Sites to Order "Bookish" Tees

Over the years, I've collected a lot of "bookish" tees.  I thought I would share some of my favorite sites to purchase these fun tees from.

Out of Print is one of THE BEST sites to find "bookish" tees. They offer licensed tees of characters like Elephant and Piggie and Harry Potter as well as a "book nerd" collection and a library collection.

A fairly well-known place to order tees is Cafe Press.  They offer a wide variety of designs and styles, but those styles don't stick around forever, so if you see something you like, you have to get it right then.

Here are some of my favorite purchases from Cafe Press. You may or may not be able to find these now as I purchased them all several years ago. But there are still many fun designs to choose from.

A few years ago, I came across Elementary Library Mama on Instagram. She has an awesome librarian tee shop that offers many different styles and colors. The one pictured above is one of my favorites.  I often wear it on Fridays for Makers Club meetings.  You can find it HERE.

Erin Flanagan of Erintegration started a new tee company last year called Digital Identiee.  Her shirts are technology based, but if you have a MakerSpace in your library/media center, you might enjoy her tees.

This is one of my favorites.  You can find it HERE on Etsy.

Happy Noodle Designs is a newer company I found on Instagram that offers a ton of cute teacher and  "bookish" tees, and they often offer a discount if you are following them on Instagram.  You can find their store HERE.

THIS is one of my recent purchases.  Shipping was super fast and the quality of the shirt is top notch.

Another fun site I learned about on IG is Keen Bee Studio. She sells on Etsy and on her own shop.  You can find her store HERE.

THIS is on e of my favorite designs from KeenBee.

One of my favorite sites to order tees from isn't even a literary company.  TeeTurtle has an awesome collection of licensed tees- everything from Disney and Star Wars to Marvel and Deadpool.  And many times they have characters shirts that show a love a reading. These tees are a great way to start a conversation about reading with your students who are fans of some of these characters.

I got this Belle shirt from TeeTurtle. This design is no longer available, but there is another version. You can view it HERE.

What are your favorite sites to order bookish tees?

Lots of Fun Ways to Celebrate Reading in February!

I can't believe it's almost February already! There are so many ways to celebrate reading in February.  Here are just a few that things that I've done in the past.

I always try to decorate the media center each month with a theme. These fun book signs are perfect for Valentine's Day and they are FREE in my TpT store. Click HERE to download them.  I would love your feedback on them.

My kiddos LOVE, LOVE, LOVE bookmarks, so I always make sure to put out new ones each month. You can snag some free Valentine's Day bookmarks in my TpT store HERE.

Or if you want more variety, you can purchase this bigger pack HERE.

Red and White Shelf Order Center

Red and White Call Number Sorting Center

Sometimes I like to have my kiddos practice shelf order. These fun red and white shelf order and call number centers are perfect for that.  They also work for Read Across America centers. 

Last year, I started celebrating Love to Read Month and created this fun pack to help with that.  It includes bulletin board ideas as well as center ideas and signs.  You can purchase it HERE in my TpT store.

Here's a picture of a bulletin board I created last year to highlight the best loved books in our media center for the year.  The signs (minus the pictures of the books) used to create this bulletin board are included in the Love to Read Month pack.

Some of the centers included in the Love to Read Month pack include this ABC order center that comes with directions and an answer key...

An I Spy center that comes with directions, an answer sheet and words you can print and hide in bottles of colored rice...  (To see directions on how to create an I Spy bottle, click HERE.)

A Book Words center that includes directions and an answer sheet (you will need to purchase extra items for this center including magnetic letter tiles and a metal cookie sheet)...

Create a bookmark which includes a direction sign, just add coloring tools and strips of blank paper...

And Name That Book which comes with a directions sign, guessing slips and a sign for the top of the jar that the book scraps are placed in.  For this center, you will need to shred pages of a weeded book and place them in a clear container.

I've recently created a SUPER bundle of all of these resources to help you save. This bundle includes the Valentine's Day themed display signs, bookmarks, the Love to Read Month pack, and both the red and white call number and shelf order centers.  Click HERE to check it out.

And checkout my Pinterest board full of other fun ways to celebrate the love of reading during February.

How do you celebrate reading in February?

Happy 2020!

It's a new year and time for a fresh start!  To kick off the new year, I always put out some fun new bookmarks.

You can snag these FREE bookmarks in my TpT store by clicking HERE.  Included are 2 different bookmarks (4 to a page).  One page is in color and one is in black and white.

If you like those bookmarks and want more, you can purchase the whole pack HERE in my TpT store.  This pack comes with 24 bookmarks- 12 in color and 12 in black and white for your friends to color.

Hope these fun items get your New Year off to a great start!

GaETC Goodies!

GaETC19 was, as always, a fun time of learning and mingling with my media specialist peeps.  There were some awesome presenters this year, and I left with tons of ideas to bring back to my school.

I was also honored to present two sessions at this year's conference.   The first session was one on MakerSpaces.  If you were unable to attend or want to just relive the moment (LOL), you can download the handout HERE.  You will find a link to the presentation (view only mode) on page 4 of this handout.

The second session was inspired by a blog post I wrote a few years ago about my favorite apps to use in the media center.  You can read that blog post HERE.  You can download the handout for this session HERE. Again, you will find a link to the presentation (view only mode) on page 2 of this handout.

If you attended either session, I would love for you to fill out the survey within the AttendeeHub app.  This will give the conference planners information about how the sessions went.  Thanks for leaving your feedback and thanks for attending one or both sessions.  I hope that I will see you next year at GaETC20!

October is Cyber Safety Month

It's that time of year again-time to talk about Internet Safety. Really, this should be a topic to discuss all year long, but October is specially designated as Cyber Safety Month.  So my monthly lessons for 2nd-5th grade this month will cover this super important topic.  Here are some of the resources I use.

For these lessons, I use part of Common Sense Educations's free curriculum for educators.  

I also have a subscription to Nearpod.  Nearpod has partnered with Common Sense Media and offers a lite (read FREE) version of a Common Sense lesson for K-2 and 3-5.  You can find these resources and more on Nearpod HERE.

Common Sense Education also has free resources for Digital Citizenship week, coming up on October 14-18, 2019.  You can find those resources HERE.

Another great resource for Internet safety curriculum is Google's Be Internet Awesome.  Students can practice the skills they learn in these lessons with Google's Interland game.

For K and 1st, I recommend using  My Online Neighborhood, from Common Sense Education's YouTube channel.  You can find it HERE on YouTube.

To go along with this lesson, I made this Internet Safety freebie. Click HERE to download it from TpT.

For 2nd grade, I really like using this free video on BrainPop Jr.  You can find it HERE on BrainPop Jr.

For 3rd grade, I use Super Digital Citizen from Common Sense Education.  You can find it HERE on Common Sense Educations' YouTube channel.

With 4th and 5th, I use Being Safe on the Internet from AMAZE.org  You can find it on the AMAZEorg YouTube Channel.

And this is a great video on cyberbullying from the Federal Trade Commission-yes, the Federal Trade Commission.  They actually have some fabulous Internet safety resources available.

The Federal Trade Commission runs a program called OnGuardOnline.  They offer FREE resources for parents and teachers.  I like to order copies of their NetCetra kits and give them out to parents during our Internet Safety night in September.

You can find more videos that I have used in the past on my blog by clicking HERE and HERE.

 

 

There are also some great Internet Safety games you can find online.  You can view some of the games I've used in the past by clicking HERE.  Please note, some of these games may no longer be active.

During this week in October, I put out these special Internet Safety bookmarks that I made a few years ago.  You can find the set of 32 bookmarks HERE in my TpT store. There are 16 bookmarks in color and 16 bookmarks in black and white for your students to color.

I also offer a free version, with 2 of the bookmarks in color and 2 in black and white for your students to color.  You can find this freebie HERE in my TpT store.

Whether you choose to celebrate Digital Citizenship week next week or to teach about digital citizenship at another time in the year, I hope you find some of these resources helpful.

First Checkout Friday

Our fall Book Fair was about a month ago and all of the new books we received are finally shelf ready, including three new copies of the latest Dog Man!

The problem is that there are 450 kids that all want to checkout those 3 copies.

So I decided to do a drawing for the chance to be the first to checkout one of the new Dog Man books.  I am calling it First Checkout Friday.

All week as classes visit the media center, students will be invited to fill out an entry form.

You can get a copy of the entry form HERE.  You will need to download it to save a copy.

I will draw the winner from all the entries on Thursday afternoon and the winner will be announced on Friday's morning announcements.

The classes that I told today were super excited and just about every student filled out a form. So there will be lots of entries for this First Checkout Friday.  I love how the excitement is building over getting to be the first to checkout the newest book of this favorite series!

Do you do anything special to get new, popular books out to your students?  Leave me a comment and let me know!