Collaborating-Black History Month

Our principals want our students to do projects for Black History Month.  They want to put the finished products in the cafeteria and the front office.  Once I got the email I immediately pulled books and set up displays in different sections of the library so students can easily find what they want.  I didn't put all the books out yet.  I want to put them out in waves so that they all don't get taken by the first few classes.

These two pictures are on either side of my biography section.  I pulled books from K-Z.  I'll pull A-J later this week.  I want to make sure everyone gets a book and the first few classes don't take them all.

As I'm looking at this picture I realize it looks like these books are graphic novels (this is the second time I've taken a picture of a section and realized I needed to fix something.  Pictures really are worth a thousand words!). I need to move those over a little.

I also pulled books from the history section.







One of our 3rd grade teachers called me and asked me to pull books written and illustrated by black people. I pulled some picture books and some chapter books for her.  I had my picture taken with one of the illustrators, Don Tate, and I gave that to her too.

As the day went on I was still thinking about her lesson and I thought about Principal Kafele.  Principal Kafele came to our school last year to talk to the staff.  He's written many professional development books. Our principal last year purchased Closing the Attitude Gap for us to read (he signed my copy).  It was a very informative book!  Principal Kafele also does a YouTube series called "A Message to Your Son".

I emailed the teacher and asked if she still had her book (if she didn't she could use mine) and suggested she show one of his messages.  I told her I could find some of videos for her to show (not all the topics are appropriate for 3rd graders).  I thought it would be good for students to see a black man who wrote books for professionals and also does motivational videos.  She thought that was an excellent idea (she does still have her book).  So I sent her 3 videos.  One of the videos is about saying encouraging words to others is a video I think I'm going to show in my library because I'm so sick of these kids being mean to each other.

I really enjoyed working with this teacher.  I wish more teachers would include me in their lessons.  With me being in rotation this year it doesn't happen as much as it did last year when the teachers came to the library with their students.