Character Day for Spirit Week Brings Books to Life

Last week was Spirit Week at PFTSTA. Each day the students could wear outfits fitting the theme of the day. Thursday was Throwback Thursday. Those planning the activity envisioned students choosing a decade and dressing from the 60s, 70s or 80s or anytime before that. However, some of the students interpreted it to mean a throwback during their own lives. They came dressed in flannel pajama onesies. I thought that was clever and thinking outside of the box. 

On Friday, it was character day. Most of the characters that I saw walking around the building live in video games or save the world as super heroes. I grabbed a couple of pics of characters found in the pages of books. Of course, those would be my favorite types of characters. Below is a student who took her character from Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series. She is a shadow hunter.


At every school, there are students who would like their school to be a little bit like Hogwarts. So when character day arrived, we were bound to see a Harry or two roaming the halls. Below is a senior enlightening his statistics class about the magical aspect of numbers and data. 


One of our new teachers, Maggie Grindstaff, really got into the spirit all week long. There were several Waldos lurking around the building, but I captured a pic of Mrs. Grindstaff who let us know that Waldo is hiding out at Patrick Taylor Academy. Where's Waldo was first published in 1987 when I was an elementary school librarian. I had all of the books in my old library. I don't have them on the shelves of the PFTSTA library, but I am happy to see that Waldo is still a well-loved character. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Holidays from BRiMS and Bookmarked

I run two book groups at Patrick Taylor. My high school book group, Bookmarked , was created in the fall of 2007 which was my second year as librarian at the school. The students really wanted a library club, but the square footage of the library was so small that I could not imagine how any students could do any actual library work. Instead I created a book discussion group. Not only did we meet to talk books, but I tapped these students to help me with fundraisers and special programming like Teen Read Week. Helping me with these special activities seemed to appease the members. I waited until February of 2009 to institute a book discussion group for my middle school students called BRiMS, or Books Rule in Middle School . Both of the groups meet during lunch, and this year, the school added a third lunch. Now BRiMS is made up of only 6th and 7th graders. Bookmarked has 8th-12th grade students. This has actually worked well because in 2014 and 2015, Bookmarked lost a lot of members w
Read more

Banned Book Week: Students Make Comments Pro & Con Censorship

Image
This blog post is being designed as a lesson for the English I students at PFTSTA. The teachers and I have collaborated on an activity to celebrate Banned Book Week (BBW). Many times in the past during BBW, I have invited the 8th graders into the library to discuss the banning and challenging of books in schools and libraries. I usually show some videos and share books owned by our library that have been banned or challenged somewhere in the US. This activity always spurs great discussion among the students and teachers. This year we wanted the students to create a written response to the presentation. We thought there was a real world connection if we had the students post their opinion online as a comment to someone writing about censorship in schools. The teachers and I want the students to learn how to compose a well thought out comment that is supported by evidence and concrete details. How more real world could it be than having the students comment directly on their librar
Read more

Students Weigh in on Banned Books and the Freedom to Read

Image
Every year, for Banned Book Week, I prepare a lesson for our 8th graders. It was always teacher directed with discussion until last year . The English I teachers and I created a lesson for the students that included research and writing. I pulled the materials that I wanted them to read, and the students would write a very short essay declaring their belief in the need for teens to be able to exercise their freedom to read what they want to or the need for certain books to be taken off the shelves of the library or pulled from the English curriculum.  Above is the slide presentation that I have made for the students. Included in the slides are several videos that I thought would get the students thinking. There are slides with links to specific articles that we want the students to read and use for the concrete evidence to support their stance. A rubric is included at the end so the students know exactly what is expected. The teachers and I want the writing to have a rea
Read more