Author Election Display 2012

 We're all relieved the presidential election is over, but we did have fun putting up a display to get the kids involved.  We pulled everything we had on the election process, political parties, and the candidates.  Who knows, may be we have a future president in our midst..

To make it interactive and a little more fun for the kids, we held a mock election of our own.  Eight authors ran for Author of the Year for our middle school, and the kids came in to the library to cast their votes.  The primaries included:

• James Paterson
• JK Rowling
• Suzanne Collins
• Gary Paulsen
• Erin Hunter
• Rick Riordan
• Margaret Petersen-Haddix
• JRR Tolkien

 We printed sheets with the authors' major works to help answer the "Who's that?" question and put them near the ballot box.

The winners of the primaries were Suzanne Collins and Rich Riordan.  We took a school-wide vote in homeroom the day after the presidential election and the winner with 74% of the popular vote was... 

SUZANNE COLLINS!! 

(I'm really hoping it's because these kids read The Hunger Games and didn't just base their votes on the movie.)  So be it.  : )

It's just about that time, and to get kids excited and ready for Thanksgiving, we decided to highlight the library's cookbook collection.  They have been flying off the shelves!   

 Chefware hanging from the ceiling.

 "Feast Your Eyes" was cut out on a Cricut diecut machine using the Storybook cartridge.

 















Our Family and Consumer Science teacher was pleased to be able to share a poster with the new "food pyramid" for nutrition- it's actually now a plate.  But the poster was too small.  I created this plate in its image.  More information on My Plate can be found at www.choosemyplate.gov

 Just to show that this display expanded over too sections.  Oh!  And the turkey hat!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!!

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Native American Month Display- 2012

To celebrate Native American Month in the library, we pulled our books on the topic and decorated with a little Native flair.  I created this dream catcher from a hula hoop, brown paper, beads/feathers, and twine.

Wouldn't it be fun to have a get-together in the library to make little ones?  What a fantastic skill to have.  It's really not that hard once you get the hang of it.

Then I created collages of images based on different tribes around the country (the sources are cited on the back), and made little banners with colorful ribbon and paper letter cut out on a Cricut die cut machine.  Word to the wise- laminating was a chore.  Well, not so much the laminating as cutting them out.

One of our library "collections" happens to be fabric!  (I {heart} fabric!)  All different colors and textures.  This soft corduroy made the perfect shelf cover.

What I'm most proud of is how many books we had to include in the display.  Our fiction collection alone would have made for an attractive one, but we can't forget about nonfiction, myths and legends, biographies and reference.  Anything students might want to know about our country's indiginous folks can probably be found here at our middle school.

And since the Lakota have no word for "goodbye," I'll leave you with a Happy Native American Month!