Weeding, Weeding, and Wedding Some More

Whew!  There's nothing like weeding books to wear a Media Specialist out, unless it's administering a state test all week.  Yes, this week is state testing in my county.  The mornings will be filled with testing, testing, testing.  So my afternoons will be left to open checkouts. I decided to use the time I would normally devote to planning lessons to cleaning up the shelves, but I couldn't wait so I started weeding last week.  It seems like weeding has been my theme this year.  I have weeded so many books that I am afraid we won't meet the minimum number of books per student required by the state if I keep going.  So, fingers crossed, I think I am done for a bit.

Here are some pictures of all the weeding I've done this year. 

I began the summer weeding any books that had hand written spine labels,

a sure sign that the book was waaaay past its prime.

I ended up with two tables full of books which I offered up for grabs to teachers.

Most of the books went unclaimed, but some found a new home in a classroom.

Here is a small stack of books that I weeded last week.  I've also weeded a few more smaller stacks throughout the year, but didn't think to take pictures of those stacks.

All told, I've weeded almost a thousand books this year.
Here are the official stats of how much I've weeded this year:

I've come across some real doozies during this whole process.  Here are some of my favorites.

Something about the title of this book makes me giggle.  I hear it THOSE people in Washington! *eye roll*

Um, yeah.  Who wears white gloves any more?  Too funny!

While I am sure there is some good information in this biography about Johnny Cash, I am sure that there is a much better, updated biography to replace this one.

Ditto for this biography about Dolly Parton.

Gotta love the hairdos in the book, though.

The pictures in these books from the '70s had me rolling.  

I am sure I had friends who wore these clothes when we were growing up, but they seem too funny now.

And here's a great one from Mr. Rogers.

Here's a great one for Earth Day.  Love those '90's white jeans!

Here's a whole set of some groovy books, at least they were groovy at one point in time.  The last book might raise some eyebrows today with the picture on the front.  Time to update the 700's.

Love that you can see what groceries looked like back in the '70s on the cover of this book.

What struck me looking through this book was how short the dresses were.  I am sure that I wore short dresses, too, but wow!

This book reminded me of School House Rock....

...complete with retro cartoons!  But I am not sure today's patrons would appreciate them as much as I do.

This book about obedience had me wondering if the author was comparing children to dogs. Hmmm.

There were a few more, but I think you get the jest of it.  I think I might have to submit some of these to Awful Library Books.  LOL

Maybe it's because Earth Day is quickly approaching or maybe it's just because I am a Book Bug, but I feel bad that most of these books won't ever be used again and have been looking into ways to reuse or repurpose these books.  Here are some ideas I've come across in other blogs as well as on Pinterest.

Saw this cute idea on Bookshelf  for a Book Nook made out of weeded library books.

Craftberry Bush has a cute idea for making a pumpkin from an old book.  I've also seen apple variations of this same concept.

Rock Star Diaries shows how to make a book tree from an old book.

I enjoying making my own greeting cards, and this idea from Sweetly Scrapped for making envelopes is genius!  Thank you notes for parent volunteers would look great in these.

You can find more ideas for reusing old books on this post on Cathy Nelson's Professional Thoughts.  The art that students at her school made from old books is amazing!  She mentions Dianne Cordell's Pinterest board.  I also saw that Fran Bullington has a similar Book/Craft Ideas Pinterest Board.  I started following these boards and hope to begin my own board of similar ideas soon.

So where do your weeded books end up?

New Pinterest Boards

So I had a bad case of insomnia the other night, or maybe I just had my days and nights mixed up after being off a week for Spring Break. But in any case, I stayed up waaaay late the other night and created a couple of new Pinterest Boards.

The first board is for librarian blogs that I follow and thought others might enjoy following them, too.  Hey, maybe I pinned yours!  I am adding to it as I find new library blogs.  If you know of any I missed, let me know and I'll add it.  You can check it out here.

The next board idea, I "borrowed" from another blogger, Charity Preston of the Organized Classroom Blog, who borrowed the idea from another blogger herself.  It's a "READ ME FIRST" board to let people get to know who I am.  I have pinned information about myself and my boards as well as some of the online things I have going on.  If you're interested, you can check it out here.  I thought it was a neat idea.  Feel free to "borrow" it, too.

Those are the only two new boards that are library related, but I do have some older boards that you might enjoy as well.

SLMS Organization is a board filled with library organization ideas.

MC lessons is a board that contains ideas for library lessons.

Book Care is a board all about teaching book care.  I thought it was an important enough topic to warrant it's own board, although, admittedly there are only 4 pins currently.

Ditto for my Finding Just Right Books and Dewey Ideas boards.

I started a Library Center Ideas board after I discovered Cari's The Centered School Library blog.  In fact, the first pins came from Cari's blog. Love her stuff!

I am always looking for interesting and new ways to highlight books so I stared a Book Promos board.

My school LOVES Accelerated Reader.  So I started an AR board to help me keep the fresh ideas flowing.

When I come across some neat posters that I think would look good in the Media Center I pin it the Posters for MC board.

I also have a MC Decor board.

One of my favorite boards is my Bookmark board.  Whenever I come across free and/or cute bookmarks, I pin them onto this board.

My Educational Technology, iPads in Education, and QR Codes Lessons and Activities boards aren't directly related to the Media Center necessarily, but you may find something on them to be helpful.

Please feel free to repin, comment, like, or follow any of my pins or boards.  If you need an invite to Pinterest, just shoot me an email by clicking on my signature below.  I'll email you back with the invite details.

Hope you find something you like!  =)

AR Party Time

I can't believe we are in the last weeks of school already.   This year has flown by!  In fact, we just got finished celebrating with our third AR party of the year.  That means only one more to go.  I've got to start planning the last party of the year because it will be here before I know it.

I've done three parties so far this year.  Everything had a "bug" theme because the MC theme this year was "Catch the Reading Bug."  The kids that met their 3 AR goals (quiz average, point goal, and book level goal) were allowed to attend the party.

Student who earned the most points in their class recieve special recognition and get to choose a book of their own to keep.  I order several boxes of "bruised" books from Scholastic for this purpose.

For the first nine weeks, I kept the party short and sweet.  I called it a "Bug Bakery" party.  Each student that attended got 2 chocolate chip cookies and a small container of icing to spread on the cookie.  They were able to decorate the cookie with "bug" sprinkles which I found at Walmart because it was around Halloween.  For the most part, I think the kids enjoyed it, although I think they wished that there had been a bit more to it.

For the second nine weeks, we watched a "bug" themed movie and ate popcorn.   Fourth and fifth graders weren't too crazy about that one and many chose not to attend the party.  Bummer.

So I tried to make this last party a little more exciting.  I did a "Buggy Carnival."  I bought several carnival games from Oriental Trading and I bought a few other things at the Dollar Tree and Target.

Each student got 5 tickets and a little bag to keep their prizes in.  I bought the tickets at Wal-Mart and the bags at Dollar Tree.  I got the prizes from Oriental Trading and also bought candy.  I am glad I got the candy because the older kids perferred the candy to the prizes.  They had to use 1 ticket to play each game and once thier tickets were gone, they went back to class.

Spider Pants was the first game.  They had to throw plastic spiders into the plastic pants.  They got 6 spiders.  3 in won them a prize.

Next up was Bug Bounce.   They had to bounce 3 out of 8 ping pong balls (decorated with bug stickers) in tothe bug cups to win a prize.

Spin a Prize or Spin the Wheel was a popular game.  All the kids had to do was spin the wheel.  If the wheel landed on candy, they got a piece of candy.  If it landed on prize, they got a prize.  Some of the kids got in line multiple times to play it.  Worth the $20.00 I spent on it.

On the same table next to the Spin a Prize game there was the Disk Drop game.  Students got 4 disks.  Whatever the disk landed on was their prize.  Once they won a prize the game was over, but they got 4 chances to win. 

Students used rings to toss onto the spider legs at Spider Ring Toss.  They only had to get one on to win a prize.

At the Bean a Book game, students used 3 bean bags to throw them at "books."  If they got one in, they won a prize.  These were $3.99 each on Oriental Trading and they came with the bean bags.  What a deal!

The last game was Bug Bowling.  Students used bowling balls I decorated with bug stickers to knock down pins.  1-5 pins down won them a piece of candy.  6-9 pins down won them a prize and all 10 pins down won them candy and a prize.  The set was $9.99 at CVS, but I saw a similar, colorful set for $6.99 at Wal-Mart.

For this last party, I am going to do a Bug Bingo party.  Because the upper grade kids don't seem to be so much into the "bug" prizes, I am going to use some Scholastic Dollars to buy boxes of bruised books and use those as prizes.  I also have tons of candy left over from the carnival that I can use for prizes. I bought some bingo chips from Oriental Trading (I should get some kind of discount with as much business as I've given them this year...LOL) and I found a neat website that generates bug bingo cards that I will print off and laminate.  If you're interested, you can find that site here.

In addition to parties at the end of each 9 weeks, I have also been recognizing the student in each grade level who has read the most words in AR books each month. These students get their picture taken and placed on a special wall in the MC.  There seems to be a bit of a competition going on with a few of the second graders, so it's been kind of fun waiting to see who will be the Reader of the Month at the end of each month.

To wrap up the year, awards will be given out on Awards Day for those students in 2nd-5th who have earned at least 100 points.  Special recogintion will also be given to students who have the top 3 point earners in each grade level.  And finally, students who have read 1,000,000 words in AR books will get to go to a special lunch and ride in a limo.  (I hope I get to chaperon that one!)

It's been a fun year of reading and I really hope that the kids have enjoyed celebrating all that they have accomplished in Accelerated Reader.  I am already planning what I can do next year to make it even better.

Do you do AR in your MC?  If so, how to you celebrate your kiddos' accomplishments in AR?  I'd love to hear about it.

The Book Bug on FB

That's right!  I finally got around to making a Facebook page for the Book Bug.  Now you can follow all the book fun while conversing with your other FB friends.  Check out the fan page here.  And, if you like what you see, please "Like" the Book Bug. Thanks!