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Thanks so much to all who answered...These are GREAT ideas!

 

Original posting:

 

 

Hi Almighty Brain:

 

I'm looking to add a little more excitement to my library. I would love
any ideas for contests, or ways of promoting reading, or things you do
to help the teachers in your building. Doesn't have to be
complicated...simple ideas etc. I will share it all in a hit.

 

Thanks,

 

Diane Briggs

SLMS

Troy High School

Troy, NY

briggsd@troy.k12.ny.us

 

answers:

 

You could try a "Book Speed Dating" activity, where you put a pile of
books on the tables and set an egg timer so the students get a certain
amount of time to start reading each book. It exposes them to some new
books that maybe they wouldn't have tried otherwise.

What I've done a couple times during the month of May is ask kids to
show me their public library cards (for over the summer reading).  Then
I check their name off on a list of students and give them a small
treat.  (I've had a couple kid try to show me someone else's library
card!)  The public librarians love the cooperative spirit.

I check out about a hundred books (fiction, nonfiction, and biography)
to a patron I call U R a Winner.  Then the books are put back on the
shelf.  When a student chooses that book it shows it's already checked
out, so I look to see if it got back on the shelf before it was checked
it...no, it's UR A Winner...I ring a bellhop bell and real loud say
something like, "U R A Winner, just for checking out this book you

win...1 dollar, or 2 half dollars, or 4 quarters, or etc..." You get the
picture.  Then we also announce it on the morning show.  So and so just
walked in the library or was sent to the media center to get a book and
walked away with a crisp dollar bill.  Stop in to find out how you too
can be a winner.

 

It's fun.  We use book fine money to pay for it.  At the end of the year
I usually have 60 or 70 books still on the shelf checked out to U R a
Winner.  So I know what didn't get checked out and I might do a display
of them (after taking them off U R a winner). <G>

I don't know if your students have a sign-in sheet, but I had a contest
where whomever had the most sign-ins with a minimum of 30 minutes per
visit, plus reading (this you can work out, we are a technical school,
so the material is different).  I then gave out a free memory stick to
the winner.  It actually was a nice contest and come to think of it, I
need to do this again.

We have a student/staff book club. Once a month we meet to discuss our
current book and vote on the book for the next month. We meet during the
lunch period (we have 5 lunches) and sell pizza for $.75 a slice, offer
a free soda and cookies - of course we lose money but our principal
tries to give us money every year to help with expenses. We have about
50 students/staff that are in the club so we are happy with the turnout.
Sometimes we have a very lively discussion.

During Teen Read Week we reward the top 20 readers in our school, based
on book check out. We offer 1 free coffee/cocoa/chai tea per day to the
students during the week.

We used to do something called Adopt-a-book Week. The Student Council
would sign-up students to adopt a book, they paid for the book, got
first check- out and we put a bookplate in the book "Adopted by...or In
Memory of ... whatever they requested. We also promoted this during Open
House and parent/teacher conferences. We always had lots of parents that
would adopt a book for us. Even the staff would adopt books. The great
thing about this program was that the students usually adopted books
they really wanted to read, like sports bios or fiction that they liked.
Parents and staff adopted the expensive resource books. The reason we no
longer do this is because our source could no longer front us the books
for free and wait for 2 months for their money. We used to get between
$2000 and $3000 in books from this program.

Here's what I'm doing... costs money though. The PTO had some money to
spare and I was the lucky winner! This is for 5th -8th graders... it's
going very well. I stole the TTT grid from someone else, can't remember
who, and adapted it for my promotion. Maybe you can find a way to adapt
it for your high schoolers and budget.

I got this idea from another LM-NET listserver and it's fun, creates
relationships, and builds a base of readers, both teachers and
students!!!

Every six weeks, I ask teachers to email me what they're currently
reading.  I then create placards showing their books title and cover and
place these outside the door of their room.  The students see them and
some are surprised at what their teachers read, esp. in the math
department!  (For some reason, they think math teachers sit around at
night solving math problems...go figuee <no pun intended>:)).  The
teachers have the ability to make a book highly checked out because of
their relationships with their students and some find common ground of
something to talk about and discuss with them because of books both
student and teacher has read.  

They love it, and it's always popular with my staff here.  If I don't
have a placard by their door when they come out, they'll email me
telling me I forgot theirs...and off I go to make one : )

BTW I use powerpoint and a laminating machine to make small 4x6
placards.  

Thanks mysterious listserver for suggesting this about a year or so
ago!!!!

I purchased several of the ALA Graphics Celebrity Read posters.  I taped
smaller pictures of the posters to half gallon jars.  When anyone checks
out a book, they can write their name on a ticket and add it to any jar.
During National Library Week - I'll draw one ticket from each jar and
give the posters away.

 

I'm pretty flexible, and if students say they forgot to sign a ticket
when they take a book out, I let them sign when they return it.

I am excited to see what sort of responses you get!

 

One very simple that I do is have some sort of "brain teaser" on my door
each day - one month I did Mad Gabs, another month, I did picture
puzzles (where you have to put the pictures together to form a phrase)
and for December, I am doing crazy names for common Christmas carols
(i.e. The Wee Percussionist is The LIttle Drummer Boy).  It's been
really fun because the kids stop and try to figure them out and like to
stop in and tell me their guesses :-)  Some kids even make a point to
visit the library each day just to see what's on the door!

I few times during the year I host a coffee house all day in the
library.  In October I do scary stories, February I do book quotes, and
in May I do poety.

I sell coffee and cookies all day.  The  themed activity goes on for
part of the period.  Like in October, I had college drama kids come in
and do scary stories.  I decorate all black and goth with lights &
halloween decorations.  I move the tables in different arrangements for
a coffee house look. 

I'm so busy I have to turn kids away.  Good luck!

 

 


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