Tag Archives: pragmatic mom

How To Hour

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How To Hour Follow Up

Thank you to the parents who attended How To Hour in the Library on Friday. To follow up on some things we discussed, below is more information for you.

While we don’t have a list of recommended reading lists for each grade level in the library, that is not because they don’t exist. We don’t actively promote them as our philosophy is that when students are in the library, they are guided in book choice firstly by what they choose to read, with ample guidance from me as their librarian, Ms Stella and Ms Joji and from 2nd-5th grade, their classroom teacher who is an active participant during this check out period.

Book lists for children of all ages are plentiful on the internet. Here are some of my go-to sites for such things:

Pernille Ripp https://pernillesripp.com/our-favorite-books/

Pragmatic Mom https://www.pragmaticmom.com/

A Mighty Girl https://www.amightygirl.com/books

Nerdy Book Club https://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/category/book-lists/

Picture Book Blogger https://picturebooksblogger.wordpress.com/

Imagination Soup https://imaginationsoup.net/book-recommendations-age/

What do we do all day https://www.whatdowedoallday.com/books-for-kids

Book Display Ideas

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My Instagram Account has many shots of favorite books and displays:

https://www.instagram.com/barefootlibrarian/

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While on instagram, type in #bookdisplay It is always best to type # in singular, rather than plural, eg #bookdisplay has over 3,000 posts, whereas #bookdisplays has only 300.

When you find some great displays you like, check out that person’s account and see if they are worth following. Also, click on your favorite book displays and see what other # they have used.

You’ll probably turn up tags like #booksuggestion #bookstagram #bookchallenge #instabook and one of my favorites #bookishrainbow

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Here is a post I wrote about using instagram to promote new books http://sites.saschina.org/kpower/2014/11/04/using-instagram-to-promote-new-books/

I like bringing outside elements in to enhance displays, and I’ve done that here with some creations made by students, which I then matched with Roger Hargreaves Little Miss and Mr Men books http://sites.saschina.org/kpower/2014/10/16/fantastic-fun-with-bump-nosey-and-tickle/

I’ve also linked to many of the people I’m mentioning here, on this post. Once you discover a few of these “one stop shops” for finding new books, book lists and great displays, you can rest easy that they’ll always have something for you http://sites.saschina.org/kpower/2014/04/30/list-lovers-of-the-world-unite/

My favorite blogs for inspiration and EXCELLENT book lists include:

http://www.pragmaticmom.com/ check out Mia’s Children’s and YA booklists link, and you really can’t go past her http://www.pragmaticmom.com/booklists/ List of Lists: All My Booklists

Melissa from Imagination Soup is a great one to follow on twitter and pinterest too, here is one of my favorite lists from her http://imaginationsoup.net/2014/11/07/nonfiction-books/ I’m sure you’ll also like her book recommendations by age http://imaginationsoup.net/book-recommendations-age/ 

Here’s one last link I recently stumbled upon: http://clrsig.org/nbgs_books.php which contatins some great book suggestions for our diverse makeup of students at the Children’s Literature and Reading Special Interest Group site.

 

 

Life Long Learning

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Speaking of life-long learning….I am learning that I am spending WAY more time reading wonderful blogs these days, than I am trying to build my own blog. When I first began blogging in 2006, I had a captive audience (of eighteen!!!) students AND their parents, (wow, we’re up to nearly 60 now) including my principal, oh and my mother of course!

While I’d love my blog to have a wider readership now that I am working with more like 1,000 people a week once you add students, parents, staff and a few of you ‘out there’; I’m starting to realise I don’t have the skills to engender a decent ‘fan-base’… My writing has not been good enough to warrant people coming back for more; I lack regularity and focus, and I don’t express my opinion as much; I deliver information, but I sit on the fence about it.

One of the places I head to first when looking for book ideas is to Mia at Pragmatic Mom as she always has so many excellent lists. There are also of course masters I’ve followed for a long time like Mr. Schu at Watch. Connect. Read and Colby Sharp and the great gang of four, Donalynn Miller, Cindy Minnich, Katherine Sokolowski and Colby Sharp over at Nerdy Book Club. I LOVE reading these blogs and many others, I spend hours a week reading reviews, learning about new books, perusing best book lists and watching great book trailers and author interviews.

So this paragraph should be about my new goals, how I am going to make my ‘Rocky-style’ comeback and start delivering, start fresh, begin again and be better and brighter than I was back in my 2008 blogging hey-day. Nahhhhhhh, just can’t get my head around it right now.

I’m totally nuts over reading the other amazing posts people have to offer, and at some point, the urge will come to become one of them. Until then…

Check out these great photos from the library this month. We’ve been having a ball promoting Newbery and Caldecott like crazy; chatting, sharing, reading and tallying our results…Voting started today and finishes Monday (American Sunday) in time to be calculated and announced after the big reveal on February 2nd.

http://videonew.saschina.org/player/pak_player/pakplayer.swf?config=http%3A%2F%2Fvideonew.saschina.org%2Fplayer%2Fpak_player%2Fembed_player.php%3Fvid%3D11549%26json%3Dtrue%26autoplay%3Dno

List Lovers of the World Unite

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As a librarian, I’m constantly recommending books.

I clearly remember my first day working in the library (I’d been a 5th grade classroom teacher for 7 years at SAS, and a High School and Middle School English teacher in Australia for a decade before that). All of a sudden, it was expected that I had read EVERYTHING that ever existed, because, hey, I was a librarian! In the early days I admit lying a little, the odd fib here and there “Yes, I’ve read it” “Oh, I know which book you mean” “Mmmmm, I loved that series” because otherwise I felt so ignorant; I had NOT read all the books people were asking about because hey, I’m only human!

A couple of years into my new role, I have read many more books, and have not read many, many, many others. I have several ‘go-to’ sites that I couldn’t live without… sites where others have painstakingly gone through blog after blog, and compiled list after list of great books. I feel grateful towards these sites every single day. They help me help the students walk away with books just right for them. Thank You Bloggers.

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Mia Wenjen is a PragmaticMom you need to keep an eye on if you want to be up to date on the best of the best that is out there… whether she’s compiling book-lists about responsibility, a collection of authors on a theme or books for advanced readers, there is something for everyone.

I love Travis Jonker’s 100 scope notes where you can find all manner of information, I especially love reading this blog around ALA award time. Linked are some of the great lists I follow with this blog during the year.

Melissa Taylor’s Imagination Soup is another great blog that both Amy Hossack and I turn to for all sorts of tech and library ideas. I ordered books based on one of her chapter book lists just today.

The Horn Book is another tried and true location for finding books, based on all manner of topics such as St. Patrick’s Day and the Olympics; I do love reading their reviews.

I’ve only just discovered this gem through a friend on twitter, From the Mixed up Files of Middle-Grade Authors is a goldmine for the avid reader. I must have been living under a rock to not know about this blog…