Building a Library Community: Welcome!

Here we go! Every year I like to set the tone or create a mission to drive my planning and keep me focused.  This year's ... community and learning and being together

The opening weeks of our library year are dedicated to "Building a Library Community." During this time we will 

  • Set the tone of our library as a welcoming environment
  • Develop/review routines 
  • Create expectations

Welcoming environment

Oh, how I love/hate bulletin boards!  I love a meaningful/pretty bulletin board, but I just won't give up precious time to compete with Pinterest.  When there is no volunteer to step up, I fill them with student work.  This year I filled ours with some of the promises we made to each other after reading Lebron James' I Promise.  

Bulletin board: Building a Library Community

Paper strips that say I promise and a bucket to place completed work to hang up
Students wrote promises to themselves and could either take them home as bookmarks, or leave them in the bin to be hung up. (Consent is important - I don't want to hang something that they don't feel comfortable seeing on the wall).


Door of the library displaying welcome sign
The door shows you who your librarian is and that all are welcome here.

note to teachers with chocolate
I sent a reminder to teachers that the library is open first thing in the morning for students to choose books with guidance (if wanted). This makes our library program so much more dynamic than limiting a child's interaction to their "library time."  (Yes, I could have done this with an e-mail, but a note and CHOCOLATE would get their attention better than any e-mail would).


library brochure for families
I usually send a library brochure home to all 1st graders and new families, but this year I chose to send it home to ALL families. We haven't had a "typical" library year in a long time.  

My Takeaways

The last 18 months were hard.  Returning to a school building and routine that feels very much like the one we left 18 months ago is even harder when so many folks just want to close the door on that trauma, put it behind us, pick up where we left off and move on. I can't do that. I want to respect our students and staff and give them what they need.  It looks different this year.  I am focused on going slow, building relationships, welcoming all, and gently walking through this return. I don't know where this year will us, but I do know that more than ever, I am watching and listening to my students so our library can be there for them when and where they need it. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Reading Identity: Who am I as a reader?

Image
This lesson was about making a visual representation of our reading selves.  We drew, we laughed, we learned about each other as readers, and started building a reading community.  We did this on a remote day.  *This was developed in conjunction with my brilliant colleagues.* Standards:  AASL: Inquire/Share I.C.1 . Interacting with content presented by others. I decided we needed a theme to tie a disjointed year together and settled on the question:  I spent much of my summer thinking about "identity" but needed a concrete landing place for those big, abstract thoughts.  I wondered what would happen if we thought about "identity" through a reading lens. We read Reading Makes You Feel Good We practiced looking at two options and showing our choice for where we like to read by holding up that number of fingers. Next, we moved on to our directed draw. When we were done drawing, we had a big reveal.  Students were tasked with looking for someone with ...
Read more

Circulation Policies in our Library

Image
Developing relationships with students and families is my priority. I want them to have what they need from our library, but I also want (and need) them to respect our library and other students and return books so others can borrow them. Lost books are a reality. We lose MANY of them (too many of them) because it isn't something I spend much time or energy dwelling on. My hope is that the "lost" book has found its way into a home and is being loved there. However, this is something that has been increasingly on my mind. This past summer I read Rebeka Barringer's Knowledge Quest article  “How Inclusive and Human-First Circulation Policies & Practices Can Impact a Child’s Relationship with Elementary Library Spaces” (Nov/Dec 2022) and it spoke to me. It made me think about the language used to communicate with families student buy-in (or lack thereof) in the circulation of books I decided on action items for this year to address lost books: Help students underst...
Read more

Books as mirrors and windows (with sticky notes & reflections)!

Image
Every year I examine books as mirrors and windows with my students.  Every year I tweak the exploration and this year was no different.  This year's additions included sticky notes and reflections.   Day 1: Mirror moments Sticky notes I created with Tony Vincent's template (link below) After modeling mirror moments (and having students make "me too" signals), students identified a mirror moment from a stack of books at their table.  "This is like my sister and I.  We fight all the time." - 3rd grader "When my mom tells me to clean my room I just sit because I don't know where to start." - 3rd grader Day 2: Window moments In the next class I modeled "window moments" and we drew windows in the air when we heard moments that were "not like us."   Students identified "window moments" at their tables with sticky notes. Students shared their "window moments" through the window we passed around our sharing circl...
Read more