Book Boxes + Libraries = BFFs!

I was so excited to present at Round Rock ISD SummeRR Camp professional development series this week with one of my favorite people with whom to collaborate- Forest North's own Ms. Lutz! Check out our presentation!

Texas Library Association Conference 2016

Mrs. Young and I were so excited to attend the 2016 Texas Library Association Conference in Houston last week.  We missed Forest North a lot, but we came back energized with lots of new ideas about how to make the library even better for our students and staff!

I participated in a session called "Speed Dating the Bluebonnet Books."  Librarians pay to come to this session to raise money for the Texas Bluebonnet Award, and they get to rotate around about 20 tables, meeting authors or Texas Bluebonnet committee members to get background and programming ideas about the books.  They also get many of next year's books for free and can get them signed by the authors.  As an outgoing committee member, I showed up to help, but Doreen Cronin was unable to attend because of the terrible weather affecting Houston.  Suddenly, Doreen's publisher, Michelle, and I were in charge of presenting Ms. Cronin's book Chicken Squad, to all of the rotating librarians!  We came up with a short presentation and had a blast presenting it to tons of librarians!

Ursula Vernon, author of Hamster Princess

Cassie Beasley, author of Circus Mirandus

Josh Lieb, author of Ratscalibur

Joel Ross, author of Fog Diver

Next Gen Digital Classroom update

Mrs. Young & I were thrilled to attend the Next Gen Digital Classroom Conference for RRISD last week.  We learned a lot to help use our iPads with students.  Thanks for a great day, Technology Department!  I'm most excited to use iMotion and ClassKick with students, and am interested in checking out Book Creator (and applying for a PTA grant to get the money to buy it for our students!)

Scholastic Reading Summit

Yesterday, the Forest North library team had an amazing time at the Scholastic Reading Summit.  We chose two sessions - one led by Mrs. Fournier's favorite library blogger, Mr. Schu.  She was so excited!  The other one was about book talk clubs, which we will be incorporating into Library Leaders this year, and another new club Mrs. Fournier will be starting with Mr. Hashbarger.  Stay tuned for more information and check out these photos for more cool stuff we learned yesterday!

This is Mr. Schu, Mrs. Fournier's favorite blogger! 

A photo of a slide from Mr. Schu's presentation

Library to Have 1:1 Electronic Devices This Year!

The Forest North Library is thrilled to announce that we are a Next Gen Trailblazer Library for RRISD next year. This means the library will have a set of iPads for students to use during library lessons to incorporate technology this upcoming year. This also means I'm attending trainings this summer to prepare! Today I attended an all-day training about various resources to use. Thanks Mrs. Rubin from Brushy Creek Elementary for teaching us! Next up is another Next Gen specific training on 8/6 with Mrs. Rhea & Mr. Brewton!

Mrs. Fournier is attending the Texas Library Association Annual Conference this week in San Antonio. She is learning about new books and new ideas to keep our library rockin' and rollin'!

One panel Mrs. Fournier really liked was on books and censorship. One author who spoke on the panel was Jude Watson of the 39 Clues series! Mrs. Fournier knows we have a bunch of 39 Clues fans here at Forest North, so she asked Jude (her real name is Judy!) for a picture!

See you next week, Eagles- I miss you!