Tuesday, September 15, 2015

LAB Talk!

Our 2016 Library Advisory Board created a library talk show, LAB Talk to highlight some of the spring library events.  Check it out!   

Monday, September 14, 2015

Last year - whew!

Last school year was such a busy year in the Raider Library; the librarians never seemed to find a moment to blog about what was going on!!

Here were a few highlights:

  • NaNoWriMo - We celebrated National Novel Writing Month in November with many special events, including a writing workshop from author Kay Honeyman and an author visit from NaNoWriMo author Karen Harrington.  Ms. Spikes' eighth graders all participated in the intensive writing project; to keep motivated, these classes also Skyped with NaNoWriMo author Marisa Meyer. Many of these students went on to publish their novels, and they are now available on Amazon.com! 


  • Book Fairs - The library hosted two book fairs, a holiday fair December and a summer reading fair in May.  Student Crews and parent volunteers helped us with each of these events.  Both fairs raised money for the library and put new books in the hands of Raiders!


  • Burgers for Books - This year we hosted a new fundraiser.  In-n-Out Burger brought their 18-wheeler to MIS/HPMS on the night of Spring Open House and started frying up their tasty burgers!  A large percentage of the money spent on the delicious burger dinners went to the library for new books!  In-n-Out was an outstanding company to work with on this fund raiser. Funds raised were also contributed to a local charity to help children in need.  

  • North Texas Teen Book Festival - The first annual NTTBF took place in March and several of our Raiders traveled together to participate in the fun day.  Over 50 popular young adult authors were in attendance to discuss their writing, participate in panels, interact with their fans, and sign books.  It was such a special day celebrating reading. 


  • Poetry Slam - In April, we gathered for our annual slamming of original poetry.  Once again the Raiders shone as they shared their creativity and performance skills.  The audience was in for a very entertaining afternoon, and the judges had a difficult job choosing the top poets! 

  • Lone Star Challenge - Many of our readers participated in the 2015 Lone Star Challenge, reading at least 5 or 10 of the books on the 2015 Texas Lone Star Reading List.  The Raiders who read 10 or more of these titles were invited to a build-your-own-sundae party in May to celebrate their reading achievement. 


It was an action-packed year, full of great books and good times with the amazing Raider students and staff. We are excited about the new school year and plan to post much more often in the months to come!