I get a book budget every year, and I alternate between updating teachers’ classroom libraries (with their input about what their students want!) and the school’s book room. Last year was a book room update. I focused on buying #ownvoices and #weneeddiversebooks titles. The books all arrived by the end of June, so I spent a good part of my summer volunteering my time to level and label all of the new books. I decided to put them in special bins for each level so that teachers would realize new options were available!

Here is this week’s roundup of literacy links for some quick inspiration, tips, and refreshment:

• Edutopia has some great ideas for station rotations that I think could work beautifully for language study!
• Every year, I alternate the recipient of my book budget between the book room and classroom libraries. This year is classroom libraries, and these #ownvoices collections from Booksource are at the top of the options list for teachers!
• My deep dive into teaching creativity begins with Internet searches:
  • “5 Lessons in Creativity from Maurice Sendak” from Inc.
  • “The Stages of Creativity” from Ginger Moran
  • “Ten Drawings for Creative People – to Motivate and Inspire” from Art+ Marketing
  • “Creative Writing Prompts” from Standout Books
  • “Crossing the Creativity Desert” by Heinemann Fellow, Brian Melton