Re: HIT: FUN (REVISITED)

[Schmuker Family <sschmuker@VOYAGER.NET>]

Sorry it took so long to post a hit on this but I kept waiting for more
ideas--I had so many people want ideas too.  Please send any more ideas to me
and I'll post them later.  It seems to me a lot of us want to have more fun at
work!  Thanks to the three media people who responded with the ideas below.


>
>         I used to post a lateral thinking puzzle (minute mystery) in the
> daily notice that goes to teachers each morning with news for both staff
> and students. I submitted one each Monday, and the kids had until Friday
> NOON to get in an answer on a 3 x 5 card or scrap paper to a box with a
> slit on top kept on my card catalog in the library.  They could submit an
> answer in any of the following ways:
>
> 1) drop it in at a class library visit during the week
> 2) some teachers read the puzzle and gave the kids a few minutes each
> Monday to submit their answers and s/he'd send them down to the box with a
> class messenger
> 3) Kids could drop off an answer in the box by darting into and out of the
> library on their way to their next class or lunch.
> 4) Kids could drop off the answer just before or after school
>
>         After Noon on Friday, I'd shake the box and then open it and reach
> in or have another child or adult reach in and pull out entries until we
> found one with the correct answer.  Sometimes I made it the first male and
> the first female.  Then I posted the winners in the following Monday's
> announcement sheet along with the new puzzle. Kids came to the library when
> able to get a novelty prize or a paperback, etc. Each student must have
> included their full name and class with thier guess.  I only stopped after
> about 3 years because the kids eventually got bored with it and I had less
> and less submissions. But it went quite strongly the first 2 years. Of
> course if teachers don't cooperate and read the puzzle to the class it is
> harder for them to be aware of it, but many regularly stopped by the
> library where it was also posted on the outside of the door. There are a
> whole bunch of these puzzles in a series of paperbacks and I used some from
> a game that consists of a box full of cards with one on each card and I
> can't think of its name at this moment. I have it at school and I can get
> you the name later if you are interested.
>         Another favorite I do each year is a T-shirt design contest around
> a reading theme.  I have a pattern I print on copy paper and the kids must
> put their names and class on the back so these can't be seen when the art
> teacher, reading teacher and I judge them.  The winners are cut out and
> exhibited on a clothesline with clothespins I have crossing in front of my
> windows, hanging between two pipes.
>

When we rec'd one computer in each classroom I had a contest for I wanted
everyone to know just how tied into the media center they were from the
classroom.

 Questions were announced over the PA system with the morning announcements,
and classes would have to log on to the computer in the classroom for the
answer, then send a runner with the answer written on a piece of paper.  The
class with the correct answer FIRST got a Jolly Rancher per student.

For example, "how many joke and riddle books are in the library?"
Class would access the patron catalog on the computer, do a search on the
words "jokes" and another on "riddles" to get the total number.  As we use
Winnebago, there is a way to lock your selections from one search and hold
them while a second search completes.

This "contest" was an eye-opener for some students and staff - who never
realized that they could search from the classroom and come down to get what
they found.

I had a jigsaw puzzle table set up in my middle school library and the kids
and teachers loved it.  I also had a couple of sets of checkers and chess
available to students when they came in.  They sometimes fought over who got
to play with it.

I frequently  had contests--liking guessing the number of candy corns in the
jar but they first had to check out a book in order to receive any entry
form...or sometimes they had to return a book in order to earn an entry form.
 I had a picture contest that was a take off on the PD Eastman book--Are You
My Mother?  The staff brought in pictures of their mothers and kids tried to
identify who's mom went with which staff member.  I also had staff members
bring in pictures from their teen years or earlier and had a contest trying
to match those.  I've had a trivia question announced on the morning news and
gave a small prize to the first 5 people who answered the question correctly.



Jean Schmuker
K-12 Library Media
Coopersville Schools
Coopersville, MI  49404
sschmuker@voyager.net

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