Well the holidays are over, and we are back at school.  Sadly I didn’t get half as much done as I wanted to, but I thoroughly enjoyed relaxing and hanging out with my new husband and family.  Of course, once Sunday hit, I realized that I actually needed some new goals and to start thinking about plans for the coming week!

One of the things I was toying with was doing something with resolutions or starting new goals in the library.  I found this cute story called Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution by Pat Miller.

I eventually decided to read Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution to Kinder and 1st, and then talk about making new goals/resolutions for the new year.  After reading the book, I shared some of my resolutions that I had made over the holiday.  I created a quick page where the students could jot down and/or draw their own resolutions for 1) at home, 2) at school, and 3) for themselves.

I also wanted to use this time to gather some feedback from the students, so I created a student and teacher survey for 2nd – 5th grade using Google docs.  The kids were so excited to be “the boss of me” and tell me what they wanted me to do differently.  I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with, and what changes they would like to have in the library.

Here’s a sample of the Student Survey questions:

Here’s a sample of the Teacher Survey questions

One of the ideas that has come out of these surveys is the fact that the kids would like to have more time to check out books.  I sometimes go a little long in my lessons, and they end up with only 5-10 minutes to check out new books.  So, I’ve decided to create a “Relax & Read” week that I’ll implement every month or so.  On these days, when the classes come to the library for their scheduled library time,  there will be no official “lesson”.  Instead, the students will have the whole time to look at books, check them out, and then read quietly.  I will use this time to have mini-book talks with students, and assist them in finding new books.  Here’s the poster that I created to announce that it’s a “Relax & Read” week.

I’ve included all these forms in my “New Year’s Resolutions” unit on TpT.