You’re Never to old for Turkey hands!

Do remember when you were in school and it came time for November’s craft?  I do. 
We made turkey hands.  The teacher helped cover those little hands in brown tempera paint and we pressed our hand to a white paper plate.  After it dried we added the face and feathers.  Some kid’s turkeys were more elaborate than others; some of us were crafty, even back then. 

One year, I decided that my student assistants were NOT too old to make turkey hands.  Surprisingly enough they did not do the “teenager eye roll” thing at me. 

I went to Michael’s and got fall shades of Delta Ceramcoat paint and white card stock that I had since my greeting card making days.  The students mixed up paint on a paper plate and dipped their hands in it.   Then they made their “print” on a piece of white cardstock.    After they were dry, they traced around the finger “feathers” with a bright color marker and wrote their top five favorite books along each feather/finger.  It was fun to see which books were their students favorites.  I used the Creative Memories large oval template cutting system to cut off the excess white cardstock.  The boys prints didn’t have much to trim! 

The bulletin board was covered with brown paper and accents of yellows and oranges. 

I discovered a cute fall border in one of the storage drawers for the edge of the bulletin board. 
Pilgrim mice…does it get any cuter? 

Typed a quick font title on my computer. 

I put the cardboard cut out turkey in the center of the board. 
The turkey was purchased at Hallmark in 1983….really, I’m not kidding, maybe you can see it here for yourself….

I placed the title above the turkey cut out…my student’s turkey hands went around the the cut out.
My students were very proud of their turkey hands.  They would bring their friends into to the library and point out their hand print.  Of course, they were secretive about it….didn’t want Mrs. Hot to know they really loved the project. 

 This student  is serving in Iraq.

This one is in nursing school. 

This one is going to graduate from CSUF soon - she wants to be a teacher.

I enjoy looking at the hands every year. 
Sometimes my little turkeys even come back to the nest to visit. 
Makes me proud to see how far they’ve come. 
Happy Thanksgiving.

Christmas Bulletin Boards

To everyone who is looking for Christmas bulletin board ideas – I see all those Google search item terms…I know you are looking for fresh ideas for the coming month and holiday. 

Let me finish presenting my Bulletin Boards on a Budget at CSLA next weekend, and then I promise to share several Christmas ideas with you!

CSLA – November 2009

The theme this year is “Embrace the Serendipity of Learning.”

If you happen to find yourself at the California School Library Association convention (CSLA for short) this November in Ontario, California, I hope you’ll stop by and visit me and my Bulletin Boards On A Budget display in the exhibit hall at the convention center.  I am looking forward to sharing ideas and fun displays with you.

See you there.  : )
Mrs. Hot

Thanks to the internet and CSLA for the illustration.

New Moon Bulletin Board

I have been neglectful in sharing some of my many Twilight series of boards and displays.  With only 10 days left until the movie premieres, it is not too late to put up a display to encourage your students to “Read the Book, See the Movie.” 

 There are many places where you can find suitable posters/photos for a New Moon display.  Hot Topic, Target, Wal-Mart and my personal budget friendly spot…the Internet. 

     In five minutes I can find and save 15 – 20 photos to use, that all have the principal’s seal of approval. 

     If you are printing photos be sure to have good photo paper and enough color ink. 

Wait until you see the photos for Breaking Dawn….I will have to censor that board! 

     I am a big fan of ribbon…and with red satin ribbon being featured on the cover of Eclipse… 

     I use it often on the Twilight series boards.  Michael’s is the place I go, although you may have a better option.  
     I found this ribbon on sale for $1.99 for the spool. 

     Remember the lettering:  Whether you are lucky enough to have push-pin letters, die cuts from Ellison, or a Cricut…don’t forget your title!  I saw this idea at Borders

     A 3-D addition that I am fortunate to have, are old movie projector film reels. 

     I don’t know where you can find these ancient artifacts these days…
perhaps on an archeological dig somewhere….but two ideas come to mind. 

     1.  Ebay or 2.  Go to the teacher who has been on campus the longest and see if you can rummage around in their storage room/closet. 

     If your school has a theatre or media room, check the cabinets for hidden treasures. 

     As you can see I used the red ribbon to substitute for the film, but I have even used exposed 35 mm film and old film strips in displays.

While you are at Michael’s, pick up this picture frame kit idea that I have turned into a count down calendar. 

Hope this post gives you some good ideas to create some excitement in your libraries for the premiere of New Moon.

Only 13 more days – New Moon

We have a count down going in my library.  New Moon is less than 2 weeks away. 
The students come in to check how many more days on a calendar I made. 
They stand at the counter, not to check out a book, but to find out if I am going to see New Moon.  They want to know where am I going to see it, and do I have my tickets already…the questions go on and on. 

I am thinking of going to Garden Walk in the land of the Giant Mouse.  The theatre there is opened only to people 21 and older.  I might actually get to see it with out teen age girls screaming at Taylor without his shirt on…and Rob…ahem…there’s certainly a lot of Rob showing…if Rob was at school, I’d have to write him a detention for indecent exposure. 

More importantly, the students are anxious for my quiz to come out on Monday. 
Yes, the HotLibraryTech has written a quiz for New Moon.  I wrote one for Twilight as well.  Of all the entires for Twilight, over 150, we only had two perfect scores. 

Starting Monday, students can pick up a quiz, written from the book.  They then have 4 days to return it to me.  Two girls came in today, all shy.  “We have a question about the quiz,” they said, practically in unison….the choir director would have been proud.  “Do we have to take the quiz here in the library, or can we take it home?”  I told them they could take it home, it’s due on Friday.  “Are you going to make it a ‘open book exam’?” I asked.  When they walked out the front doors, they dissolved into polite little giggles.  Today, by the time announcements were over and student lunch had begun, the campus was ‘a buzz’ with excitement. 

The grand prize is two tickets to the premiere of New Moon on November 20th. 
Am I cool or what?  Maybe it will negate the fact that I have written 10 detentions this week for cell phone use. 

READ

I have had an idea for a bulletin board for sometime now, that never seems to get anywhere.  I tried encouraging my fellow staff members to send me photos of themselves reading to their children, their children reading, even their pets reading…. 

I have only ever received two pics and those were lost when IS “cleaned” our email during the summer and deleted ANY and ALL images that we had stored in email. 
Never doing that again. 

So, the featured bulletin board idea here has photos from the internet of people/pets reading.  Google images for people reading and see what you come up with. 
Not that many were usable photos.  I liked the one of Mia Farrow reading to her children, but how many students are going to have a clue who she is?  
Just between you and me, my boss didn’t know that the pic in the lower left hand corner was Ray Charles reading Braille.  I had a hearty Hotlibrarytech laugh over that. 

The letters are Cricut.  I forget which font, in 4 inch size.  
A pretty simple board to put together. 
One that is certainly on a budget.

City of Bones series

I highly reccomend the City of Bones series.
It’s got it all – Vampires, Werewolves, Demons, Angels…equal opportunities for all spiritual and or supernatural beings…Only One has been left out…
Can’t forget the Fairies…and several sub classes of those too, I believe. 
Fair warning…Fairies aren’t always cute with dimpled cheeks like Tink. 

In a dialog I heard with the author, when asked about the ending of the third book, she ‘fessed up that she’d written it that way for possibly a 4th book.

Fantastic Fall Displays

Photo by Wayne Houser – “Clarinet in the Park”

For a fast, fabulous, fall bulletin board…start with a black background….fabric, construction paper or cardstock.

Do you have a favorite photo with fall colors…a scenery poster? 
I found the poster above at www.allposters.com
I love fall, I miss living where  leaves change colors, where the air has the crisp scent of fall. 
Here behind the Orange Curtain, if there is a crisp smell in the air, it is more than likely a fire burning somewhere in So Cal. 

Once I have the board covered with the black background, I will pick the main focal point.  Then, I add those leaves that I miss so badly. 
I purchase or make colorful leaves. 
If your school has the Ellison Die cut machine, you are sure to have two dies of leaves, one oak and one maple.  I have taken a field trip to the junior high where it is stored and have happily cut out leaves in fall colors to my heart’s content. 
Check out the Ellison web site.  I found that they had die cuts on clearance.  Maybe it’s more than the ‘budget theme’ that I shoot for, but $20.00 for a die cut that you and other teachers will get a lot of use out of, is a good thing.   You can visit them at www.ellison.com/

 

Lately I have been a bit more creative with the leaves.  At Michael’s crafts you can find a bag of silk fall leaves for around $1.99. 
These seem to add more interest and dimension to the display and can be seen here with Mary Englebreit posters. 

Last December when I was shopping for Christmas treats for my student helpers, I came across three bunches of preserved fall leaves at my local grocery store.  Three bunches for $.99 cents.  Now that’s a bargain to a scrapbooker and a library tech. 
If you are fortunate enough to live where the leaves change, you can check out this web site for instructions on drying leaves yourself. http://www.twokitties.typepad.com/my_weblog

By separating the leaf bunch into
sections, I was able to cover the metal edge of
the board and draw attention to the colorful book book jackets that I featured for this month. 
By loosely attaching the leaves,
it looks like they are falling in an October breeze. 

 

 

Can I talk anymore about how much I LOVE the Cricut Expressions machine?  If you are lucky enough to have this machine, or know someone who you can enlist to be your new best friend…so you can borrow it from time to time…you can quickly cut out the saying for the bulletin board in no time at all. 

 

 

In about an hour, I had this bright, eye catching display ready for my students. 
Hope that you too are able to fall into one of the many new YA novels that are being released this fall.  Happy Reading!

Decline the Invitation -

                                        

Warning:  This post contains strong spiritual beliefs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was actually surprised by a student’s book request this week. 
A tall boy came to the circulation counter with a girl hiding behind him. 
He proceeded to ask, for her, whether or not we had a certain book in our collection. 

In the brief nano seconds before I responded, I pondered why was she not able to ask for herself. 
Did she enjoy being controlled by a dominate male?
(I have a VERY strong opinion of the Snow White/Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty Syndrome.)  
Did she not want me to know that she had an overdue book?  Was she afraid of me?  Students usually are when I have confiscated their cell phones for the umpteenth time.  In any case, I don’t see my big intimidation factor. 

“No, I’m sorry, we don’t have The Shack as part of our library collection,” I said addressing the girl directly.  “But, I do have it at home.  I bought it; when I’m finished, I will bring it in for check out.”  The girl ducked back behind the teenage boy and he nodded saying that they would check back.  I hope I’m around the day she finds her spine. 

The reason I was surprised, was that the student was asking for a book that I thought had some spiritual significance.  We’ve had years where students check out the Left Behind series like crazy, sadly that is the only series that we have with any spiritual truth behind it. 

I started reading The Shack at the beginning of summer vacation. 
Briefly, the book is about a father, who after the death of his daughter receives an invitation presumably from God, to spend the weekend at the shack where his daughter was killed. 
If you are invited to read The Shack, I would encourage you to decline. 

I had heard that it was a great new work of Christian fiction.  An allegory.  It’s not.  I thought it would be a book with spiritual truths that I could introduce to the library collection and to the students.  No such luck….

Contrary to some blog posts and reviews, it is not a fast read.  I found it to be laboriously long.  As a parent, the last thing I want to read, is a book about a child being murdered, even if it is fiction; even if the lead character’s relationship with ABBA Father will be strengthened and renewed by the conclusion of the novel.  I will not see the conclusion of this book.  No, that’s not true, I will force my self to read through to the ending, but I find the book to be disturbing to my spirit;  too much of the content smacks up against the Solid Rock of Who I know to be Truth. 

I’ve done some online research since the teenager asked me for The Shack this week. I thought it was just me, that only I had trouble wading through the story line, accepting the author’s suggestion that God the Father is female.  Was I the only one who was protesting, to having the concepts of Universalism shoved down my throat?  I found that I was not. 

Some people blogged about how moving they found the book.  One individual stated that ”I can’t remember sitting  in a classroom and being moved to tears by a novel before, certainly not one in the “Christian” market.”  Personally, I was moved to close the book and silently berate myself for picking up such trite nonsense.  

If you want to read a good work of Christian allegory, then your best choices would be: 
The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis &  Hinds’ Feet On High Places by Hannah Hurnard. 

Now before you assemble picket signs and gather outside my library protesting that I am censoring books, put your paint brushes away.  The Shack will join the library collection after it has been catalogued and processed.  If a student asks me for my recommendation I will advise them that if he/she wants to read it- Read it as Science Fiction.  If they believe a boy can sparkle, they’ll believe this. 

The following are links – If you want to Read More About It…. 

www.challies.com/…/the-shack-by-william-p-young.php –

www.christianbook.com/shack-william-young/

www.hubpages.com/hub/-The-Shack  

The Graveyard Book

With the lack of available funding, often it is several months before we get new YA novels in the library. Let’s be honest…sometimes we only get new books when I go out and purchase them with my own money.  I am not complaining, there’s nothing I enjoy more than wandering a book store for hours, unless of course it’s curled up in a comfy chair with hot tea and a good book.  However, Hot Hubby can be a bit discouraged when he sees the bank balance dipping below safe levels. 

My sister-in-law kindly passed along the next “new” book for my library.  Her book club has just finished reading The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.  In early 2009, The Graveyard Book was awarded by ALA, the John Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to children’s literature.  I think the cover is fascinating.  Do you see what I see? 

I was doing research for next month’s bulletin boards and I came across a book trailer for The Graveyard Book, that you can see at the link below.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m1660HKJT8UK7W

Mr. Gaiman actually kept me company this weekend.  While I was printing photos, finding ideas and using my Cricut for lettering, etcetera, I found the site below.  It has videos of Mr. Gaiman reading all the chapters of his book while on tour around the country. 
Excellent!  I can’t decide whether to have him read the rest of it to me, or if I shall curl up in the comfy chair, and read it myself. 
…I do have a weakness for English accents.  Enjoy. 

 http://www.mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx –