My Favorite Scholastic Dollars Catalog Purchases

I'm currently in my 8th year of being a Media Specialist at my school. And I've held a few book fairs during that time.  Our school uses Scholastic Book Fairs.  One of the incentives that Scholastic offers for holding book fairs is Scholastic Dollars. These are like bonus points that you can spend like cash either at your fair, at a Scholastic warehouse, or on the Scholastic Dollars catalog.  Depending on how many fairs you host during the year and how much you sell during those fairs, you can earn up to 55%  of your sales in Scholastic Dollars which don't expire. This means you can save up for some really awesome purchases.

One of the first Scholastic Dollar purchases I ever made was right after our first book fair.  I had heard from others that a change sorter might come in handy for those who come in with bags of coins.  I had no idea just how much of a difference that change sorter would make, but I can't imagine holding a book fair without it.

The change sorter is currently  $149.99.  You might be able to find a change sorter for less, but using Scholastic Dollars won't cost you any actual cash. It really is worth the investment.

Another favorite Scholastic Dollars purchase was a bit more costly, but it has just about paid for itself in less than a year.  It's the CoverOne Book Repair Machine and supply kit.  I decided to take our profits all in Scholastic Dollars for our fall fair so that I could purchase this machine.  It is truly worth the investment!

The first time I used it, I saved 9 books- books that would have been trashed otherwise.  I have since repaired about 30 more books this school year and have a stack waiting to be repaired.  I can't say enough good things about this machine!

The CoverOne can be a bit tricky to use at first, but after a few books, you get the hang of it. And the CoverOne tutorial videos on YouTube are a big help!

If Scholastic's price tag is a bit too much for your budget, try checking eBay.  I found a similar machine for much less. I can't vouch for how well the other machine works, but it might be worth trying if you need to save money.  Be sure to check with your system first to make sure that you can purchase from eBay.


A few years ago, I was able to start a MakerSpace in our Media Center.  If you have a MakerSpace, you know that building up our MakerSpace with materials can get expensive. That is why I was so excited to find that Scholastic offered so many MakerSpace items through the Scholastic Dollars catalog.

Because I took all Scholastic Dollars for profit for our fall book fair, I had quite a bit to spend. So I used part of our profits to purchase a Cue Educational Bundle.  This bundle has so much!  It includes the Cue Robot from Wonder Workshop,  a sketch kit and pens, a mat (ships separately), a year subscription to support materials from Wonder Workshop, and a digital teaching guide.    As soon as I took Cue out of the box and turned it on, I knew it would be a hit with our students.  Cue has a spunky personality which makes learning with it super fun!   Note: Scholastic does not offer just the Cue robot by itself, but you can purchase the robot separately directly from Wonder Workshop if you feel that the bundle isn't something you'd use.

One favorite MakerSpace items for fourth and fifth graders is littleBits.  The kits can be quite expensive, but using Scholastic Dollars, I was able to purchase 6 kits to add to our MakerSpace-enough to give students plenty of parts to Make with.

So those are some of my favorite splurges using Scholastic Dollars. Do you have any favorite Scholastic Dollars purchases?  Anything I should add to my wish list?

Paws for Books

Our Scholastic Book Fair is coming up soon and the theme for spring is "Paws for Books." I am doing some fun things to build the excitement for our book fair.

I created these fun freebies that I am going to use with my Kinder and Firsties this week.  

You can edit them to add your book fair information on the right side where the open book is.

I will also have the bookmarks available during our book fair.  You can download this file for free in my TpT store by clicking HERE.

I am also going to be having a selfie contest to help build the excitement of the Book Fair.  I am asking families to use a dog or cat photo filter to take a selfie and post it on our school's Facebook page for a chance to win a $10 gift certificate.  These fun filters can be found on free apps like Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Snapchat, and the MSQRD app- most of which parents will have already on their smart devices.  Our school's facebook page is private, so it will be completely safe for our families to share these fun selfies.  

A fun way to advertise for you Book Fair is through e-invites.  A cool site to use to make e-invites is Paperless Post.  You can choose from their designs or even upload your own.  They have templates for flyers that are free and easy to customize.  You can check them out HERE.

These are just a few ways that I am trying to build the excitement around our Book Fair and get our kids' paws on some great books.  Do you have any great advertising ideas for book fairs?  Share them in the comments below.  =)

Monster Book Fair

We just finished with our fall book fair. Scholastic's theme for this book fair was a monster theme.

Lucky for me, I had made some products with a monster theme over the summer, so making signs to advertise the book fair was pretty easy.

My five year old also helped me advertise after he discovered the Clifford costume in all of the book fair stuff.

Setting up, on the other hand, wasn't as quick or easy.  It took about 8 hours.  Here's some quick peeks at the process.

The decorations on the table and the decorations hanging from the ceiling came from the Scholastic decorating kit which I was able to get for free from the Scholastic Dollars catalog by attending a book fair workshop and using my special code I received from my book fair rep.  Although it's valued at $69.99, I value it at a much higher price because it saves me from having to create a bunch of decor or from having to run around town to find items to match the theme.  

Before I moved out the bookcases and boxes, I went ahead and put the tablecloths on the table.  It saves me some time when unpacking to go ahead and have those on the table.

It took me about an hour to get to this point.  Keep in mind I was setting up on my own.  I did have a parent volunteer sign up to help set up,  but she was unable due to an unforeseen circumstance.

After about an hour and a half, all the boxes were in the sections where they were ready to be unpacked and the books inside of them put on display.

After about six hours, this is what the fair looked like.  It's the details that get me every time.  I do like to label as many books as I can with AR labels since we use AR at my school.  I also label each shelf with letters so when teachers are creating their wish lists, it is easy for them to put what shelf that book can be found on.  All of this takes time, but it is worth it for the fair to run smoothly the next week.

A good part of the set up time involves creating "doodad" board and organizing the "doodads." I forgot to snap a picture of our "doodad" board from this fair, but here's a picture of one from a previous fair.  I use a trifold board and tape one of each item to the board. I number each item.  Students can let the cashier know which item they want when they get up to the cashier.  It helps to prevent the little items from disappearing and since I began using the "doodad" board, more books are purchased than the junky stuff.  So it's worth the extra time.

I always dress up the front doors of the media center.  The students get very excited when they see these decorations go up because they know the book fair is just about to start.  This time around, I left these doors until the end. You can tell by my sad little monster over the door that I was a little tired by then.  But the kiddos still liked it, so I am good with it.

And now that the fair is over, I can smile about it all.  

It really was a "monster"ously good time.

Book Fair

We're having a book fair this week.  Scholastic's theme for this book fair is "Under the Sea."

I attended a book fair workshop a couple of weeks ago and received a free promo code to choose a select item from the school resource catalog.  I again choose the decorating kit.  It is full of so many great items and definitely saves me a ton of time from having to create extra items or to go shopping all over town to gather all the items I would need.

I used everything from the kit to decorate (and then some).  Here is the front doors to the media center all decked out with the Under the Sea theme.

Here are the inside doors to the media center decorated in the "Under the Sea" theme.

To add a little bit of pizzazz, I made some coral out of paper strips.

I used the fish banner in the decorating kit to make fish swimming under the waves.

This fun squid hat also comes in the kit...fish face is optional...but fun.  ;)

These are some of the other faces I make throughout the duration of the book fair.  I really do love the book fair, but it is A LOT of work to put together and run.  I am happy to see it come, but also happy to see it go.

And just because you made it through all my crazy pictures, I have a freebie for you.  You can snag a copy of the fun little book fair banner shown in the first picture in my TpT store.  Just click HERE.

Hope you enjoy!

P.S.  These ideas would go great with my "Oceans of  Fun" Media Center theme.  Click HERE to check it out on TpT.  =)

What a Month!

September has been a whirlwind of a month and ended the same way.

I started the month by presenting at the 2014 Instructional Technology Conference presented by our local area RESA.  Another local media specialist and I presented about our new favorite app, HP Reveal, formerly Aurasma.

I organized everything into a LiveBinder for the presentation to make it easy for everyone to follow. Of course the LiveBinder would only work if the wifi did and as most technology conferences go, the wifi had its issues.  But all in all, I think it went well.  If you would like to view the LiveBinder, you can find it HERE.

While at the Conference, I picked up a lot of great information about some new web 2.0 tools and apps that would be great to use in the classroom or school library media center.  I made a couple of Symbaloos to keep up with all the tools shared.  Click HERE to view the web 2.0 tools Symbaloo. Click HERE to view the app Symbaloo.

I had a great time at the conference. It was fun to get away for a little bit.  I am looking forward to next year, although I hope it doesn't fall around the same time as our book fair like it did this year.  It was a bit stressful getting ready for both at the same time.

After the conference came the Book Fair, Grandparents' Week, Picture Day, and a visit from the State School Superintendent all in one week...no wonder I am wiped out.

The fall book fair theme this year, as set by Scholastic, was a "renaissance" theme.  The decorating kit made it easy.  I highly recommend spending the $50 for it...well worth the price.  The kids loved the theme, too.

This year, I decided to try doing the book fair during Grandparents' Week.  While we had a great fair because of it, the week we picked was a little chaotic.


Right in the middle of the week was fall picture day and we ended the week with a visit from our state school superintendent who came to present our school with a special award that only 4 other schools in the state received.

It was a great honor and the welcome mat looks great in front of the school.

It was a day that even the little ones will remember, if only because Dr. Barge arrived and left in a helicopter.  LOL

Although September was a fun and busy month , I really hope that October won't be quite as exciting, even though I know it will be busy as I have a ton of new books to process from the book fair.  But  I am ready for a little bit of calm.  Of course, it is the month of spooks so, yeah, that probably won't be the case.

Book Fair Fiesta

The Book Fair has arrived and with a bit of effort, it has been set up and is ready for the first shoppers.

I was very lucky to have gotten the Book Fair delivered before the bad weather hit my area.  A couple of other Media Specialists who were scheduled to have their Book Fair delivered on the same day just missed their delivery by a few hours because the roads were getting too slick for the truck to get through.

While this saved me some stress of having to reschedule, I still had to make plans to get to my school and get set up, all while everyone was supposed to be on a snow day because the roads were still very slick. Luckily I was able to make it to my school safely and get things set up in about 6 hours.

I even had help from a teacher at my school who also braved the roads to check on her class pets.

This is my seventh Book Fair, so I have things pretty well down pat by now, learning what to do and what not to do from past Book Fairs.

Like:

1) Schedule the Book Fair from Friday to Friday to ensure that it will be delivered in time to do a Preview Day the Friday before.  (Thanks to Mrs. ReaderPants for this tip, and many others.  You can read her tips here.)

2)  Attend a Book Fair workshop.  You not only get some great ideas for your Book Fair, but you also earn 25 Scholastic dollars.

3)  Do as much as you can before-hand.  Make copies of Book Fair letters, print posters and make decorations....whatever you can do ahead of time, do it.

4)  Recruit volunteers.  You can do it on your own, but it is so much easier with help, especially when it comes to decorating, setting up, and taking down the fair.

5)  Thank volunteers. If you want them to come back, be sure to thank your volunteers in some way...like $5 in free books from the Book Fair or some other small thank you gift.  Showing your appreciation is not only the polite and right thing to do, but it will ensure that you have ready volunteers in the future.

6)  Plan some type of family event.  We do a family event at night so that parents who can't come during the day can visit/shop.  We are planning a STEM night for this Book Fair.  We did the same kind of thing in November and it was a big hit.  The kids loved having something to take home with them and parents were in a good mood to shop afterwards because their kids were happy.  It's a win-win!

7)  Promote!  Promote!  Promote!  Hang posters a few weeks before. Talk it up to your classes that come through the Media Center to build up excitement.  Make announcements in the morning.  You could even have students do some type of skit if you have video announcements.  Send home notes. I even do a calling post that goes out to all the families in our school telling about the Book Fair and the family event.  It really does make a difference.

Source

8)  Purchase the Book Fair thematic decorating kit.  It is worth your sanity to spend the $49.95.  Plus it would cost much more to buy those items at a party store, not to mention the time it would take to track down those items.

9)  Hang up the poster string (if you display posters that way) before setting anything up.  It is much easier to get the ladder where you need it to be when Book Fair shelves are not in the way.

10) Put smaller items and books that come with other items up front to make it easy to keep an eye on those items that might otherwise "disappear."

11)  If your school is an AR school, label books with AR levels and points the day before your preview.  This helps students and parents find appropriate books and might save you some time during the fair of having to look it up.  You can do this using AR BookFinder or the new Scholastic Book Fair app.  It is available both on iTunes and Google Play for Android devices.  I did find that the Book Fair app didn't always work.   That might be an issue that can be fixed with an update.  It is a pretty cool app when it works and shoppers can download the app, too, for their use.

12)  Get plenty of rest before the Book Fair starts.  You will need it!

The theme for this Book Fair is Book Fair Fiesa.

When I taught first grade...years ago...we had a unit on Mexico, so I pulled out some of my ideas from that unit for decorations and made the doors look like pinatas.

Here's the classroom wishlist board.

And here's the "Doodad" board. Thanks to Jennifer Underhill of the Three Ring Library blog for this idea.  I've used it for 4 Book Fairs now and it has been so helpful.

Source

The spring Book Fair decorating kit (2014) comes with a serape and a double side photo prop.  I found a free app called BoothStache to take pictures of students with fun mustaches behind the photo prop or they could wear the serape.  How fun is that?

I will also be doing Valentine Grams again this year.  This is an idea that has been used by many Media Specialists in my county. You can get a copy of the form here.  Parents and grandparents buy a book from the Book Fair on the sly and fill out a special note to go with the book.  I wrap it up and deliver it with a special treat on Valentine's Day.  So fun!

I love Book Fair week, especially how it makes the Media Center smell.  Ahhh!  Someone should bottle that smell and sell it as air freshener.  Anyway, that's how our Book Fair fiesta is going down.

Do you have any Book Fair tips to share?