Weekly Recap 10.2-10.6

We were BUSY this week in the library! We had book talks/checkouts with the 7th graders on Monday, book tastings with the 8th graders on Thursday, and Makerspace Club after school. 

For the book talks, I started prepping on Friday. I knew that I had 5 different class periods of students coming in, and I wanted to make sure they all had ample books to hear about it. There is nothing worse than doing book talks and realizing by the 2nd or 3rd class that you are out of books since they all get checked out after you talk them up. So Friday, I pulled books from each genre and started making piles for each class. I planned to book talk a title from each genre and also had an extra couple pulled in case there was a spike in interest. I also wanted to make some notes for myself to use as I was book talking. I had read about half of the books I decided to highlight. For the others, I relied on these amazing websites for help:
Booktalks Quick and Simple
Be a Better Booktalker

This is what my work station looked like during this process:

For the book tastings, I did a variation of the speed dating activities I have done in the past. I really wanted to highlight the genrefication of the library AND expose the students to a large number of titles in a short amount of time. To prepare, I looked over some recent blog posts (including THIS ONE from Stony Evans and Kaitlyn Price) and decided to do a low key version. To begin, I did a quick 3 slide presentation explaining the book tasting (they got to pick an appetizer, salad, entree, and dessert course) and their menu options (the different genres). Students then got a menu card to fill out with their course choices and spots for notes and titles they wanted to remember. After that kids got 5-7 minutes for each course to peruse books. I had approximately 15-20 titles at each table/station for the kids to look through. 

During this activity, there was a TON of talk at the tables as students recommended different titles to each other. Lots of them found books to check out and others found titles they would come back to the next time they needed a book.

Here are a few pics from the process:

Finally, we also had Makerspace Club this week. Kids got to use the 3D printer for the first time. Other kids decided to still use the Extraordinaires Design Studio Pro game (<--- Amazon link) that they did last week. Others created with Legos. And some did coding/remote control driving with the Sphero. Overall, it was a ton of FUN and the kids loved it. 

Here's hoping the rest of October can live up to the first week!