Merry Christmas!

Season's Greetings!
It has been a while since I have made any new posts on the 'ol blog here, so since New Year's has come and gone it is a time for new beginnings and some resolutions.  Therefore, one of my resolutions shall be to post more.  This will be easier as I am not going to back to school with my online UBC classes this term.  This is because I am burnt out from work/home/school/mom/life and I need to focus on 4 things instead of 5.
 I post because it keeps me on top of things.  If I don't do any cool displays and lessons then I have nothing to post and therefore feel like a slacker.  Posting helps me reflect on past lessons, displays, contests and logs ideas away for the future.  If others get inspired then I consider it a bonus.  It's like anything to do with teaching, you plan, share and impart your knowledge in hopes that others benefit.  So without further ado, here is what my Library looked like for the month of December.

Here is part of the Early Reader display.  This is generally reserved for "New Books" however we have so many Christmas stories that I used every inch of display room I could.

Above is the usual Early Reader display area.  The snowman globes were created by the two Kindergarten classes during my "collaborative teacher flex time" that I offer teachers to work on literacy skills with the classroom teachers using the Library space/resources.  The lesson was inspired from Pinterest (my current addiction) and can be found here.  I plan to keep these up during January as they are snowy not really Christmasy.  I did adapt the lesson as I had the students colour the snowmen with oil pastels and then use their fingertips to make the snow with paint.  Much easier and less messy with the Kinders.

Above is my rendition of the Fiction Christmas display.  I had an extra rolling cart that I was constantly tripping over so I took it out of the backroom, slapped some cutouts and border trim on it and now I have a handy movable display.  My Fiction section has NO display area left and therefore this was a good solution.  I have plans to make it a "Classic" display area come January.

Here is my happy little Library Helper Elf.  She loves playing on this Panda Rocker that has lived in the Library since forever.  I usually keep him in my back office as he just seems to be too much of a temptation for the Grade 7's to ride.  Not pictured is Library Helper Elf Gramma and Library Helper Elf Poppa.  A huge thanks to those two for coming to help set up the Library for Christmas on a Saturday!! Love you guys!!!

Last but not least is the Christmas Tree.  The tree was a donation by my Teaching Partner's Mother In Law- it's absolutely gorgeous!! It looked pretty lame this year, however I have grand plans for this tree.  If there's one thing I have learned teaching is that Rome was not built in a day.  The Library got a good dose of Christmas this year and I have plenty to build on in the coming years.  I started some book ornaments but did not get them finished for this year, I will finish them over the course of the next few weeks and make a late post with instructions.

I hope all my readers had a wonderful Christmas, I know I certainly did!!! See you more in 2013!!