I was looking through Pinterest for STEAM/LIBRARY ideas a couple of bulletin boards inspirations (links at the bottom). No real description of who or how this project was completed by these other libraries/librarians. Plus with my graduate class, I want students to start thinking about their thinking more.
So I took these pins and developed an entire project. The first piece was done in Library which was the worksheet.
FIRST LINE WORKSHEET
The second part was done in STEAM on the computers. It ended up taking two STEAM classes to type, print, and assemble the projects. A few remain unfinished for a variety of reasons. Day 2 starts with showing students how to get into Word on the desktop, create tables, insert pictures, and more (not in Office 365 because tables are light blue in Office 365 and tables are black in desktop version). Students then moved to the computers and started on the project. Step one was to insert a table and increase the size of the boxes so the four boxes filled the page. The first box was used to type the "first line" of the book. The second box was used to put in the book cover. Most student could locate creative commons pictures of the covers using the "online pictures" option embedded in word. Otherwise, I had to individual show students how to get a safe picture from google of the cover. I could not always ensure that we had the permission to use these pictures because of time constraints. The third box was for the feeling emoji. Students could draw or pick an emoji from the "online pictures" as well. The final box was for the student's name. The reason for the four boxes was because I wanted to minimize the size of the boxes (for the assembly step) and limit amount of printing/ink used.
Students then showed me the finished product before printing. I had to individually assist in saving and printing each student project because the U drive was not the default setting and we were not using Office 365 online which auto saves. The printing default is set as a document and black/white printing. So students had to select the correct printer and change the color settings. This was easier to do by myself for all 20 + students. The color printer is down the main hall and into our kindergarten wing. So I could only allow a couple of students to walk to the printer at one time.
The next step was to cut these elements apart. Then the student had to pick a colored sheet of paper and fold into a "card" (hamburger fold then fold in half). I could have done a half sheet of paper, but I did not have time to pre-cut paper. The FIRST LINE was to be glued on the front, the emoji and book cover pictures were to be glued in the "middle" of the card when you open it up, and name would go where the student selected or on the back. The idea is that library patrons can read a first line of a book and get intrigued and open up the display to see what book this FIRST LINE goes with (and ideally ask to borrow the book).
What would I change? Finding a way to make tables work in Office 365 to save time saving the project, pre-teaching printing, pictures, etc... Even though the project got a bit overwhelming to manage, I would repeat it again!
The projects in the hallway are quite popular. I see students and staff peaking at the projects and commenting as they walk by.
Here was my inspiration on pinterest/twitter:
First Line Inspiration
Book cover/Emoji Inspiration
LOOK FOR PICTURES SOON!
