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The 2023 Caldecott Medal award winner will be announced January 30, 2023, which means it’s time for my predictions on which book will take home the top prize and who will be runner-up. The ALA awards will be given out sometime in mid-January. Members of the Caldecott committee work hard all year to choose the book they think is deserving of this distinguished award. Members of the committee read thousands of picture books throughout the year. Then they must narrow their choices down to 7 titles each. Once they have this much smaller list, they spend hours debating about which book should receive the top honor. Every year I always come up with my own list of titles that I believe will be contenders. This year I have come up with 15 books that I believe should be on the list (although I have not read nearly as many
As Christmas approaches, we all know our students are buzzing with excitement for vacations, presents, and a break from the usual routine. This time of year can bring a lot of distractions! But instead of letting the holiday energy pull them away, why not bring the celebration into the classroom? That’s why I absolutely love using Christmas around the world activities. These engaging lessons help our students explore how different cultures celebrate holidays around the world. This keeps them curious and connected while they countdown to the break. Plus, it’s fun to dive into geography, traditions, and diversity, all wrapped up in the season’s magic! Today, I’m sharing some of my favorite resources to use to teach about Christmas around the world! What is Christmas Around the World? When we talk about Christmas around the world, we’re diving into the unique and diverse ways people celebrate this holiday across
It’s likely you’ve found yourself wondering at some point how you can motivate students. Maybe you want to encourage positive behaviors or help struggling students meet a goal.  In these cases, offering extrinsic motivation may help! Before I share my different library reward ideas, I want to make it clear that rewarding students isn’t the only way to motivate them. I also advise against simply throwing around awards, especially for expected behavior. But for special goals or when a little extra motivation is needed extrinsic rewards work well. Here are some of my favorite library reward ideas that students love. When Should I Use Library Rewards? Library rewards can be used in various instances, but here are two I use most often in my library. First, there are class incentives. I may have a particular group that struggles to stay on task or clean up the library. If they
As librarians, we often find ourselves in professional development sessions on classroom management or flipping through books, thinking, “This isn’t for me!” We interact with students in a completely unique way. The strategies that work for classroom teachers don’t always translate to our setting. That’s why I’ve put together some classroom management tips tailored specifically for librarians. We know the library environment calls for a different approach! What’s great is that these tips work whether you see students regularly or occasionally. No matter how big your library is or how limited your resources might be, you can easily adapt these strategies to fit your needs! Why Classroom Management Tips Are Essential for School Librarians Classroom management tips are essential for us school librarians! When we’ve got effective management strategies in place, our library transforms into a calm, inviting space. This encourages our students to explore, ask questions, and dive
Whether you are planning ahead for a vacation, or want to be prepared for those inevitable sick days, having a library substitute binder is a game-changer. Instead of hours spent preparing for a day out of the library or a frantic call to school trying to organize things for a day off, you have a ready-to-go sub binder. What is a library substitute binder? Think of this binder as the holder of all your library secrets (or just the really important stuff). It’s the one-stop-shop for your essential class information. It allows anyone to pop into your place, and pick up where you left off – with ease. If you’ve ever had to cover a class, you know how challenging it can be when there is no information present. Sometimes you’re lucky to get a class roster! It’s confusing. Suddenly, you’re depending on the students to know what they
When you think of reading, charts and graphs probably aren’t the first things to come to mind. But when reading nonfiction texts, these elements play a role in understanding the text. Many times I’ve asked students to read a caption or refer to information from a chart, only to get a blank stare back. This just tells me how important it is to directly teach text features in nonfiction. What are nonfiction text features? Text features are the elements of an informational text not found within the main body of the text. This includes elements that come before and after the text (such as the table of contents or glossary) and the elements surrounding the text (such as labels and graphs). To help students understand the importance of text features, I like to give them a few examples. In one example, I will have them read directions to another
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