February: Short Month, Long List

I can't believe this month is almost over.  Where did it go?   Well...let's see. There was Black History Month.  TCEA was the first week of February.  Then we celebrated Valentine's Day for a week.  We have been promoting "Blind Date with a Book" for 2 weeks along with National Mustache Day on Feb. 24th and preparing for March Madness.  Of course we have seen a few classes here and there as well.  The Junior English classes have begun invading the library with their research on the 1960s, 70s, and 80s which is one of my favorites topics because of the costume.  We dress as hippies, and that is so much more comfortable than a pirate, a British King, or any of the others characters we have been in the past.  I'm not sure that I like the decades in which I grew up being a research topic though...makes me feel old.

For Black History Month, we had 2 different displays going.  We used our windows for inspirational quotes from famous black people as one.  All of the quotes came from Pinterest like this one, Rosa Parks. So we printed off about 20 different quotes, and had them hanging up. We also made up a book display and put a book mark in each of the books for students to keep when they checked out one of the books.

For those of you who have not been to the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA), I highly recommend it. It is some of the best technology professional development I have experienced thus far in my career.  I even created a Pinterest Board dedicated to TCEA this year because of all of the great sessions I encountered.  My 2 favorite were Twitter/Vines and building your own app.  I was planning to use Vines   with our "Blind Date with a Book" program, but to be honest, I ran out of time.  So I used Twitter and Facebook instead.  More on that later.  The build your own app session was great, and it was easy enough to do.  The DHS Library now has it's own app, but it is pretty simple for now.  As I learn more, I am hoping our app will become a better tool for our patrons.  I guess you could say this is our beta version.  The program we used to create the app is The AppBuilder.  Here is the DHS Library app,  http://myapp.is/DHSLibrary.  It's easy to download onto a phone or tablet by going to the site, hitting your download button and tap "add to home screen."  I'm going to try it with my juniors next week when they come in for research.  We'll see how popular it is.

For Valentine's Day, we had the students help us make red and white paper chains that we hung from our ceiling.

We added two Valentine book displays.

Then the students decorated hearts for our windows, and on the day itself, we gave out kisses when students checked out books.  Those, of course, would be Hershey's Kisses, not actual ones.

Then we had a Valentine contest to match the famous couples to their books. We had one prize for the teachers and one for the students.

This year we decided to tackle "Blind Date with a Book."

It's been all over Pinterest for a couple of years, and we thought it was time to bring it to our school.  So the premise is to wrap up a variety of books so the students cannot see what book they are checking out.

After they check out the book, the students unwrap it and read it, no matter what they end up choosing.  So we added a few extras to that basic premise to make this program our own.  We decided that once they finish their book, the students have a chance to "rate their date."  Their rating form includes a place for them to put the title, what they like/don't like about the book, and on a scale from 1-10 to actually rate their "date."

Then the students can pick a book, puzzle, or trinket which for us is donated items from our local Barnes and Noble.  (Thanks Suzanne Howell in Cedar Hill)  We also categorized the books so that the students might not know the book, but they would at least have a hint. I thought we would come up with 5-6 categories, but we had 14.  That's where I thought I would create Vines and put them on Twitter and Facebook.  For those of you who have not been to Vine yet, it is a social network of 6 second videos where people post them and make comments.  Your Vine account can be connected to most other social media accounts if you wish.  It's worth the look even if you don't plan on making a video to post...highly entertaining!

Anyway, I was planning to create these 6 second videos to give hints to the students about the blind date books.  Then the students would have to go to Twitter or Facebook to find these videos.  Once we decided upon 14 topics, I nixed making 14 videos...even if they are only 6 seconds long.  Instead, I created hashtags for each topic and then listed the hints under these hashtags in both Twitter and Facebook.  Here are a few examples... #BDB14  #BDB10  #BDB05. So far I believe the students who are participating are having fun.

National Mustache Day was a big hit last year, and we brought it back again for this year.  It is pretty random, but the students seem to like it.  The premise is simple; check out a book and get a mustache.  Last year we promoted it with signs and a book display, see post here entitled "Love, Mustaches, and Hippies." This year, with all the other activities we were doing, mustache day was a bit more low key.  The students and teachers still enjoyed it though; that is what really matters.

Now, as March begins, we are gearing up for the bulk of the Junior research, Open House,and March Madness (Battle of the Books).  All of these events begin next week.  In addition, we are also housing a few displaced classes for the TAKS test. Needless to say we will be packed, and then there is Spring Break...so ready for a week off!

See you next time.  Thanks for stopping by!