During the summer of 2020, I knew I needed to develop a curriculum that could work both remote and in-school, possibly moving between the two a lot. So I started developing a curriculum I call Postcard Field Trip to help us feel more connected to each other and the world around us, no matter where we are. Basically, it is curriculum where my students and I travel to states, territories, and countries of the world through books and other lessons. This is my third year implementing and developing this curriculum and myself and the students are having a wonderful time. You can check out the website I made to share my resources and research here.
Stags Read Community Literacy
During the initial emergency lockdown of COVID-19, my students didn't have access to books. We don't have a public library and our school library was closed. I earned a grant from First Book to be able to get started on a book delivery program for my students. Through this program, I made bags of books and other fun goodies to drop off at the doorsteps of every student in my community-- birth through seniors-- for them to have and keep forever. This included any preschool children the school knew of as well as students who homeschooled or were enrolled in other schools. If they lived in our district, I delivered books to them. Through the doorstep deliveries, I gave away nearly 2,000 books for families to keep forever over the span of about a year.
Once school was back in-person more consistently, I moved my book giveaways to other venues. A community member built and donated a couple Little Free Libraries that I keep stocked-- one for Hartsburg and one for Emden. I also make sure that if parents are coming into the building for Open House or Parent-Teacher Conferences that there are tables full of books for all ages that they can pick from to keep for their families forever. I have worked with publishers and book distributors to get a myriad of books of all types, genres, formats, and ages for my community. Sometimes we even have so many copies of a particular title that I need to spread the love and I distribute those books to Little Free Libraries in neighboring communities. You can see some of the work I do with this project on X and Instagram.
Over the summer of 2022, I received another grant from First Book to run a Summer-Library-in-a-Bag program. I partnered with our school guidance counselor, local public health department, and Memorial Healthcare Systems (our local hospital network) to supply not only books for the students to keep, but also information about local resources to help the students and their families through the summer months. There was information about mental health services, where to get free meals, local events, etc. Each child, birth through the 2022 school year graduates received a bag. They all had one to six free books in them, depending on age and availability. All of the grade school bags also included fun activities, coloring sheets, and crayons or colored pencils. I dropped these bags off on doorsteps in the district at the beginning of summer for families to use when they needed over the summer. The helped break down barriers to summer library access because everyone had it in their own hands with all the materials they may need.