Our new librarian just approached me about the PTO making thematic bags for the library. These sets consist of a draw string back (the material having to do with the theme of the contents), several books, activity sheets, and a manipulative (such as as a toy or puzzle.) For instance, the bag is made of Christmas material and contains 3 Christmas/winter themed books, holiday activity sheets, and a plush snowman. Or the material is purple with stars, a Harry Potter book, activity sheets and a magic kit. She plans on having all the contents itemized and the list is attached to the bag. She said these were great hits at her last school and I thought it was a great idea. :cool:

Here's a cute idea to add to the books in the library.... How about a birthday book club. Have the libriarian make a list of suitable books for purchase to distribute to the parents. Anyone interested can (on or around the child's birthday), purchase a book in that child's honor. The child will have his name printed in the front of the book and be able to check the book out first, then it goes back to the library for other children to check out.
Tricia

Hi "into my kids"!:
2 of my kids have been fortunate to go to a brand new school (K-5) for the past 2 years. We have a beautiful library, a lot of new books and a wonderful librarian!
1. Jazz it up with artwork: Student artwork is continually on display at our library. Generally it's sculptures and shadow boxes-projects in shoeboxes... Kids love to see all the work and love to have theirs displayed. What about a mural done each year by upper classes?
2. Trivia: Occasionally our librarian will offer a trivia question pertaining to a book during the morning announcements with one winner per class or the question geared towards a grade.
3. Reinforcing lessons: She adds to subjects that kids are presently learning. Some kids like this and some prefer the old library where all you did was look for a book the whole time...
4. Celebrating books, birthdays, special events: She's read stories and had kids reinact; author's birthdays have been celebrated and had upper grades write book reviews for lower grades (and related books). At Halloween she brought in logs, had everyone sit on the floor in a circle and turned out the lights for storytelling.
Hope I offered some useful information!
[img]smile.gif[/img]

We have at least 3 community reading days at our school. Since we are Title One I feel we can't have to many.

For our k-5 school our librarian would give a "scoop of ice cream" to a well behaved class after they got 10 scoops they received an ice cream party.

At the other elementary school and hopefully ours a retired teacher painted scenes on the wall. I think there was a jungle scene and of course wizardry is popular right now. I enjoyed looking at that so maybe you older kids could get into that too.

One time at a summer camp here they taped a bunch of plastic together put it around a fan, made some "doors" and everyone got in. You could do this and have the older kids to read to the younger ones.

For years the Freshman English teacher would have her students to write Halloween stories and we would go to an elementary and read our stories to the classes.

I just had a teacher ask me if I thought it to be appropraite to give her new parents a copy of her wish list from Amazon.com. My thinking was how can we do this for everyone!

This was also done by a public library in California as the goverment cut the entire budget for new books. Plus wouldn't it be great to have books in your school's library that were donated by your family.

Our church does a book club with our youth group and with the Harry Potter books it has really taken off! They even had a night everyone could come as their favorite character, shared snacks, won prizes for best costume. A great time!

Okay one more...how about the mayor or other public figure be invited to the school to read to the kids! Our mayor did this and donated the book to the school. (he read to the kindergarden)

Okay folks, that's all I have! [img]smile.gif[/img]
Tina

We do Scholastic book fairs as a way to get money for our library/media center. This year we provided close to $4000 in books and other materials through that fundraiser. The librarian even got great posters, tables and chairs, and other fun stuff to make the media center look really great.
As for ideas within the library, we have an area with comfy bean bag type chairs that kids can sit in and enjoy a book or audio tape. Some of the teachers use this area as a reward for students--you accomplish this goal you get to spend 15 minutes in the reading nook. During one book fair we had teachers, the principal, the superintendent and parents read stories to children. We also have a music library for the teachers. Several of our teachers use music in the classroom as a teaching aid or just for providing a calming atmosphere.

I'll be interested to see what other ideas get posted. Maybe we can perk up our library too.