My puzzles are coming back to me with positive comments.  Now the clean up.  When the puzzles come back I have to either put another piece of tape over the sticky tape or scrape the tape off the puzzle pieces.  I have chosen to scrape the tape off, less finicky, and it's fairly easy to scrape the tape off laminated card stock.  I have to make sure all 20 pieces are there.  I found a box in the school that I can use for storing them flat. I could use the same puzzles again next year, changing the series of questions, just by giving each teacher a different puzzle.

My hope was that the kids would not only enjoy figuring out what book they had but that they would learn a little bit about survival skills as well.


I am looking at doing something with a cube next year. When I figure it out I'll post it, but I can use any input you may have to offer.

I'm not looking at doing any more contests this year.

I Love to Read Canadian contest didn't go as well as I had hoped.  I had hoped the students would have read enough books to complete a flag on the bulletin board (in strips). They did have 6 weeks to read and we have over 600 students in the school..... We ended up putting the strips on the board to create the bulletin board and then have the students sign the strips right on the board itself.  It was much more appealing to look at this way and we did have quite a few add their data to the strips after the board was completed.  My volunteers made a great maple leaf in the center of the flag with the strips.  I went to dollar tree and got some hats, gloves and socks with the maple leaf on them for l.25 each.  Students don't need to know how much we paid for them.  We drew 10 names of students to receive their prizes.  I guess I should count the entries before I dispose of them.  Stats are important...... after all.

March bulletin board
Frustrating, I planned my September /  October reading push yet didn't have a bulletin board for March created yet.  I spent a couple hours yesterday looking for an idea and came up with the minions. "Don't be a Minion, Be a Reader and a Leader" .  It will be quick and easy to create and put up, as well the students will relate to it.  for the second bulletin board  I am going to use the scene where the main character is reading to the girls at the end of the movie.  banner will read -- "Being a Reader could result in Becoming a Writer"

Now I have to come up with one for April (May's has been in the works for a month already)

Thank Goodness for Pinterest.

Friday my Teacher Librarian was showing a grade 7 class how to use Museum in a box and an idea came to me.  see below.  I can no longer hang bats or butterflies from our ceiling due to restrictions by our division so I had to come up with a new idea for our push on reading in Sept. and Oct.

I have my Teacher Librarians OK and the Vice Principal's OK (I had to go to her for the ok from workplace health and safety).  She was excited to see that I am not only promoting literacy but numeracy as well and suggested using even more shapes.  the items in italics are additional thoughts that I haven't decided upon yet.

for this project I got the cube shape off the internet and everything just fell in to place.

Each student who reads a book is to fill in 1 square of the cube with their name and the book they have read.  Should they rate the book on a scale of 1 to 5?

One student should NOT complete the entire cube.

 When the cube is complete it will be folded and shaped by the library volunteers.

Cubes could be stored in  laundry baskets or basket of some sort for students to sort 

through for recommendations to read.

Cubes could be used to build a shape, such as a cube, in the library. Boys will love building things with the cubes.

At the end of October all of the cubes will be put into a large container and 1 cube will be drawn with all 6 students winning a prize.  We could do a draw at the end of September as well.

Prize could be all the same (i.e. $10.00 Chapters or movie gift card card) or there could be 6 different prizes and the first student to show up gets to choose first, etc. We could do a second cube draw and each winner could get their choice of a chocolate bar.

We could print75 pages of the cube to start giving us 450 books read and print more as needed.  OR   We could print 100 pages of the cube to start giving us 600 books read and print more as needed.  Should we print on cardstock or bond paper?

Students would see the pile of cubes (or shape) growing which would encourage students to read so they can get an entry in the contest.

Students may want to read a book that someone has already recorded and recommended.

Survival Canada Puzzle

The Survival Canada Puzzle I created for I Love to Read month went over very well.  Staff and students both enjoyed it and hopefully learned a little about survival.

I did make a mistake when I put survival questions in Thursday's announcements when we don't do advisors on Thursdays.  I did make a listing of corrections/comments but this was the only negative that came back.