Cooking Up Some Fun in the Library!

Look who's ba-ack!

Hooray--Chef Reid Moore is visiting our library this whole week! He brought a fun book called Pete's a Pizza (an oldie, but a goodie) by William Steig to share with the younger grades and an exciting pizza-themed game to review library skills for the older students.

After hearing the story Pete's a Pizza, one lucky kid gets turned into a pizza!

Older students play a pizza game that reviews library skills...

Chef Reid Moore is having a blast this week, and has even managed to squeeze in some exercise running around the library. (He doesn't mind--he said he's been meaning to lose some weight anyway!) His last day will be Friday, and although the kids may be sad to see him go, he is leaving some pizza-scented bookmarks to remind them that books are YUMMY!

It's dinner time, so I'll end this post here. Besides, I'm suddenly hungry for pizza!

~Swersty

Planning the Beginning of the End

After much cajoling, Chef Reid Moore has agreed to come back to my school! We're shooting for mid-April, but there are still lots of details to work out. (If you don't know the Chef Reid Moore story, see my previous post.)  Take a look at the cooking-themed bulletin board right outside my library:

I love it because it's designed to stay up all year!

Here's a close-up of one of the grade-level teacher pictures in the aluminum pans. Can you spot my wonderful friend Reagan of Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits fame?

And here is the menu used during library orientation way back in August:

Menu Cover

Inside the menu--things we covered during orientation (library behaviors, procedures, events, etc.)

Back of menu

The menu served as a fun way for Chef Reid Moore to cover all the important library orientation topics. I can't take full credit for the menu--it was created with my LBFF (that's Librarian Best Friend Forever, in case you were wondering), Stacy. She works at an elementary school in my district and we have planned many crazy library lessons together. Most of our planning takes place on the phone late at night for hours and hours. We get a little carried away with our lessons at times (one year she attached a rope to her library's ceiling so she could swing across a fake river during an Indiana Jones-themed orientation--really--I'm not making this up), but it's nice to have a kindred spirit to plan with AND she's just so much fun to be around!

LBFFs so happy to be at TLA last year! Stacy is on the right.

Most of the time we do similar lessons and activities, but customize them for our individual libraries. For example, my library is decorated in a rustic, western style, while Stacy's library is decorated with safari/jungle animals. This means that her Chef Reid Moore is not a cowboy chef; instead, he sports leopard print and paws. Her library "restaurant" is not The Giddy-Up Grill, but is aptly named The Wild Cat Cafe--you get the idea, right? Same content, slightly different look. Well anyway, she and I have been dreading discussing the return of Chef Reid Moore for some time now and are in the process of planning the lesson. The problem is we don't want just a ho-hum return of the chef. We want to really make an impact while tying together everything the kids have learned this year with a fantastic culminating lesson.
Hmmm, maybe we should have Chef Reid Moore make his grand entrance by swinging into the library...
on a ROPE attached to the CEILING!!!

Contemplating the Return of Chef Reid Moore

At the beginning of this school year, Chef Reid Moore attended the grand opening of the Giddy-Up Grill in our school's library. His job was to motivate the students to "read more", and encourage them to sample all kinds of delicious books in the library. Check out the visuals:

He was enthusiastic, energetic, and ready to kick off a fun-filled year of learning in the library. The students were delighted to have such a big-time celebrity in their midst!

He worked hard to introduce all things library to the kids--everything from library procedures and expectations to exciting events planned for the year. He gave countless tours of the library Giddy-Up Grill, endured pokes, tugs, and a few snide remarks about wearing "girl" shoes from some of the students.

Needless to say, by the end of library orientation week Chef Reid Moore had to really work to maintain a high energy level. He was tired. This picture says it all:

He hasn't been seen since. 

That's right, Chef Reid Moore is MIA. Not that the students haven't asked where he is and when he'll be back--they'd like to see him again, certainly. But is he up for another week-long visit at my elementary school? I sure hope so, because we're hitting the home-stretch of this school year. Not much time left, and his visit must not coincide with testing week, book fair week, or TLA's Annual Conference in April. 

So, if anybody has a great idea on how to convince Chef Reid Moore to come back, let me know. In the meantime, I'll be enjoying my Spring Break by working less and reading more!

~Swersty