Bee Awareness Month (New Zealand)

By Helen Muxlow

The National Beekeeping Association of NZ started Bee Awareness month (BAM) in September 2014. BAM is devoted to encouraging New Zealanders to think about the honey bee and its critically important role in our biodiversity and economy.

Helen has made this fabulous display to support Bee Awareness Month and make her students aware of this important initiative. Here are her comments:

'The Bees hanging from the ceiling are made of cut up pool noodles with black electrical tape, google eyes and pipe cleaner wings. The articles on the wall are from The Wellington Newspaper 1st September 2016 titled Plan Bee, and The Life insert in the Dominion Post titled "The romance of Honey" 7 September 2016. The bees on the wall were black and white images photocopied onto yellow paper'.

ROALD DAHL DAY

A reminder that September 13th is Roald Dahl Day and this year is special: 

2016 marks 100 years since his birth.

The Official Roald Dahl website

Have you registered for the free Party Pack?

Spring into a Book

By Helen Muxlow

It's spring in the Antipodes!

Thanks for sharing this attractive display Helen - the origami flowers are lovely!

Here are Helen's comments:

'Thought you might like to see the origami flowers I've had fun making for our spring display in the library. Here are the origami flower instructions if you want to have a go yourself. (Maker spaces are for librarians to create in too!)
(Did you spot that the flowers are made from recycled book pages.No usable books were harmed, only books destined for the bin were used in the making!)'

Hispanic heritage month

By Angela Burke Kunkel

A big thank you to Angela, a librarian in the southwestern United States for sharing this display.

A great way to celebrate Hispanic heritage month which runs from September 15th to October 15th. This display uses traditional Mexican papel picado and paper flowers, along with fiction by Hispanic authors.

Leaf through a good book

By Susan Duncan

Thanks to Susan, Library Assistant at Lester B. Pearson High School for this display. Here are her comments:

'I covered a tabletop tri-fold with brown Kraft paper then traced a projected clip art image directly onto it. An outline in black paint and a bit of brown sponged color ended up giving me this very cute tree who is so obviously shocked to see all his leaves falling off. A fall garland tacked along the bottom of the display finishes it off quite nicely. Keeping with the fall colours theme, I choose books on a variety of topics to display on the counter around it'.

I do love your tree Susan!

Spring into a Good Book

 

By Elaine Pearson 

Spring is sprung, the grass is ris ..... this suspended host of golden daffodils gently wave in the breeze as the students wander by .....

                                    ...... hopefully they will stop and take out a book!

Clouds and daffodils from Google images clip-art, printed on card and hung from green stalks. Happy Spring Southern Hemisphere folks! To those up North - search for 'Autumn' or 'Fall' in the search box for some great ideas.

Banned Books Week

By Denise Borck

Many thanks to Denise who has shared more of her wonderful bulletin boards. 

Here are her comments on her 'Banned Books Week' display:

Do visit Denise's Blog for more details: LIFE IN THE LIBRARY

'This week we are celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Banned Books Week. I am really enjoyed the conversations I am having with the kids about banned or challenged books. Why are books banned? What does it mean to challenge a book? Why in the world would “Where’s Waldo” be banned?! Can we still check them out even if they were banned? Did you really burn those books on the bulletin board? Those are just some of the questions our display has caused our students to ask. I also printed out the list of the top 100 banned books from the past two decades for them to look over. When students didn’t know why a book may be on the list, we went to the computer to search for the reason. This developed into some great discussions with kids!'

Constitution Day

By Andrea Garcia
Andrea Garcia juggles working at the Aldama Elementary School in Los Angeles and at the public library - and she still finds time to do some amazing displays to promote the books from the collections!
She has worked in school libraries for 13 years and in the public library for seven years.

Here are her comments about her Constitution day display:
Constitution Day is on September 17th, and every year I get inspired to add a different center for the students. I usually start off with a short speech about why we celebrate our constitution, where it's located & explain contest rules, the voting booth, etc. Then the students have 20 minutes to rotate at each table. 1) Photos & info about the delegates 2)Examples of colonial money & replicas of our current money 3)What it takes to be a citizen in our country 4)Voting Booth (if it's not a presidential election year we vote on favorite book or movie based on a book) 5)Replica of the Constitution & a contest; how many words do you think are in the document 6)The 3 Branches of the Federal Government; The Judicial, 7) The Legislative, 8) The Executive 9)The Gettysburg Address 10) The Amendments and what they mean 11) California as our state 12) Contest, write something you learned at Constitution Day on a card and I pick one to win a prize. I also create little activity booklets to hand out to all the students. Sometimes I would make little pins of the American flag for each staff member.One year I bought invisible ink & had a center which featured spies during the American Revolution & different methods they used.

All your hard work obviously pays off Andrea, well done!

Do NOT Read these Books!

By Amanda Kiely
Amanda does the displays for the children's section of the Ketchikan Public Library in Ketchikan, Alaska. Alaska - how awesome is that!

This is what she says about her display:
'I have been so inspired by your site! (great to hear this, thanks - Elaine). The banned books display I did got more attention than anything else I've done, probably just because it told the kids NOT to read those books!'

It's a very good display thanks Amanda. I love the way you have told the children not to read the books!

Roald Dahl Day - 13th September

By Amy Hesterman
Amy Hesterman,(Elementary Librarian,Madison Christian School,Groveport,OH) remembered Roald Dahl Day, they celebrated all month and had a lot of fun! Here are her two great displays and what she says about them:

'I had one display in the lunch room (top picture) with interesting facts about Dahl himself (taken from the book "The Missing Golden Ticket") and made a large candy bar from poster board, foil, and purple paper. On a side note, to celebrate the month, one day during lunch each student received a small Hershey's candy bar when they came into the lunch room. In advance, I had put a gold star in 3 of the little candy bars. When told, students opened their candy bars simultaneously, found the "golden ticket," and 3 won a Roald Dahl book (wrapped like one of the Wonka Candy Bars) of their own. This was a really fun month for us in the library.

Second display (below) was in the library hallway. This was a giant book I made that had "Never a Dahl Moment" on the spine. The orange bubbles are simply titles of Dahl books, including the Roald Dahl calendar'.





















Roald Dahl Day takes place every year on 13 September, on the birthday of the World's No. 1 Storyteller.
For more details and ideas see Roald Dahl Day
Have a peachy Roald Dahl Day in 2011!

Banned Books

By Carrie
Shelagh from Barkly College Library in Northern Territory, Australia has sent this photo of a display put together by Carrie based on Banned books. In the speech bubble she has explained why the books were banned. This generated a lot of discussion with the students and staff. Shelagh says many of the books were borrowed out of curiosity.

It is an interesting selection, for more details of banned books click on the link below:
ALA Banned Books Week

Banned Books

By Bess Gonglewski
Thanks for sharing this display Bess. Cliick on the photo to see the detail - I like the strong image of the ropes binding the books, it gives a lasting impression to the display.

'Banned book week' in the USA is is an annual event against banning books and celebrating the freedom to read. It is held during the last week of September, you may like to time a display to link with this.
More details can be found at the following link:

American Library Association">Banned Books

Banned Books Display

(Click on picture to enlarge)










By Gabrielle Karsai
In the USA books are regularly banned and removed from schools and public libraries. This may be at a national or subnational level (when legal penalties for infraction are applied) or at a local community level.

Gabby (Library Assistant at Our Lady of Mercy College, North Parramatta, Australia) has put this display together to raise her students’ awareness to how lucky they are in Australia regarding the lack of censorship. She especially chose titles that are her students’ favourites, i.e. Twilight; My sister’s keeper; Harry Potter etc.
A very thought provoking display which should initiate some intetesting discussion.
Thanks Gaby.

'Banned book week' in the USA is is an annual event against banning books and celebrating the freedom to read. It is held during the last week of September, you may like to time a display to link with this.
More details can be found at the following link:
American Library Association

Conservation Week (New Zealand)

By Eileen Barnett
This innovative display was sent by Eileen Barnett, Librarian from Menzies College, Southland.
What a great way to get the students involved! I'm sure it is an activity they will always remember and reinforce the conservation message at the same time.

Eileen says: "These images are from a display we did to mark Conservation week last year. Members of the conservation club helped by stuffing bags of waste paper from around the school to make a mum and dad, armchair, cat and baby. Pics from around the school, books and questions were put up as part of the display. Pupils saw me taking pictures around the school and came to the library to find out what I was up to."

Conservation Week (New Zealand)

By Anita Vandenberghe
Anita Vandenberghe of St. Kentigern College, Pakuranga has kindly shared her great displays for Conservation Week - I'm a bit jealous of the wonderfully huge display area - but then it must take some filling!!
Obviously, this display was specific to NZ Conservation Week but it could easily be used for general conservation, recyclying etc. Anita collected rubbish from the college premises to use on the middle board.






















Gore's bestselling book adapted for youth (Click picture for details)