Listen. Connect. Empower.

I was honored and humbled to be interviewed by Amy Hermon for her fabulous podcast School Librarian's United.   Our initial conversations revolved around the topic of nonfiction which is near and dear to my heart. This post is a departure from my traditional blogging of a lesson or a unit that happened in our library, rather it is a compilation of thoughts and activities about nonfiction.  Here we go! How our library supports what is happening in classrooms. And the data to prove it. #msla #tlchat #UAELibrarians pic.twitter.com/37DDP3q4tU — Wendy Garland (@dancelibrarian) January 17, 2020 The #nonfiction section of our library. Can you tell the entire school is reading nonfiction books? Shelves are very empty. What remains is an unorganized disaster. I love it! They are reading! #msla #tlchat pic.twitter.com/NsgI9aKyih — Wendy Garland (@dancelibrarian) January 17, 2020 This was my January.  Nonfiction books were flying off the shelves.  Students were reading

I just love it when multiple ideas/concepts come together.  Our coding experience was an example of that this year. We have been celebrating the Hour of Code for the last 7 years.  I love the problem solving and teamwork I see when students code.  However,  I have been struggling with where and how this fits into our library program.  It was feeling like an isolated unit that didn't authentically fit.  I was inspired at #AASL19 by  Ashley Cooksey's  work and how she integrated picture books and coding.  I decided this was the year for change.  I used the month of December to read diverse picture books and problem solve (code). Diverse picture books for coding Wendy Garland's favorite books » Share book reviews and ratings with Wendy, and even join a book club on Goodreads. Why? One of my goals for the year was to audit books chosen to read aloud to students for diverse gender, ethnicity,