The One and Only Ivan Bulletin Board

My second graders are currently reading The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate with their classroom teacher and I wanted to amp up excitement about the book.

Initially, I had intended to simply put up the cover of the book and add some interesting facts about the real Ivan. Wait, Ivan was real? He sure was. Check out the Katherine Applegate's webite, she has a great deal of information about the real Ivan. She also has a new book coming out in October 2014 - Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla.

In true librarian form, the more research I did, the more excited I got about the One and Only Ivan bulletin board. I ended up with a slew of facts about not only the real Ivan, but about the gorilla population, as a whole. I also added an (almost) life-size cut out of a gorilla. The paper gorilla ended up being 5'4" with an arm span of 8 feet.

I used an overhead projector to trace the gorilla and then free-hand cut his face out of a piece of gray construction paper. 

The board has been up for two days now and people have constantly been coming in to share their excitement! I love watching the kiddos stand there and reading all the interesting facts, it has been far more engaging than I ever anticipated. The facts include:

• The average male gorilla stands between 5 and 7 feet.
• The arm span of an average male gorilla is almost 9 feet!
• The average male gorilla eats over 40 pounds of food per day, the average American person eats 5-6 pounds of food per day.
• Gorillas are herbivores - they eat leaves, shoots, roots, vines and fruits.
• The lifespan of an average male gorilla is 35 years. Ivan lived to be 50 years old.
• There are 4 subspecies of gorillas: Eastern lowland, Mountain, Western lowland, Cross River.
• Gorillas are an endangered species, there are less than 300 Cross River gorillas left in the world.
• The One and Only Ivan is fictional, but was inspired by a true story.
• Ivan was a male Western lowland gorilla.
• Ivan was captured in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
• Ivan and (what is believed to be) his sister were captured as infants and brought to the United States. Ivan's sister died shortly after arriving.
• Ivan was raised in a home until he became too big and unmanageable. He was moved to the B&I Circus Store in Tacoma, Washington.
• Ivan's cage in Tacoma was only 40 feet by 40 feet!
• Ivan spent 27 years alone in his cage without seeing another of his kind.
• When the mall where Ivan lived went bankrupt (they didn't have any money), he was moved to the Zoo Atlanta. Before his move to Atlanta, Georgia, Ivan spent a short time at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.

I did include a citation sheet on my bulletin board so I could model that behavior for students. I found my information on the following sites:

Defenders of Wildlife - Basic Facts About Gorillas

The One and Only Ivan - The Real Ivan

Zoo Atlanta - Celebrating Ivan

Library Menagerie

The library menagerie is constantly growing...

They brighten our spirits, make wonderful reading buddies, create perfect opportunities to connect with hesitant little ones, and bring already fun stories to life.

I have known about Jellycat for a few years now and my wish list of Jellycat critters to be added to the menagerie is constantly growing. I have been hinting to my husband about these creatures, in particular, for some time now...

 Tweedledee Sheep

 Road to Rio Llama

Olive Owl

 Orlando Owl

Tweedledee Hedgehog

Oh, the possibilities of storytime fun...

If you don't have a fluffy zoo in your library yet, I would highly suggest it. It opens opportunities and connections I would never have dreamt possible.

A Librarian Through and Through

I am a librarian through and through. I love what I do and I do what I love. I live and breathe my passion. I wonder how many other occupations out there infiltrate nearly all areas of those professionals' lives? Being a librarian is who I am, what I do, and how I identify. This means, that when I give gifts, they are often librarian-themed and I am "giving part of myself." 

I recently made my mother-in-law's banana bread (it is off-the-hook delicious). Now, the librarian in me needed to add a little literary flair... When I first got to my current school and was cleaning out the office, I found boxes upon boxes of old library checkout cards. Instead of letting them sit there and collect another decade of dust or (gasp) recycle them, I use them. A lot.

I simply cut the checkout cards down to size, wrote a quick message, used a heart hole punch and Viola!

Here they are as the tags on some wedding gifts. You'll also notice that I don't often use "real" wrapping paper. The closest I get is brown butcher paper, I love the shabby chic look. Generally, though, I use fabric to wrap the gift and then use scraps of a coordinating fabric to tie it all together.

Everything is just cuter when it's on a library checkout card. Seriously.

Is that not the most adorable wedding gift package?

I also use old card catalog cards...

Wondering what was inside those beautiful packages? The couple were from two different countries so I made a little framed art to pay homage to their homes.

Writing this makes me wonder what other librarians do in their lives that include glimpses of their professional lives? What other professions infiltrate everything you do?

Doily Art

Before I start this post, I have to share that I had no idea how to spell "doily." For the longest time, I was writing "dollies" and coming up with images of several creepy-looking antique dolls. I finally added the word "crochet" to the beginning of my search and found what I was looking for. So, the art to honor the weirdest word in the world...

I was never much for doilies before meeting my mother-in-law, but she always sent us boxes of fun treasures and there was usually some doilies tucked in there somewhere. I've now been scouring garage sales for ones that are reasonably priced and this weekend, I hit the mother load. I literally bought an entire box full of doilies for $2.00. Score!

This art was inspired by krokrolamb and their amazing work! Seriously, check out these doilies! This was the original source of inspiration:

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My first step was making the little birdie, I used scraps of different doilies and cut them into the shape of the bird's body. The wing detail was already exactly the right shape, yay! The legs were the edging of a doily and little feet were part of a scallop. I used cheap 'ole acrylic paint to add a pop of color.

 Next, I laid all the doilies out on the canvas. I debated about adding small circles to fill the empty spaces between the doilies, but I wasn't happy with how it looked, so I ditched that idea. There is everything laid out before adding the color.

 The painting of the doilies...

 The fabric soaks up the paint, it took a bit more than I expected. It did go pretty quickly, though. I used a foam brush and literally used it like a sponge, using my fingers to dab the paint onto the doily. Initially, I painted both sides, but I found it wasn't necessary and quickly resorted to painting just the one side.

Once they were dried (they dry really quick!), I laid them out and glued them down using Tacky Glue. It was a little messy, but looked great!

 Here it is!

 I painted the canvas a very light off-white, you can tell if you look at the "speech bubbles" coming out of the bird's mouth, which are a true white.

 And last, but not least, the pup used the finished art as a mat to sit on. If it's on the ground, it is fair game, after all... Sigh.

Under the Ocean Genre Bulletin Board

I meant to put my Reader's Reef board together a month ago, but then the Seahawks went and got into the Super Bowl (yaaaay!) and I put up a football bulletin board. This meant a change in my bulletin board schedule. Yep, that's right, I schedule my bulletin boards in advance, sometimes as much as two months. It's because of Pinterest, really. There are just too many amazing inspirations, I have to devise a plan to bring all of those pins to fruition.

My latest library bulletin board was inspired by Courtney and her stunning Teaching in Paradise blog. When I was looking for genre posters on TPT (and desperately wishing I could do graphic design), I came across this set from Ginger Snaps Treats (you can also find her on Teachers Notebook). I loved the poster set so much that I bought my own home laminator and now they are shiny and eternally beautiful.

I found a fun ocean-themed clip art set from MyClipArtStore on Etsy and the color scheme just popped! I made some coral using construction paper, tempera paint and a crumpled paper towel and voilà!

I only wish my camera could do it justice...

Labor of Love

I took this project on as a favor to another teacher, but it quickly became a labor of love. It sure was a lot of work (and it's far from perfect), but I'm so pleased how it turned out. I just need to add labels and Hawaii and Alaska.

Preschool Storytime: Cars, Trucks and Things That Go Vroom

Starting a new job is always scary. Heck, for me, being anywhere new is scary. So, when this email popped up in my inbox this week, I felt like I've found where I'm meant to be.

I just wanted to drop a line as a parent [and a teacher] to rave about Becky! It was so exciting to go to the library the other day with [my son] only to discover that the floor was transformed into a street with tons of cars and more to play with. [He] was in heaven! So thankful for our creative and hardworking librarian Becky. She is a gem.

Now, I share this not to toot my own horn, but because it's these little gestures that let me take a deep breath and go, okay, maybe I'm actually doing a good job at this. For today at least. This is my sixth year as a school librarian and I still wonder when I'm going to feel like I "know" what I'm doing. With that being said, my "Cars, Trucks and Things That Go Vroom" storytime had the type of energy that assured me I was on the right path.

(A big thanks to storytime katie for the inspiration on the decor)

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It was a reading-heavy storytime week, followed by some serious play!

Book: Sheep in a Jeep
by: Nancy Shaw
This was a favorite in my house growing up and it's still a timeless classic! The kids love the rhyming and how careless the sheep are with their jeep.

Book: Mr. Grumpy's Motor Car
by: John Burningham
I think there is something so charming about the illustrations of John Burningham's books. The story is cute but the ending left the kids saying, "So what happened?" And my only response could be, "Nothing, they all went home." Followed by crickets... I love this book, but I don't think it lends itself well to a class read-aloud.

Book: Cars and Trucks and Things That Go
by: Richard Scarry
As much as I love Richard Scarry (and I seriously love him!), some of his books aren't very conducive to a preschool storytime. Cars and Trucks and Things That Go is a huge hit with the kids, but I simply read the first few pages, we found Goldbug (the adorable little insect hiding on many of the pages) and then I encouraged them to check it out and explore the pages at home.

After singing the Wheels on the Bus, it was time to play!

The track was made using masking tape (it has withstood some intense racing) and the stop signs and stoplights are laminated construction paper. Add in a bag of old Matchbox cars and you have endless fun!

Before leaving, I gave each kiddo a paper steering wheel (thanks to Sunflower Storytime for this wonderfully simple and fun take-away craft). I later saw that some of the classes decorated their wheels and were "driving" through the school.

A-dor-a-ble!