Last Friday was the 5th Annual Library Lock-In. It takes 300 AR (Accelerated Reader) points to earn an invite and that is a lot of reading for an elementary school student. It’s the equivalent of reading 15 Harry Potters, or 300 Junie B. Jones books. 5 students earned the Golden Ticket this year – 6 were veterans who’d been previous years and 3 were newbies.
It is an eagerly anticapted even - the kids who come are bright and motivated and I know them well since they spend lots of time in the library.
This year the guests hailed from Albania, Mexico, Viet-Nam, Pakistan and Shri-Lanka - we had our own Mini -United Nations. We took a poll and discovered every one of us spoke at least 2 languages!
We always have a lunch together to plan the event and settle the menu- not sure why I bother with the latter since pizza is always the hands down favorite. One boy me told this year that he planned to:
“Run around like a manic for an hour, play on the playground for an hour, eat for an hour, use the laptops for an hour and I haven’t planned the rest yet”. He proceeded to do just that!
For some reason the high point is a flashlight tour of the school and running & shouting in the halls (normally a serious no-no). That and unlimited use of the laptops and running amuck with my puppet collection. For some of the kids it’s their first sleepover.
Our new Assistant Principal stopped by to check out the fun and brought his dogs - I hope he realizes he'll have to come by again next year! Those dogs were the hight point of the evening.
The girls always fall sleep, the boys fight it to the very end and a couple never do. I spend the next day in a sleepy haze but it is worth it. 
Anything to get them to read!
5 comments:
It sounds really fun!
How fun! I wish we'd had a library lock in when I was in school.
I have to admit that I am not a big AR fan. This idea sounds like too much fun!!! My daughter would love this at her school. Heck! I would love it too!
Thanks for sharing with us!
On June 18 we created a new blog for teachers to share their experiences with classroom libraries. It can be found at http://classroomlibrary.blogspot.com
On June 18 we created a new blog devoted to the experiences of teachers using classroom libraries. It can be found at http://classroomlibrary.blogspot.com
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