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10 Library Grants Every Librarian Should Apply For

(Updated June 2024) Applying for library grants is a great way to leverage your library. While school events and fundraisers can help, they require a lot of work. Grant money can help you create a more robust library with a lot of variety to offer your students. One common misconception when it comes to writing grants is that they take a lot of time. In reality, applying for library grants does not have to be too time-consuming, and the payoff can be really big. Check out the list of the ten library grants every librarian should apply for. Dollar General Youth Literacy Grant This grant can be used for schools, public libraries, and nonprofits who work with students that need help improving their literacy skills. You can use the grant funding to expand literacy programs, purchase equipment, and technology to support literacy, and also purchase books and materials for
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Library Book Display Ideas for Every Month of the Year

These library book display ideas will help you keep your book displays fresh during every month of the year.
As librarians, we always look for new ways and opportunities to get students reading and enjoying it! Having a monthly book display is a great way to bring awareness to each month’s different topics, seasons, and celebrations. Plus, you can get students interested in brand-new books that might have been hidden on the shelves and out of sight. I know that creating library book displays can take some time, especially when you start running out of creativity mid-year. I put together a list of library book display ideas for the entire year. You can use one of these ideas or use this list to get your creative juices flowing. Materials To Use For a Library Book Display Creating an eye-catching library book display doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. I’m all for saving the extra dollar! A few key items can make the process of creating a display
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Ideas and Activities for a Successful Literacy Night

Hosting a family literacy night or reading night is a great opportunity to get parents involved in the school and grow students’ love of reading. Parents don’t often get a glimpse of what their child is working on and doing at school each day, but with literacy nights, you can bring the parent into the school and share literacy tips and research. Of course, a well-planned literacy night can take time and effort to put together. I want to pass along some planning tips, literacy night themes, and activities you can use as you plan. What is a Family Literacy Night? Also called family reading night, a literacy night is a chance to provide important information about a child’s literacy skills and share reading strategies with families. It’s also an opportunity to get families involved in the school and student learning. During the literacy night, you can focus on
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How to Teach Text Features in NonFiction

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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Library Activities to Make Check-Out Time Run Smoothly

It’s library check-out time, and you’re wishing you had six more arms and three sets of eyes. Between checking out books, figuring out overdue books, and managing other students in the library – it can feel like a full-time job for at least three people. And yet, it’s just you.  I wanted to share some library activities that can help check-out time run smoothly. These activities are meant to keep other students busy and on task, while you man the check-out counter. I’ll also give some library activities for students with overdue books, who are unable to check out a new book. #1 Keep a Box of Weeded Out Books When you go through and weed out old books, instead of tossing them or leaving them in the hallway, keep them in a box. During check-out time, allow students to search through the box and find a book they
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The 10 Best Professional Development Books for Librarians

Well it’s ALMOST sweet summertime here in Virginia (school ends June 19 to be exact!) and that means a couple of things for me:  I think as librarians it’s really important to make sure that we are always at the “top” of our game. I like to use summer to read 1 or 2 professional development books to refresh and reset before the new school year. It helps me feel energized and excited about going back to school (Keep in mind that I never start doing this until after 4th of July!) It also gives me new tips and ideas to try in the library, as things are always changing. In case you want to up your professional development game as well, I have created a list of the 10 BEST professional development books for librarians below. (All of the Amazon links are affiliate links). Hacking School Libraries 10
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Staying Cool in the Library is my blog, where I share my passion for fostering a love of reading with children. As a librarian, I believe reading should be fun and accessible to all students. That’s why I share engaging and interactive lesson plans, creative ways to build exciting library collections, and resources to inspire even the most reluctant readers in any classroom or library. Check out my blog posts and products in my store, and join my email list below.

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