School Library Month 2016 is upon us! Can you believe April is a week away?
Buncee is very excited to celebrate this month with a blog series! This means that for the entire month of April, your favorite Buncee Blog will be sprinkled with awesome insight from some of the best librarians out there.
Our goal this month is to bring you inspiration in the form of compelling interviews and blog posts, to help make your library the best that it can be.
Throughout the month of April, there are a plethora of things you can do to educate your students (and yourself!) about the significance of school library month. Get them excited about the month-long celebration of their “third space” and inspire them to get involved.
Here are just a few ideas:
1. Host a Guest Reader Event. Invite locally-based authors, influential members of your community, educators from other districts, or even family members of students to come to your library and share some of their favorite literature with your school. Even have students volunteer to guest read at other schools in your district! 
2. Utilize some resources from the best of them. The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) lays down the groundwork and provides inspiration so that you can take your library to the next level.
3. Get your students involved in an interactive connectivity project to highlight other events in the month of April, like Earth Day! Show them how their library can be a place to build relationships, make a difference, and expand their horizons. 
4. Teach them about the broader scope. National School Library Month became officially recognized in 1985, after Lucille Thomas, president of the School Library Media Month committee, was inspired by smaller, local celebrations of school libraries. Thomas led the AASL in the pursuit of creating a nation-wide celebration. It was so well-recognized that the keynote address to kick off the official month was delivered on the west steps of the U.S. Capitol. More about the history of School Library Month here.
5. Turn your library into a local history museum! Your little “historians” can create and present mini exhibits for popular or historical locations in your community. Combine multimedia with stories and artifacts from your area to showcase in the library. To add in a digital component, host a virtual exhibit by embedding Buncees onto your school website.
6. Give your kids a voice. Why do they love their library? What sparks their passion? We can guess all day long, but hearing it directly from them speaks volumes. Inspire your students to create a Buncee, using multimedia and creative expression to demonstrate why the library is personally important to them.
The Buncee team is happy to help school librarians inspire creativity and passion in their students. From writer’s workshop to Shakespeare in space, Buncee can be used for a multitude of creative literacy projects. Throughout School Library Month, we will hear from some of the most passionate people in the field. Hopefully you will find their stories inspiring and their advice enlightening. This blog series is Buncee’s way of saying thank you to all the fabulously creative and innovative school librarians out there!
