Pretending It's Autumn

It's that time of the year when I pretend it's fall time. There might be an alarming lack of orange leaves, boots, and pumpkin spice lattes here, but I can still decorate the library appropriately and plan lessons on pumpkins, fall leaves, and thankfulness.

When some very expensive, imported pumpkins showed up at the grocery store a couple of weeks back, I decided to snatch the biggest one up. I knew many of my students had probably never seen a real pumpkin, and I thought it would go well with some of the pumpkin books we were going to read.

My littlest students were so funny when they first saw it. "Is that a REAL pumpkin? A REAL one?!" They touched it and smelled it and wanted to pass it around. We learned about how pumpkins come from seeds and grow on vines. We had adjective competitions to fill in the blanks on our pumpkin song.

Now we are preparing for Thanksgiving. Because we are so thankful for all our books in the library, we made some turkeys to show off the books we are most thankful for.

Some books that I've read recently that I am thankful for:
The Pigeon Needs a Bath! by Mo Willems

The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

If You Were a Book Title

I asked my 6th graders this question:

After some brainstorming, we hit the markers and started decorating our circles.

The 6th graders started telling me about people, events, books, locations, and other things that held significance in their lives. Harry Potter turned a nonreader into a reader. A student who recently came to Nicaragua is trying to grapple with moving from one part of the world to another. Music has, and always will be, the best part of another student's day.

Working in the library has given me more time and more opportunities to listen to my students and to hear their stories. Give them a little prodding, and they have a lot to say.