Thursday, May 20, 2010

RIF and Scholastic Book Fair


Whew, am I tired tonight. Sponsoring a RIF distribution and a Scholastic Book Fair on the same day makes for one exhausted librarian. But the day was a success! Almost 700 students received free books in our final RIF (Reading is FUNdamental) distribution for the school year and we sold almost $700 on our first day of the book fair...not bad for a Title I school!

Coming up next week, I will be offering an activity, book and movie to each grade level in order to work with the students one last time. Fifth grade will be reading A Picture Book of Anne Frank, watching "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas", and creating butterflies to be shared with the Houston Holocaust Museum. The museum is trying to collect enough paper butterflies to represent each child killed during the Holocaust. Fourth grade will be reading Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, watching the movie "Hiroshima Maidens" and making origami cranes. Third grade will be reading Aunt Harriet and the Underground Railroad and will watch "The Quest for Freedom: the Harriet Tubman Story" and second grade will read A Picture Book of Helen Keller and watch the movie "Helen Keller: Tragedy to Triumph". I have always enjoyed being able to share the stories of these heroic women and look forward to working with our students one last time this spring.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Rags to Riches: Book Recycling

One of the sessions at the annual conference of the Texas Library Association was entitled "Rags to Riches: Book Recycling for Fun, Fashion and Furniture". I had planned to attend a different session so just ran into Rags to Riches for a minute before my session began next door. The presenters had some adorable ways of recycling books into usable, decorative items. This was one time I wish I could have been two places at one time because I would have loved to hear more uses for old books as I am weeding my library with great abandon and have boxes of weeded rags that I would love to turn into riches! Here are a couple of pictures of some little tea pots I purchased. There is a little story as to why I purchased tea pots...some of the books were cut into cowboy boots, the shape of our great state, and other things. But I chose the tea pot shape because months ago Paul's mom, May, sent me some money to buy a tea pot. She had been shopping there in Ohio and had bought old timey tea pots for her other daughters-in-law. Thoughtfully, she had sent money so I could get myself a tea pot. I had looked in Ruidoso and Cloudcroft and other places when we have taken weekend trips but hadn't found the "right" tea pot til I saw these tea pots cut from books...the perfect librarian's tea pot! I bought one for myself, green of course, and one for May. Today I took a day off from school with allergies and laryngitis and I spent my day doing some of the things I love but never have time to do. I jazzed up May's tea pot with a few flowers and have been trying to decide whether to paint my tea pot, too. Take a look!