M205 Library Update: You Guys ROCK!

An armful of packages

At 2:20 today my classroom phone rang.  It was the secretary in the office.

"Uh, Mrs. Becker?  You have a whole lot of packages down here ...from Prime."

I bolted down the stairs and almost ran to her office to find an armful of wonderful, glorious packages!

I gathered them all up and went back to my room and just stared at them for a few moments, saying a silent prayer of thanks for all of you fabulous, beautiful, generous people who have reached out to me with books suggestions, questions, and gifts!

Then I started opening them.

You guys rock!

Almost every package had two or more books inside, and the notes!  The notes are great!  I loved this one:

Your notes are terrific!

I am seriously moved to tears by what people are doing to help me build this classroom library.  And these notes are encouraging me to stick with this and reaffirm that I'm doing the right thing with this library project.

Is it rebellion against Common Core which has stripped novels from my curriculum?  Absolutely.  But mostly the project originated in the belief that my students will fall in love with reading again with the right encouragement and with an engaging selection of books that are right in the classroom with them every single day.

This is what I ended up with today after ripping open all those packages:

Today's arrivals

I am simply overwhelmed.

And then when I got home there was one more that had come to my house!  (It had no note - I don't know who to say thank you to):

Who sent this?  Thank you!

I'm so glad I ordered these cards!  I'm going to have my readers check out their books so I can keep up with them.

Check it out!

And it looks like I'm going to have to get more shelving now which is beyond fabulous!

I could not be more excited about sharing these books with my students in August.  I'm going to use the summer to organize our library, set up the cards, stock the shelves, and will continue to gather books.  I'm going to change the shipping address to my home for the summer so that books don't get backlogged in the school mail over the summer.

I'm still open to suggestions if you know of something that needs to be added to my Wish List.  I'm updating that list daily.  You can either email me or leave a note in the comments.  And of course you can keep sending books! 

One way to really help is to share this project on your social media!

My first post on my project and its rationale is here, if you haven't seen it, and the second is here.

The Wish List is here.  And feel free, if you have a personal recommendation, to shop off the wish list.  I've gotten some great books from people who really enjoyed a book that I haven't thought of.  My students read anywhere from a grade 5 to a grade 12+ reading level.  I'm really targeting my lower readers but of course I want everyone reading.

Again, thank you from one very grateful teacher!