Did you know that April is School Library Month? Here are 7 ideas on how you can incorporate school library month into your classroom.
- D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read) day. Pick your own date and hold a Drop Everything and Read day! Have a block of time that everyone (including staff) just reads. Stage a read-in where students wear pajamas and get cozy while reading!
- Host a “Book tasting”. Librarians are always happy to give suggestions on less-well-known books that your students may enjoy! Learn more about a book tasting here! There is also a digital genre book tasting seesaw activity available in the Seesaw library.
- Introduce book snaps to your students! Tara Martin created book snaps with the idea that students can document their key takeaways from reading by creating a visual digital representation of their thoughts. She mixed together the popularity of snapchat along with favorite quotes to create this multimedia project. While we aren’t advocating the use of Snapchat in the classroom, Booksnaps are a fun and powerful way to get students reflecting on text, and a great way to get their “thinking voice” visible! Let students truly engage with annotating text in a way that is relevant and timely. Learn more from Tara, here. Elementary teachers, you can find a simple book snap activity on seesaw, as well.
- Create book trailers in Clips for your favorite book and include QR codes to virtually display them in the library. Here is a lesson from Read-Write-Think about creating and using book trailers in your classroom.
- Hold an April Read-a-thon! Create a large bar graph on your wall and track students progress towards their individual reading goals. Track number of books or even number of pages. Encourage students to set a challenging, but reachable goal. By setting their own goals, students will not feel overwhelmed if one student has read significantly more than they have, because all you are seeing is progress towards personal goals. Learn how one teacher held a one day read-a-thon, here. Please note: this example was held after school; we are not encouraging you to work outside your contract hours so as always, modify it to fit your needs.
- April 30 is El día de los niños (Childrens Day). Watch interviews with celebrated Hispanic and Latino children’s book authors and illustrators, found here. You can find book lists that include latino and spanish-language favorites, hispanic celebrations, and even Latinas that made a difference.
- Hold a poster contest. Invite students to design a poster that creatively promotes the school library. Students can digitally create this in Pages, or create it on paper!
Need a new read aloud for your classroom?
Browse the Indiana Read Aloud list for suggestions!
Library flickr photo by morberg shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license
