And the Winner is………..

At the end of the awards ceremony, (where I announced the AR point winners, the kids who read the most last summer and stuff like that)  I called the students with the top five designs up, with the entire school watching. It was about as tense a setting as you find in elementary. Each of the five students had worked very hard on their designs, and had put a lot of thought into them. They all hoped to win, and had their entire class silently hoping for them as well. (only one class had two designs in the top five) I was enjoying their anxiety, and was milking it for all it was worth. I talked about how I was expecting to get nine or ten designs and how I ended up with 67. I talked about how hard it was to pick a top five, and how each of thm were great and probably could have won. Then I announced the winner, and everyone cheered.  The girl who won, has a sister in the first grade, who stood up and ran over across the room, in front of everyone to give her sister a big hug. It was a very happy moment.

This is the design that won.

I wasn’t the final judge, but this was the design that I was hoping would win. Every person I’ve showed it to has had the same initial response. “Wow.” and that’s exactly what I hoped the box would do to people seeing it for the first time. A few students who were in the top five, (and a few who weren’t) approached me after the ceremony, and told me that they thought the judge made the right decision. They said they knew who was going to win when they saw all five drawings up there next to each other. 

It was all in all a very happy time, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget the end of that ceremony.

Now we’ll move forward with the actual creating of the box. Our friends at Rustic River designs are crafting it. https://www.facebook.com/RusticRiverDesigns It should be fun to watch it come to life. When the box is finished, months from now, I’ll post pictures of it, of course.

 

Tomorrow is the big day! I’ve picked my top

Tomorrow is the big day! I’ve picked my top five favorite designs and I’ve submitted them to the judge. He is drawing them all out, and carefully  considering which design would make the best book return box. He’s going to call me this afternoon with the winner, (I’m very excited about it) and I’ll announce it tomorrow at the awards ceremony which is first thing in the morning. It’s probably good that I don’t know the winner yet since the students are already hounding me. I can’t walk down the hallway without kids yelling “WHAT WERE YOUR TOP FIVE PICKS?” or ” AM I IN THE TOP FIVE? I AM, RIGHT?”

So far, I’ve firmly told them, that I wasn’t telling until the ceremony tomorrow, but since I like you all so much, I’m going to reveal the top five to you, right now. 

The Apple

The Bookie Monster

 Books Can Take You Anywhere

 I’ve already used the Take Me to Your Reader joke, so I’m drawing a blank here.

And last, but definitely not least, the tree/hands design. 

 

Narrowing it down to 5 was very difficult. There were so many good entries. I decided to not go with designs that would go out of style in a few years. (Sponge Bob, Percy Jackson etc.) That helped weed down a bit. I think the top five are all worthy contenders, and any of them could win at this point.

Now, we just wait. I’ll post the winner at some point tomorrow.

Final Day of Book Drop Designs (No Sponge Bob!)

I was going to do a huge post with all of the entries. (For those just tuning in, I’m having a contest in which the students are designing the new book drop for the library.) But there were so many entries today, I think it’s going to take all of my time/energy to post the new ones. (There’s actually one pair of girls working on their last second entry in the library right now) So, if you want to see the other designs, please look at the posts from the past few days.  When I first got the idea of having a contest, I thought that maybe five or six kids would submit a design. That wasn’t the case at all. The response has been huge and a bit overwhelming. Not only do I have kids dropping entries off every few minutes, kids are coming to the library constantly to ask if I’ve picked the top five yet, and to beg that I pick theirs. Well, without any further ado. Here are today’s entries.

A pegasus

 

 Three Ice Cream cones from three different students

 

Sporting the School Colors

I think this one is a Bible

 

This one is Big Nate, but the kids ran out of time before they finished coloring it.

This student freaked out when I told her today was the last day, and asked for a sheet of paper and made it right in front of me.

 

This giraffe wants you to read long books.

 

Another one with a book worm

 

Oh wait. Here’s another book worm.

 

Another House

A horse

This is an Equian from the Above World series

 

A dolphin

Here’s the “Do the Harlem Shake” One I mentioned the other day.

 

I had to cover up the girl’s name on the box.

 

Percy Jackson. I love LOVE “End Your Quest Here Then Start a New One”

 

Your guess is as good as mine.

Another book. This one is Three Times Lucky

This one makes me want a taco.

Two more pretty cool robots

 

All right. The two girls working on their box just finished. Here’s what they came up with. (They actually made it out of a cardboard box instead of drawing it, even though I told them it would be better to draw it)

They also turned this one in.

 

Ok. So that is it. No more entries. Phew. Now I’m going to pick the top five. Our artist is going to choose the winner from those, and I’ll announce it at the library awards ceremony on Wednesday. (I’ll make a post with the top five and the winner on that day.)

Have a happy weekend everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently I underestimated the popularity of Sponge Bob.

Ok. So I got 8 new entries this afternoon. 3 of them were Sponge Bob related. That makes a total of 5 Sponge Bob entries. I thought that maybe the students were comparing ideas, but all 5 students got angry when they found out that other students had the same idea. A few of them weren’t even in the same grade.

Well anyways, here are the new entries, Sponge Bob and the rest.

 

I think this little guy is cute

 

I don’t really know what to make of this.

 

This one is pretty basic.

I think this is a comet?

And a parrot

 

 

More drop box designs

There have been a few more book drop box submissions.

 

Sponge Bob makes a 2nd appearance in the contest. He’s a popular little sponge, isn’t he?

This one made me laugh. You put the books you’re returning in the monster’s mouth.

Yet another house. I think this is the third one? I’m not sure. It’s either the third or the fourth.

A simple, yet elegant castle. 

 

That’s all for now. Tomorrow, when the day is over, and the deadline for submissions has passed, I think I’m going to make a big post with all of the entries together. Maybe you all can help me pick the top five.

 

 

Holy smokes we have some creative kids at this school.

When I first told the students about the contest for designing the new library book drop box, the submissions started coming in a flurry, good ideas, but most of them hastily drawn.

They have definitely slowed down the past few days, but I expect these last three days of the competition will have some carefully planned, creative ideas.  Out of the two submitted today, one really blew me away.

Here’s the first one.  It’s an xbox controller. I had to take the picture from a weird angle to cut the student’s name out of the picture.

 

And here is the one that made me say, “Wow.” You can’t really tell from the picture, but it’s on a huge sheet of paper, and it’s drawn with colored pencils, I believe.

 

No matter what happens with the contest, I think I’m going to frame this one and put it in the library. 

After school Friday, I’m going to pick the top five and them send them on to the judge. I’m excited, and the kids are too. They ask me every day if their submission won, even though they know very well that the contest ends on Friday.

The Great AR Race Conclusion

Just when you think you couldn’t be any prouder of a student….

Well, this is the last week of the Accelerated Reader points race. Me and the Super Reader have been going back and forth. One day I’ll be in the lead, and the next day, she will be. We pretty much read at  the same exact speed, and it was apparent, until today, that the winner was just going to be whichever one of us was lucky enough to be ahead at the end.

Two weeks ago, however, I accidentally sent the Trojan Horse that would have given me the win home with my Super Reader’s sister. The Trojan Horse was Jinx by Sage Blackwood

It’s a new book, and doesn’t have an AR test, yet, but I convinced her sister to read it anyways. She loved it and told Super Reader that she had to read it right away.

Super Reader had to make a choice. Should she read this book that her sister says is wonderful, right away or should she read another AR book  and try to beat Mr. Martin?

Well, she chose the book and I couldn’t be prouder of her. I’ve been telling kids all year that they should read books because they’re excited about them, because they love them, not because of some dumb AR points contest, and the student that had the most to win, beating the librarian in an epic race, chose the book. In my opinion, she wins as a person, and I win as a librarian/life-lesson teacher.

I’m going to forfeit the win to her, and tell the students that she officially won. She chose the love of the book over the competition, and that’s enough to make me bow to her.