by one and discussed ideas, then students got to choose three objects and they could write a story about them.
In true writers club style, everyone got a coloured "dot" to vote on which story they liked the best and the winner got a lolly pack.
