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Middle Grade Read Alikes: Free PrintablesNovember is the month of thankfulness and sharing our gratitude for those who are a part of our lives. I would like to extend my gratitude to each of you reading this post! I am including the link to a FREE set of middle grade read alike lists you can print out and use today in your library or classroom.  I know how busy this time of year can get and having a prepared read alike list can be useful to build a display, support a teacher or student or even parent unsure of what they want to read next. These read alike lists have been designed using five titles from the Maryland Black Eyed Susan Nominees for grades 6-9 for 2019. I hope you find this to be a useful tool as you start your holiday season.   Starting a blog has been an overwhelming and daunting process, clearly as I have not posted since July. I have been astounded by the number of people who have purchased items from my TPT store since it launched in March, but for me it has been my greatest pleasure, in this process of developing a brand, to participate in the community of librarians which I have joined through Instagram. I am amazed and inspired daily with the awesome and edgy work that you are all doing for our field and our students. It has been so refreshing to see librarians build each other up and encourage them in their work. So, it is with gratitude and humility that I continue to look to you for ideas, professional guidance and support. Please know that you are amazing and your work is meaningful!  Want to purchase these titles for your library or classroom? Deep Water | Ghost Boys | Chasing King's Killer | Game Changer | Click'd Disclaimer: These are Amazon affiliate links. I may get paid if you buy something or take an action after clicking one of these. Here are some other resources you may enjoy!3 Ways to Promote Summer ReadingThe dreaded summer slide is what all teachers hope our students can avoid during these lazy days of summer! As librarians, one of the ways we can help our students is by engaging with them over the summer months; encouraging them to read and share their recommendations or reviews. Here are three of the things I do to help promote summer reading with my students.  1. Connect with your local libraryI love this community connection! Each year I partner with our local librarians and have them come and present to all of our students during ILA classes. The planning starts in April with a few emails with the librarians and we work out a date and schedule. I also go over some of the popular titles we have in our library and discuss possible options for read-a-likes they could bring to book talk. As we get closer to the visit date, I send a copy of the schedule for the day and review any specific technology requests that the librarians may have for presenting. Each of the presentations are approximately 40 minutes long and during that time, they cover the resources the public library has available to children and teens, the summer reading program and book talk new titles of interest for each of the grade levels. Students walk away with a bookmark containing information about the reading program as well as applications to be helpers for those who are interested. This has been an ongoing partnership for our library, and it is a great way to remind students about the amazing resources our public library provides, as well as help our students get to know the librarians, so when they visit, they see a familiar face.  2. Build a summer reading list or reading challengeAnother way I promote summer reading with my middle school students is to run a summer reading challenge. During the last two weeks of school, I send out flyers to ILA teachers and hand them out to my library homeroom regulars. I did not have a chance to do it this year, but next year I plan to create a video to go along with the classroom flyers. The ultimate goal is to have students read one book from each of six categories as a part of the summer reading challenge. This year the categories are:
The flyer students receive contains the list as well as space for them to record the titles of the books the chose to read as a part of the challenge. As they add a title to the handout, they are slowly filling their jar with books to track their progress. 3. Engage with students via social mediaThe second part of the summer reading challenge is to engage on social media. I do this primarily though our school library Instagram page (@hdmslibrary), which has student followers. I post pictures and reminders throughout the school year and during the summer I highlight what I am reading and use the stories feature to book talk any books that I thought really stood out from my own summer reading list. I also am planning to use the polling feature to encourage engagement with students directly. I am hoping students will be confident in sharing the books they are reading and will track their progress with the challenge as well. This will hopefully also encourage other students to participate. You can follow along with our progress and the program @hdmslibrary on Instagram! Happy Summer Reading!  You can download a FREE copy of the summer reading challenge handout I created for students HERE!  How are you encouraging students to read over the summer months? Engaging Students with Social Media TemplatesThe end of the school year signals many of the great things about being a teacher: time off during the summer to read and re-charge, more time with family, the pool/beach/mountains, etc. But, it also brings on the stress that also accompanies the end of the year: getting back all the library books, cleaning up your classroom/office, getting final grades done, last minute PD crammed in when all you want to do is be in your room packing up, scheduling and so many more that it almost makes me sad that my list of stress-ors is longer than the positives…yikes! One thing that you don’t want to stress about is end of the year projects. Because it is this span of time, after state testing, that many teachers want to work in the library and do the projects that they “can’t do” before testing…but I digress and that is for a whole different blog posting!
One of the ways you can reduce stress and reign in some of the child distraction is by meeting them where they live, on social media. You can do this by using social media templates which allow students to create social media postings in a safe and secure place. This is not a new concept, but with some of the online tools available you have to have devices and internet access, as well as email addresses for accounts and more. Each of these can be a hindrance to using an online tool. You have limited access to computers, you say? Well then just print them out and have students draw and write in the information instead.
Not only was this a great tool for this assignment, but imagine the potential for all the ways students could use the social media templates to create faux Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest accounts. The classroom teacher was amazed by how well this all worked out and is now looking for other ways to co-plan projects in the library. A win-win all around!  How do you use social media in the classroom?   Other useful resources!
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authorHi! I'm Sarah, a school librarian and former middle school English teacher. I empower school librarians to use branding and marketing skills in order to build culture, get visible and advocate for their library. 
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