March Madness in the AAE Library

 March was a short month for our district. This school year we had 2 weeks for Spring Break, then the last week of March had 4 testing days which shut down the library for the entire mornings of all 4 days. When I ran the statistics for this month, I was surprised that we still had almost as many books checked out as last month! 

March Madness 

One of my favorite activities in the month of March is our Tournament of Books. We base this around the college basketball March Madness bracket. It is really simple if you want to run your own Book tournament, and it fosters a lot of literacy conversation in the hallway. 

To get started, I look up the top 16 books that have been checked out for the school year. If there are duplicates, such as 2 Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, then I skip the second one in that series and just go down to the next top book. I match them up in the bracket: book 1 with book 16, book 2 with book 15, etc... 

I create a google form for students, teachers, and staff to vote in each round. You can get your copy of the google form and just add your books for voting! 

I create a bracket online to share in the daily campus announcements using Google Slides. 

I also put the bracket just outside the library, which is in the main hallway. I love it when the kids stop and discuss which book they think will win. I also very often hear them convincing others to read and vote for certain books. This is a great way to build a community of readers. 

Women's History Month Breakouts 

Our students LOVE ❤️ breakouts. This month I had digital breakouts for them to complete over exceptional women in history. While solving the clues to break out of each lock, students learned about Bessie Coleman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Carolyn Keene, Serena Williams, Amanda Gorman, and Eugenie Clark. It was lots of fun, especially seeing how excited they were when they solved all of the locks! 

March Statistics 

March was a short month for sure, but we were still busy. The circulation was a little down from other months, but we were only in school 3 weeks during March. One of the weeks was a testing week, so the library was closed every morning for 4 days in a row. 

1,647 books were checked out from the library this month and 21,000 minutes were read on myON eBooks. 2, 219 student patrons visited the library to check out, read, study, or get tech support. 45 classes came to the library for lessons. The lessons this month were Digital Breakouts, Read Across America diverse books, Women's history month research, and Historical Fiction.