The Daring Librarian

I've noticed lately that Photo booths—in all shapes and sizes—are becoming increasingly popular at events.  From fairs, community outreaches, dances, weddings, even Bat Mitzvahs, the photo booth is providing more than fun and games. So, here's my list of 5 ways your school library (or classroom) can benefit from a photo booth. This simple, easy, & cheap DIY Photo Booth has added a lot of FUN to our school library and our end of the year celebration, our June Jamboree. WARNING: If you don't know what your school photo or BYOD policy is -  you really need to find out before creating a photo booth. Every district or school can be different.   But in our school we discourage most photos and videos being taken unless it's for a special event, part of a  classroom lesson or experiment, or for a good reason. A photo booth is a good reason! It's a good way to model appropriate (and fun, have I mentioned fun yet?) use of Social Media. Because I teach Midd...

The Summer Reading List is Here!  I can't believe it's that time of year again! Time to share our Summer Reading List with you. View & Download the  Middle School Summer Reading List Slideshare PDF or the original PDF (please forgive their use of Comic Sans, they know not what they do! See my shameful confession at the very end if you're curious)   Here's my PDF without Comic Sans - you can Download it on Slideshare.  Thanks to two of our HCPSS Middle School Librarians @ hcpsslibmed and our A+ partner  @ HoCo_Library   Librarians who have joined together to create this Super Fun Reading List for all the kiddos in our district! (or the world!) Recommended Summer Reading Lists for the Whole Family! Kindergarten – Grade 1 2018 2017 2016 Grade 2 – 3 2018 2017 2016 Grade 4 – 5 2018 2017 2016 Middle School 2018 2017 2016 High School 2018 2017 2016 Black Eyed Susan Nominees 2018 201...

Hey gang! So, because of the snow we had this year, we're going all the way until June 19th! DOH! I mean, super! And if you're out of school already....well, I will try not to be salty about it, but I'm jealous baby! I'm looking at you Tiffany Whitehead ! LOL (Baton Rouge, LA gets out EARLY!) Around Memorial Day is when we start trying to get books back. Not from our active readers, but from those kiddos who have had books out for a long time. I'll share the back story below but the mobile suggestion right up front. This way, you don't have to read me blather on (unless you want to!) to get this cool idea.  My lovely & wonderful Media Assistant Ms. Kathi Bell, came up with this, with a recommendation from her son (and good friend of our library) John Bell. It's Alarming! If a kid owes you a book, ask if they have their cell phone on them. My examples are for the Apple phones (because that's what I have) but I'm sure a similar tech...

A few of my MHMS friends & colleagues are taking a Cultural Proficiency course. Having taken that course a couple years ago, and as a passionate ally of the #WeNeedDiverseBooks movement, I offered to help them with their final project! We decided it would cool to create a curated list of books on a bookmark that celebrate diversity. Feel free to Take, Copy, Use, & Share - it's all Creative Commons! We made sure that the books listed were all books we had in our Middle School Library Collection and were ones that were sourced from the WeNeedDiverseBooks website . But you can do the same thing or use ours! See below for downloads.    You can download the Diversity- Diversity-Bookmarks-PDF OR you can make a copy of copy of the Google Doc!

4 Fab Text Generators  for Web or Blog headers....or Just for Fun Geeky Stuff! 1. Ransom Note Generator I really like this Ransom Note Generator ...but it's a bit tricky...you have to play with it to get good results, adding spaces, capitol letters, and the like. But when you're done you can download the image to your HD & I crop it with PicMonkey or Photoshop,  but I think it's right nifty! Here are some tips from the site: Tips: Use the button at the top of your picture to download it to your computer! See this page for more ideas! To align the text (left, center, or right) on this picture, just put spaces before or after any of the words until you like the way it looks. This particular image generator's font can benefit from using various upper and lower cased letters. TrY DoiNG iT foR DiFfeRenT ResULts Also, see my example above.....below the big BLUE ARROW. 2. Spell With Flickr Spell with Flick r - Spell out any word using images fr...