Deep Thinking

Every year we do it. Kids love it. Families look forward to it. The PTA seeks ways to support it. Teachers save their funds to spend at it. I survive it. Okay, mostly I enjoy it. I’m talking about Bookfair week. This year’s theme is the Reading Rainforest: Wild for Books. We started working in July and transformed our library into a very strange fantastic rain forest. Two volunteers worked incredibly hard and pulled off miracles the last two weeks to create a fantastic environment. All the teachers and students have asked us to keep the decorations up all year. A volunteer from the PTA came in and offered to take over the Wednesday Wild for Books breakfast and contacted all my volunteers. The principal utilized our new district calling system to call home to every house and invite them to come to our huge Thursday event with Ice Cream Social and Rainforest Ranger/Urban Safari and his animals. Teachers rushed in for their breakfast preview last Friday, sent notes home to parents, and purchased lots of books! Our PTA provided a $25 gift certificate for a drawing and obtained 550 free kids meals at Rainforest Cafe for me to distribute on Thursday night.

Still, I’ve had the allergy attack and talked myself hoarse. Every year we work so hard that at the end we are utterly worn out. It’s worth it when the students proudly walk in and show off their bookfair and their library to their family. This is celebration week and everyone loves reading. One of the parent volunteers noted in wonderment while students were making their wishlists “These kids are just as excited as you are!” Of course they are. Kids recognize a good thing when they see it. I’ll post pictures this week.

Well, nearly two months later and I’m still posting pictures of the setup of our Bookfair to my Flickr account. I have more, but I have to be very sensitive as to which ones show children’s faces. Those permission slips can be a big chore to wade through. I wouldn’t want anyone to see a cute child who’s parent didn’t sign the forms!

Simple read-aloud for Kindergarten students at the beginning of the year: I like Your Buttons by Sarah Marwil Lamstein. This is a very simple story of a little girl who complements her teacher, who then goes on to complement another, on and on until in the very end something nice happens to the original little girl. It is a cyclical story that enables me to show students how to flip back to the beginning to check for understanding. The simple lesson that doing one nice thing for someone else may eventually cause something nice to happen to them is essential when building the “team spirit” at the beginning of the school year. I also enjoy the page where a little boy teaches his younger brother the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” because we can set the book down and do a simple fingerplay in the middle of a story.

I can extend this lesson to other people’s feelings and demonstrate how to give and receive real complements. One effect that happens every year is that these children will make positive comments such as “I like your books. I like this lesson. I like the computers. I like being your partner.” I think I’ll take some didactic teaching every year. I have even noticed the positive effect when older students wander in to eavesdrop on this lesson. They will participate in the fingerplay and then share their positive comments as modeling while the kindergarten students locate and choose books.

We work hard at our school to foster the concept that the library belongs to everyone, all are responsible for our atmosphere, and everyone impacts others positively or negatively. May you have a positive day.