Favorite Valentine Books

(Feeling pretty close to human again! And this one only needed a little bit of tweaking to be ready. #stupidappendix And OH! The cute heart banner up in the image above? TOTALLY MELONHEADZ.)

These are a few of my favorites. What are yours?

Funny, funny, funny.

So I pretty much love anything these two do!

SAME HERE.

Not usually a big Splat fan (he's kind of self-centered) but I do like this one. He gets out of his comfort zone to make a Valentine. #cute

Look at that hippo and tell me you're not curious. ;)

NEW! But it's Duck and Goose. So it's already awesome and a favorite.

These are always fun. Some of the rhymes are a little forced but not too badly.

The obvious heart art possibilities.

Not that I think fourth or fifth graders need to be worrying too much about this ... but this book is spot on. A great model for "how to" writing and he does present some good ideas.

(PS The book covers were snagged from all over the place. Make sure to check out your local library or bookstore if you would like to get a copy!)

And on a side note ...
these little mini-posters are $1.75,

and so are these;

and these bookmarks are $1.00;

these valentines are $2.25;

and these are free!

I heart them all. A lot. I'm sort of discombobulated with "themes" aren't I. Can't stick with one.
And apologies for the "commercial." I actually really dislike that. Tried to give some good content at the beginning of the post!

Be back in a bit ...

Out of ready to go pre-written posts. Right in the middle of third grade's major research project what does Ms. O get? Appendicitis. Super fun. Surgery's done and I'm home on my couch. I'm too old for this. :P Really.


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Finally Friday Pins Jan 25

ONLY 11 MORE MONTHS TIL CHRISTMAS!

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I just gave up writing a quarterly article for LMC on Books New to Spanish. But the former Spanish teacher in me loves this pic and wants to explore this blog more. For those of you that don't read Spanish ... Google Translate!

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I did something sort of like this one year. First year we had a Flip camera and mini-tripod ... the kids did it themselves. The Flip has now died, sadly ... I have a Kodak something or other which I like but it's a personal device, not a school one. Anyway, I had it all set up so all they had to do was push the big red button. Used a black science fair presentation board and covered it with red and hot pink hearts. Then filmed kids sitting in front of it saying "I love my library because ..." Sort of like a "confessional booth" like on the reality TV shows? ADORABLE. Was a little hard keeping track of parent permissions and who could be posted. And the little PreKers that wanted to come say something because they heard me mention it on the morning announcements? PRICELESS.

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Remember how just last Friday I was showing you a bunch of little felt finger puppets I made and never used? I want to make these now. #nosense

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Dunno who this "Angel" is but I like these ideas.

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I want to order one of these. But I dislike having my picture taken so I don't know what to send her. Holding a book and my iPhone? Or Macbook? Or violin? Wearing ... running shoes (HA HA HA! :/)? Doc Marten Mary Janes? Or combat boots? Curly hair (natural) or straight (which only my stylist can do)? #TOOMANYDECISIONS

 

President's Day Signs & Bookmarks Repeat

These are some signs and bookmarks from last year but thought I'd share again. Hooray for Scrappin' Doodles. Wish I could draw. 

Should I put a border around them? I couldn't decide. But they are all b&w ... save the printer ink. Let the kiddos color them! ;)

Apps for Teacher Librarians Part 4: General Utilities

NEARPOD ... Teacher version on your iPad device and student versions on their iPad or iTouch devices. (I thought they used to be separate apps on the iTunes store ... but it doesn't look like that anymore. Since I already have them on our devices it's hard to test.) Allows you to "control" what they see and monitor as they view your presentation. Click through the pin for a video.

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a QR Code Reader. I like Inigma but any one will work.

Teachers Pick (iPad or iTouch) Won't lie ... it took a long time to get all of the classes set up--not as long as you might think but longer than I wanted. And I'm not perfect at keeping them updated with all of our move-ins and outs. That said this still helps me a lot ... I don't call on the same kiddos all the time and it helps me remember their names! There are other apps that do the same thing ... this is just the one I happen to have. I saw one on Pinterest at some point that included Bloom's question stems as it randomly chose students. Could be useful!

Dropbox is a GREAT way to move bigger files (like videos) from an iDevice to a desktop. You do have to have a free Dropbox account. If you don't have one already and use this link I'll get a bit of free extra online storage space. You NEED this one as many apps are designed to integrate with Dropbox. ;)


 (Only ... "there ARE now." Not "there IS." Grammar. I might run on sentences but my subjects and verbs agree. Usually. :/)

Google Drive Of course this is only useful if you have a google account to sign in with. But you can move files back and forth this way. Get the pdfs from Google Drive and download, then open in Skitch for annotation or iBooks for reading!

Chrome! I dislike Safari. Couldn't even really tell you why. Chrome is the way to go. ;)

Three Ring looks to be pretty cool. Haven't used this one yet but I think it would be nice to try. Quick pics of student work and then you don't have to carry the work around, you can grade digitally. Your thoughts for in the library classroom? Check out this mashable article on it.

In my quest to understand Evernote ... there's an app!

Here are Parts 1, 2, and 3. Anyway. Are there any topics or app themes that you are interested in?

Flannel Friday ... oops a Double Post

You won't be hearing from me again until probably Tuesday so please excuse. ;)
Thoughts. Found these at school yesterday. Made them several summers ago and have never used them (you can't even see all of them in the pic!). Don't remember where I got the patterns or what rhymes/finger plays I thought I might use. Not much of a rhyme/ finger play person. Should I change that and start using them? It give them to my 5 year old niece visiting this weekend?




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Finally Friday Pins Jan 18

As a Teacher Valentine Gift?

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Why is everything Valentine-ish? BAH HUMBUG on Valentine's Day.

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Keep doing planks. Even when I don't want to!

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This is especially true for me lately after the last couple weeks of school. Maybe it's the unseasonably wet weather (well, actually for January it probably SHOULD be wet but we've been in a drought for so long!) but I feel all grey and gloomy and frustrated with testing mandates and overwhelmed teachers who then completely "forget" the library and technology that is non-functional and/or not being used to it's full potential for kids. And the hallway noise. Allways the hallway noise. Here's to a weekend with family to get me out of it!

C is for ...

Eric Carle and Nancy Carlson. Call me a crazy picky librarian but WHY OH WHY OH WHY do those books always get mixed up on the shelf? WHY? THEY ARE DIFFERENT.


Patrick Carman. Loved the Dark Hills Divide series. Love Skeleton Creek. Love Floors. Pretty much love all of his stuff.

Clip art. I have a weakness for clip art. You knew that already. And I clear out that pinboard pretty often after I buy stuff or install fonts. Does anyone have a really good system for organizing clip art?


Silhouette Cameo. I don't use it nearly as much as I could. Or others do. But still. SO MUCH FUN. Made these over the summer and they are still favorites.

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Source: msoreadsbooks.com viaAngie on Pinterest

Source: msoreadsbooks.com via Angie on Pinterest

Charts and lists. I love these! Write your goal at the top, and then for every time you work toward that goal you get to cut/check off an affirmation. 21 times and it becomes a habit!

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Color! The school district blog where this picture originally lived is gone. Plus I've made them prettier. They're laminated, on a ring, hanging from a Command hook (HA! another C) on the side of the catalog computer monitors. Well. I need to get some more hooks because of our four computers? Three have died in the past two months. We got hand-me-downs from classrooms for two. But here is one idea I had for using paint chips in the library. Mini-Genre Word Walls for looking up particular genres of books in the online catalog!

Oh. And here is an entire post on other people's ideas for using colorful paint chips. Do you use them in other ways?

Besides matching them to the three different bookshelf colors/styles in your library, that is? ;)

B is for ...

Blogging. This makes me laugh, even if this particular Sherlock pictured was my least favorite of the six episodes.

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I just noticed the source of this photo. I hope I am not linking to something strange. :/
Anyway. It's helped me to reflect on my reading preferences and teaching practices. And get ideas from other great educators. And I love the idea of student blogging. Had some success with more closed "forums" at my school. So far not a lot of student blogging ... though I think that could be awesome.

Board Books. I never used to see the point. Then I had nieces and nephews (and students ... even though they are all at least three and should know better!). Not the best shots (one had to have some serious digital help with the lighting and it was a cell pic to begin with) but look. IS HE NOT THE CUTEST? I have more shots of the other ones but these are from the last two weeks. The older shots are harder to find. :/ #shameonmefornotorganizingandtagging

Plus? He can say "book." If you're listening. ;]


BOOKSHELVES ... I have an entire Pinterest board devoted to them. None of that "styling" where there are all of three books on the shelf for me. Yes, there does need to be some space to breathe on there. But after that? BOOKS. BOOKS. And more BOOKS. Also not in order by color cause that's just dumb. Topic or author. Just like the library.

Also, want to see something slightly funny? All three of these color bookshelves are in our library space. #wematch

Yes. Those are VHS. I got rid of all the ones that are on Streaming Video. And after that fuss I didn't have the drive to get rid of these. Tired of the fuss. But one day soon I will be strong enough to say "Please don't question my professionalism. And seriously, so many of the books on the older RR are hard to get nowdays!


Blue Balliet. No pinned pic for this but her website is newly (or, at least since the last time I checked it out!) redesigned. I still love an activity we did when Chasing Vermeer was new. Had mysterious letters delivered to classrooms with clues that they had to use the databases to solve. Our missing article was my Yoda READ poster.

Bears. I love bears. It's genetic from my mom. My niece once had a little bet going with Grandma about how many bears she had in her house. Shall we just say the number was higher than any of us guessed. ;)
Here is a screenshot of some of the bear books I've read. I'm actually surprised there aren't more. I probably forgot to add some to Goodreads. Or Goodreads didn't recognize it was a "bear" book. Like Peter Brown's You Will Be My Friend. Totally a bear book. Not on here. #weird