Virginia Readers' Choice 2014

I do love the Virginia Readers' Choice program.  It allows me to create new lessons every year, discover new literature, and get kids excited about reading. Using the primary list, I study each of the books, troll the Internet for ideas, and create some of my own ideas for teaching the books.  Even though the mission of the program is for the children to enjoy these books as read-alouds, as a librarian, I cannot simply read a book out loud without doing some sort of literacy or comprehension activity afterward.

Usually,  I present my ideas for the books at our state librarians' conference, but last year, I was really disappointed in the quality of the conference and decided I needed a break.  I did not attend this year (it just ended yesterday), and I'm still glad about my decision.  The other morning, I received an email from a fellow librarian that just made my day:

• You may not remember me, but I sure remember you.  I cannot tell you how disappointed I was that you were not here to do your Virginia Readers' Choice session at the VAASL conference.  I sooooo look forward to it every year and this year has been particularly stressful for me since we have adopted a new catalog system and the budget cuts get worse and cause us to be swallowed into other areas so our supervisor is stretched to the max.  I have no idea what I would do without my volunteer since we have no aides.  And these SMART goals are just ridiculous.  Well, anyway...I missed you and just wanted you to know that.

I know that my sessions are well attended at the conference, and I get really good reviews, but for someone to take the time to write just shows that librarians are truly special people! 

Since I am teaching the books anyway, with or without the presentation at the conference, I have done the work for the books and compiled everything on a livebinders page (my new favorite way to organize my online life!!).  I sent the link to this librarian, and I am happy to share it with the readers of my blog (are you out there?!):  

VRC 2013-2014 Ideas

Lots of great ideas for teaching the books, along with comments as I teach the books and discover how my plans worked (or didn't).  Check it out!

VAASL!

What a great time I had at the VaASL conference!! A whole lotta work, fun time with old friends, and a little drama.  What more could we ask for?!?!

Lotta work: This year, as in years past, I presented two workshops on extension ideas to use with the VRC books.  Our state awards readers' choice award nominees list comes out each spring, and librarians like to use these books with our K-2 kids, so I put together some ideas for using the books in the library.  I was thinking back to when this all started, and I remember being appalled that my reading specialist just went from room to room reading all the books in a row and had the kids vote.  I wanted to make the reading more meaningful, so I gently insisted that I'd have to take over the VRC program.  That was in 2001, I think.  I don't think she was too disappointed not to be reading the books like that.

Then, one year, I was mentoring a lovely new librarian and we came up with ways to use the VRC books in our libraries.  I shared those ideas with the librarians in my county, and then everything started to snowball.  The reading specialist at my school created a summer class for teachers and librarians who were interested in using the VRC books, and we came up with lots of ideas there.  Another librarian friend and I decided to present at the state conference and share the ideas we'd found and created for the books.  And now it is just expected. 

It takes hours and hours to troll the Internet for each book on the list, looking for ideas and finding out what's out there.  Then I create lessons based on my own ideas (and improve the things I found online). 

Drama: I somehow got sick immediately after eating breakfast about 1 1/2 hours before my presentation.  What the heck?!?!? Who vomits?!?!?!  Not nerves.  Not a bug.  Who knows.

Fun times: The Thursday night entertainment was the best ever for VaASL!! Scooter Hayes, AKA Melvil Dewey entertained us with bunches of his songs from his CDs.  I've been watching his Dewey Rap video with the kids for years now, and he is a rock star to us. 



My new favorite word is Plagiarizzle.  If you plagiarizzle, you get in troub-izzle.  A great song by Scooter.  I totally think that kids will respond differently to any lesson on plagiarism if we just call it plagiarizzle!