Jean Darnell: Awaken Librarian

I love this month! It's short, cold and full of festivities! Please enjoy my newsletter, but more importantly enjoy your loved ones...those you know and are yet to know.

Today, I crossed the 20,000 viewers mark for this blog!!! I'm forever grateful. This is my passion and first mode of advocacy. What started out as an assignment has become my professional voice! It's due to viewers like you! Sorry to sound like a PBS commercial! But it's true! I've a humble heart and I pray you continue to uplift my efforts! Libraries are the heartbeat of any school! Whether their steward is reserved or outrageous (like me), libraries infect the souls of all who enter. I'm happy to do my part! :) Thank you so much for supporting this blog! And even though I'm super excited, I want to also use this accomplishment to promote #GivingTuesday . It's a global campaign to give back to those in need. Get on Twitter and learn more! We're all responsible for each other in more ways than one can imagine!

I'm quite the visual person and I love videos to express meaning, and consequently for learning. If I can see you do it, then I can master it within a couple of tries...hence this blog that's full of videos and graphics! :) I'm super-short on time, but came across a few resources to help with Thanksgiving crafts and lessons. Enjoy! Here's a cute little video for Thanksgiving: "Thank You for Thanksgiving," Happy Thanksgiving from the StoryBots! from StoryBots on Vimeo . I adore brain stimulation and came across these Thanksgiving Riddles from Enchanted Learning: What key won't open any door? (A turkey!) What's the most musical part of a turkey? (The drumstick!) Why did the turkey sit on the tomahawk? (To hatchet!) For all those "directionally challenged," here's a delightful "Thanksgiving Compass Guide" one-sheeter from Activity Village : Looking for a cool cupcake topper for your "to die for...

Today's #WorldKindnessDay! I'm overwhelmingly excited because all this month on campus, I've celebrated in every way. I've infected my campus with an energy that has a wondrous ricochet effect. Whether it's "paying it forward" or being a blessing to others, when someone goes above the GOLDEN RULE and, consequently, exceeds to the ENRICHED RULE my mouth hits the floor in shock! What's the Enriched Rule? Adding an extra "oomph" to an already good deal! That's like going to the bank for a loan, and getting that loan interest free for 10 years-no strings attached, no credit approval required! :) Yep, all that AND a bag of chips! Lol! I'm such the 90s kid! So...to get my kiddos psyched about kindness, I offered a "High-five" award for any students displaying random acts of kindness. Every morning via the announcements, I encouraged them to show kindness by performing various thoughtful acts, anywhere-anythime. Here ...

My district had the clever idea to get in on the holiday fun surrounding Halloween, and have a Monster Match! Basically, one class designs/creates a monster. Then they type up their description only of the monster and send the description to another school/classroom. Next, based on the description, that class creates their version of the monster. Finally, on a designated day, both classes video-conference to compare/contrast the results! How cool is that?? Very! Here is our accomplishment: LGE: Monster Match from AwakenLibrarian on Vimeo . I liked this activity because it was a bit of holiday fun, incorporated technology (albeit minimally) but also because it dabbled into a bit of #GeniusHour. Our kids were allowed to create based on a topic/guidance. They had a minimal description with the "sky being the limit" on creativity. It's not 100% #GeniusHour , but it's a great way to start off those kiddos and staff members are new to it. For some other ideas...

So in tribute to T exas Library Association's Snap-Shot Day 2015 , I created a "Library of Gloom" video for Halloween: AND, to be more professional, I've show-cased what I do during my conference period: RUN THE MORNING BROADCAST! I've embraced the role of Broadcast Media Team (BMT) Leader in efforts to better promote library initiatives and coach the students that truly want to go into the field. We have a team of 4th graders (Tuesday/Thursday) and 5th graders (Monday, Wednesday & Friday). We're teaching them skills like how to angle the camera, switching viewing inputs from PC to camera to out in the classrooms, and of course, the major skill-set: SPEAKING ON LIVE TV ! My district has an excellent layout for creating a broadcast team. Check out these helpful tips ! The students enjoy it so much so that they argue, rationally , over who gets to anchor the broadcast and why. I love their constructive criticism and feedback! I call them my ...

On my campus, my principal stresses the importance of great writing. As a former senior English teacher, my students can attest to you, how much I stressed the value of active writing over passive writing. I forbade the following "To Be" verbs from their essays: am, is are, was, were, be, being, been, became, become, seems appears and got. THEY HATED ME...at first! But over time, I had them slinging essays and poetry books like it was nothing... all without "to be" verbs! When they graduated--AND as this Facebook post will attest to--they knew the power of writing concise and with direct/active purpose: Though they complained, I always wrote with my students following all the rules I assigned. I did it to keep my edge, to model and to show them that I wouldn't ask them to do anything that I wouldn't do myself. There's an article titled "Do You Write with your Students?" Here's a wonderful graphic, courtesy of Edutopia , that c...