Magazine Dilemma

Honest truth: I'm not a big magazine person. I've been putting off dealing with our magazine collection because I don't read them and I don't have any idea where to begin. 

We have several subscriptions targeted at adults, but as far as I know we don't have any teachers that use them. I'm probably going to be paring that selection down. On the other hand I'm looking at student focused subscriptions and looking at expanding that section. I'm thinking maybe even some comic books might need to be added. 

My question is what do you do with old magazines. I have stacks and stacks. I tend to be a hoarder. Do I keep them in a makeshift archive? Do I get rid of them because they are dated? We've tried giving them away before, but I rarely think teachers grab them to use. 

What do you guys do with old magazines? What subscriptions do you have that kids love?

Book Looks

During summer school I really wanted to see what my kiddos know about using the library, finding books, and understanding what there is to enjoy about the library. They have the knowledge, but they need more practice. 

Of course you always have kids that say they don't like reading. I know so many adults who hated reading as kids and then found a book or series they enjoyed and it encouraged them to keep reading. Harry Potter is a great example of that. So how do we get kids to see different books?

First, I pulled out a piece of butcher paper and had each class write down all the things they enjoy watching on tv. I made sure to tell them it could be anything. Even things that aren't school appropriate as long as the title wasn't inappropriate. The paper was full of different things from sports games to movies to YouTube videos. 

After that we talked about how for everything we like to watch there are probably similar books. Before class I purposely pulled books that fit a specific theme (i.e. Magic, space, cars, horror, sports, travel, cooking, etc). I had ten different stacks of books and only two or three students at each stack. I put a timer on and they had 3 minutes to read the backs of books, flip through, and check to see if there was anything that sounded interesting. At the end they flipped over the butcher paper and wrote down two or three books they were interested in. 

I had a lot of students who thought there was nothing interesting that were begging to check out books right then. 

Big Change!

So if you've followed this blog you know I'm a third grade teacher. At least I was. This year I've accepted the position as our elementary school librarian! I am so excited I can't even begin to tell you! Right now I'm in the process of transitioning, taking over the AR program, and teaching summer school. I happen to be in the library for summer school and I'm really enjoying trying out some ideas and seeing what knowledge our students have and where we need additional work. Over the next few weeks I'll be posting lessons we've been doing in the library.