After finishing my lunch the other day I had a couple minutes of silence and came up with I Love to REad Canadian for I Love to Read Month.  By the end of the week the idea had ballooned and will now run from mid-January to Feb 28.  Every time I talked with someone about the idea another one jumped in, you could actually see on my face that a new idea had arrived.  It blows my mind how fast and furious the ideas come when they do come.

I Love To Read Canadian

1.      Each picture frame in Library will contain pictures and blurbs on books from specific provinces,  using the excel document of where each book takes place.  Also in each frame will be the statement “I love to read Canadian” and a shape of the province dedicated to that frame.

2.      On the wall across from the circulation desk and front doorway will be the letters which comprise the theme statement “I Love to read Canadian”.  These letters will be 12 “ and in red for Canada

3.      Each student who reads a book by a Canadian author will complete a red strip with the book title and author.  These strips will be used to create the Canadian Flag on the Bulletin Board.  White strips, for those NOT Canadian authors, will be used to fill the background of the flag.  Hopefully we will complete the flag.  This will start January 20, 2014 and end Feb 28, 2014.

4.      I hope to have created bookmarks for each book that takes place in Canada.  Each bookmark will include a picture of the book and blurb or synopsis.  (Lots of work)

5.      I hope to have small Canada flags attached to each Library fiction shelf to draw students attention to the Canada spine label on the spines of the books.  I hope to get multiples of these from  my MP or MLA.

6.      Am considering some kind of draw for students taking part with prizes being Canada key chains , Canada pins, flags, (with the possibility of having a bigger draw for a pair of Canada mittens) etc.

7.      The third Bulletin Board in the Library will be pictures of Canadian authors.  These will be done  in power  point, size ½ page each.  This way they won’t have to be cut, other than trimming the edges, before putting them up on the board.  Contemplating putting the author’s name on the base of the picture.

8.      Haven’t decided the second bulletin board yet.  It is placed outside the Library doors and needs to draw students in.

9.      Survival  Canada   --  Enlarge to full page (power point) a  picture of  a book cover of a Canadian book, On the reverse side print a puzzle . You can either put the clue directly on the puzzle piece or put a number which correlates to a survival question.   Cut out the pieces by frame and fasten each frame to cover stock and each book cover should be laminated.  The pieces should then be cut  out , put a piece of 2 sided scotch tape on the reverse.  Each homeroom  (25 in all) is to receive a different book cover but each classroom receives the same set of questions.   Each day, the homeroom teacher selects one puzzle piece.  When the class solves the question with the correct answer the puzzle piece can be placed into the puzzle frame, being fastened with the 2-sided tape.  The first class to come to the Library with the correct  solution of the book their cover represents will receive popcorn for the class.

The survival questions should be about survival in Canada.

This can be done with Olympics questions (for the Olympics) , Canada trivia or any other trivia questions.

10.    Olympics trivia – each week a trivia question pertaining to the Olympics will be in the Monday announcements.  Students will place their answers in the ballot box in the Library.  Each Friday a draw will be made and the winner will receive a chocolate bar.  This will begin January 6 and continue thru the end of February 2014.

I know there must be some people thinking I am nuts -- Similarities between cookies and books.  Well here is my schematic.  I have to come up with more similarities but I think I can do it.  My library volunteers will each create a gingerbread man to put on the board and the similarities will be will be typed up and inserted between them.  Hopefully the students who look at the board will come up with some of their own.

Good Morning
Lately I have become frustrated with the apathy our students have for taking part in contests.  We have been doing a big fall push on reading where each student records the books they read in Sept. & Oct. In past years we have done butterflies, bats, stars, and passports and this year we repeated the butterflies.  Past years have resulted in about 1500 entries (600 students in the school) and this year we had 600.  We are in the process of figuring out which grades/classes took part in this contest and which did not.  The prizes were not extravagent but practical-- first prize was movie passes,  2nd was a McNally Robinson gift card, 3rd was Subway gift card and 4th was Tim Hortons gift card.  I also drew 10 names of students and gave each a $5.00 gift card to our Scholastic Book Fair. (believe it or not, I still have some of them which were not used.)  My Teacher Librarian and I work hard to get students to read.  We have an awesome collection.  Our circulation stats show that the students ARE reading but they aren't filling in the contest entries.  How does one deal with the apathy the students are showing by not entering the contests. This makes me wonder whether we should do any contests in the future.... Any ideas!!!!!!1

I'm doing a bulletin board for the 7 series.  It's going to be a big 7 in the centre of the bulletin board with  lots of 7's around it, such as 7 wonders of the  ancient world,, 7 wonders of the modern world, 7 seas, 7 dwarfs.  these will all be in black and white while I'll put 7 authors, 7 grandsons, 7 cousins, 7 adventures and a few more on color paper to POP off the board.   If you have any suggestions for my January bulletin board I'll be happy to listen.  I'm stumped right now but I hope something will eventually come to me.

December board is the similarities between cookies and books.

Ok, I think I'm up and running.  It's been a long time since I learned about blogging I hope this works out.

Thanks to everyone who attended my SAGE presentation "Murder in the Library" on Friday. I really enjoyed your enthusiasm and your feedback.  I am doing this blog to help all of us collaborate on future endeavors by all of us. 

Now I'm trying to figure out a way I can use actual fingerprints, blood samples, etc in a new murder in the library.  I want to collaborate with my Science teachers in this endeavor as well.

I'm currently looking at having clues in books.  I'm thinking of having the clue cards as fingerprints etc.  I'm trying to figure out a way we can start with say 6 clues and eliminate a suspect with each clue until there is only 1 left.

i.e.   start with 6 people, 5 of 6 people could have motive without a good alibi,

5 blood samples perhaps all blood type A except 1.  The blood sample left at the scene was type A so that would eliminate 1 of the suspects.  

With 4 people left we could use a piece of fibre from say bluejeans and all but 1 could be wearing blue jeans. 

Down to 3 now, we could use footprints , one of the four could be female (or male) and that would eliminate them as the footprint at the scene could be the opposite. 

Now 2, let's say they are twins so only the fingerprint will determine the final elimination leaving our murderere.

How's that.  Now we have to figure out clues......

thanks for your help in getting this started.  This is only phase 1 it could be totally different by the time I am finished with it.

By the way, we can start thinking about the "Mysteries of History" clue game as well.