I Read...What's your Superpower?

After the juniors leave, we usually decorate the library for our end of year theme.  For the past 2 years, that has been a luau theme.  This year Karen talked us into a superhero theme. The only problem with that was our lack of decorations for the library.  So we went to Pinterest for inspiration and was not disappointed.  We found lots of good stuff to help us decorate and plan for our end of year party.

If your library is not doing an end of year party yet, I would highly recommend it.  This is our 3rd year to host such a party, and we think it is the perfect avenue to thank our current supporters and recruit new ones.

We call it our annual "Patron Appreciation Day."  It happens after school for one hour, and we invite our own students and staff.  In addition,we also invite our superintendent, other district administrators, school board members, and key community members such as the mayor, the public librarians, and city councilmen.

Weeks before the party, we set a date, order refreshments (this year we ordered cookies at Tom Thumb, but in the past we have ordered cakes at CostCo), set the guest list, and contacted our area public librarians, Barnes & Noble, and Half-Priced Books to ask them for summer reading promotional information they may have. We also solicited student projects from the teachers so we could showcase the students' hard work and provide an authentic audience for their products. In addition, we talked to the Guitar Club about being our live music during the event.

Then we decorated the library and designed our flyers that we planed to hang up around the school advertising our event.  For decorations, we used this website we found on Pinterest.  It had templates that we were able to use with an OPAC projector.  From those templates, we were able to create...

Batman

Green Lantern

 & The Flash

Our biggest decoration was a message about summer reading...

The inspiration for this banner came from a bulletin board we found on Pinterest. We used Superman duct tape for the border which also helped to weigh down the butcher paper.

The inspiration for our  book display to go with the theme was also found on Pinterest.  Here is what ours looked like...

Our flyer this year was created in Word.  After we acquired our principal's permission, they were hung all over the building using this cool Superman duct tape we found at Target.  The duct tape was quite the hit, and many of our signs were found on the floor because the kids were taking the duct tape for whatever reason.  It was my hope that the students actually read the flyer before stealing the duct tape.  :)

A week before the party, we confirmed the refreshments, talked to any of the librarians that hadn't sent us information about their summer reading, and followed up with the teachers who were bringing down student work.  Then we sent out a general email invite to the staff, district administrators, school board members, and community members.  We also submitted an announcement to be read during our morning announcements each day.  

2-3 days before the event, we picked out the crafts, downloaded the Superhero apps for our newly acquired iPad lab (which we have thanks to our best friend, Vicki Smith), and created the buttons "I read...What is your superpower" that we plan to give away during the party. I think the pin looks great, and it took Blanca quite a few hours to create that "R" in the middle using Paint.

For the crafts, we turned to Pinterest again...no surprise there. After much research, we decided to create masks and make Superhero Tootsie Roll Pops.  Here are the templates from the website for the crafts we did.

Superhero Tootsie Roll Pops-Template

Masks-Templates

A word to the wise about the iPads.  When you go into the settings, make sure you block the student's ability to download the apps.  Do not block the apps themselves.  That was our one hiccup; I put a bit too much security on the iPads, and I had to go back into them and allow the students to see the apps that I had downloaded.  Of course, we did not know this until the kids had their hands on the iPad in the middle of the party.  Also, Karen was stationed in this area duirng the party to make sure the students used the sign out sheet when they took an iPad.  She also took their student ID to ensure they would bring the iPad back.  It worked; not one iPad went missing.

The day of the party, Karen set up the tables and distributed the area public libraries' summer reading information.  We had information from the libraries of Duncanville, Dallas, DeSoto, Cedar Hill, & Grand Prairie.  We also had a table for our Book Club, Barnes & Noble, and Half-Priced Books. Here are 2 examples of the tables...

Duncanville Public Library

Barnes & Noble

On the day of the party, the teachers started bringing their student products as well, and we arranged them on the tops of our shorter shelves. For each set of products, we created a sign so the general audience would know the name of the project, the subject, and the teacher.  Here are just a few of the products we displayed...

Ms. Peter's Pre Calculus projects

Mr. Tahaney's Art Creatures

Ms. Simon's & Ms. Ellis' Shakespeare projects

An hour before the party, we set out the crafts, the food, moved the iPads into place and generally took care of the last minute details.  The guitar club brought down their instruments and started to set up for the concert.  We checked out each area of the library to make sure there was something to do or see.  

• Section A - summer reading programs from area libraries
• Section B - food and drink
• Middle of library - iPads, chess sets, and book check out
• Section C - crafts
• Section D - Guitar Club concert
• Shelves - student work

Of course we dressed for the occasion as well...

Our party was from 3-4pm last Thursday, and I think we were able to escort the last of the students out by 4:20.  We had hundreds of students, many faculty members, our Superintendent Dr. Ray, our Chief of Staff Mr. Chrietzberg, our CFO Mr. Kuehler, our Chief of Security, Mr. Woolery, our head of Technology Ms. Smith, the Mayor Ms. Hodge, one of our city councilmen Mr. Cooks, our Duncanville public librarian Ms. Hudson, and our Barnes and Noble rep Ms. Howell.  We had a great time, and I think the students did as well.

The day after the party, we sent out thank you emails to everyone who showed up.  To go with the thank you, we created a Vuvox collage with a few of the pictures from the event.

Overall, this party is a great way to solidify our relationship with the students, staff, and district administrators while forging new bonds with the school board and community members.  It never hurts to have a few more friends for your library.

See you next time!

National Library Week

We had a great time celebrating National Library week at the DHS Library!  Before I get into that, I did promise to tell you who won our "Battle of the Books" March Madness event.  By only 5 votes, the Outsiders by SE Hinton beat out Harry Potter.  That is not how I expected it to go, but that is what I love about this job...never a dull moment!

Now for National Library Week.  We took an idea from Pinterest (no surprise here), and created a scavenger hunt for the students.  Our prize was an ipod shuffle.  Actually we had 2 that were generously donated by a person who prefers to stay anonymous.  The original scavenger hunt created by Kyna Hockenberry  for her library's Teen Tech Week was our model...Link to Pinterest

Blanca emailed the librarian who gave us her explanation as to how she used it and her permission for us to adapt her idea.  One big modification for us was that we made the students keep up with the paper.  The librarian whose idea we stole was a public librarian, and she kept the student punch cards posted on a wall.  We were afraid we would have too many, or something would happen to them if they were on display.  So each student became responsible for his/her scavenger hunt board.  Here is what ours looked like ...

I created this in Publisher which didn't take as long as I thought it would.  I imported a picture of an iPhone, and then created the shapes over the top of the picture.  Then I added the text or pictures on top of the shapes.

Back to the event...the idea of our scavenger hunt was to have the students doing 3 things each day, and the person with the most punches would win the iPod shuffle.  As the student completed an activity, one of the librarians used a hole punch to mark the finish of the event.  If the student set foot in the library, we punched the 1st button, which was the day of the week.  If they introduced themselves to the librarian of the day, we punched the second button, and the third button each day had them doing something different.  On Monday, students had to check out a book.  On Tuesday, they had to follow us on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter.  On Wednesday, we had cupcakes in the library for all participants.  On Thursday, the students had to email, tweet, or FB us a picture of themselves reading.  We put the directions on the back of their iPhone sheet...(because who is going to remember all that!)

We left Friday off on purpose so that the students had the day to turn their iPhone into the library.  (Note: We used different hole punches, instead of just the round, so the students couldn't punch their own.  We had the "fancy" hole punches, like the butterfly, triangle, and square.)

We had a great time and plenty of participation.  We even met some students who had never been to the library before this week.  So I believe this event was a success! If we do this next year though, we should start with the cupcakes on Monday.  We had lots more participation after that event, but it was in the middle of the week. So the students starting on Wednesday didn't stand a chance of winning the iPod.

There were 9 students who finished all 12 activities.  Since there were only 2 iPods, we had a drawing.  Two lucky students went home with an iPod shuffle; they were Willie and Morgan.  Yay!

See you next time!