From Drab to Fab: Transforming the Library by Taking the Flexible Seating Plunge!

  

Guest Post by Sarah Bellino

I had done a lot of research and contemplating before finally deciding to turn my elementary
library into more of a learning commons with flexible seating and a maker space area.  A few
teachers in my school were my inspiration, making flexible seating really work for the
students in their classrooms, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon.

This year started my 7th year as an elementary school librarian and I was feeling in a funk. My
craftiness could only turn my drab, boring library into so much, and I was ready for a change!  
My library was filled with long conference tables and chairs, great for meetings but not very
comfy to just read. I had 3 bean bags kids would fight over and take turns in each class time,
but with 25-30 kids in a class they only got a few times to sit in the snuggly chairs.  When I
thought about where I like to read, it’s curled up in bed or on the porch in my cozy chair where
I can just escape with a good book. I thought about those reluctant kiddos who spent their time
“wandering” around trying to find a good book but never really sitting down to read.  After
visiting blog after blog about the benefits of flexible seating I decided why not turn my library
into more of a homey feel so I could hook more kids on sitting and reading! So far, a month
into the school year with my newly transformed library and I don’t regret it!!

Of course financing the ideas swirling around in my head was going to prove challenging as
anyone in education knows there is no “extra” money for anything.  I contemplated a donors
choose page but with as much as I wanted to do I knew I needed to get creative. A fellow
librarian told me about local businesses such as Walmart or Home Depot that help fund projects
like this so I filled out a form online and my Walmart awarded my school a $500 grant to help
the project. I was so excited when I got the email and couldn’t wait to start.  

This summer was spent scouring garage sales and Facebook Marketplace for just the right
seating options (I loved the hunt). I began collecting gently “used” chairs, stools, end tables,
pillows and I even got a free futon. When I told people I was looking for items for my
elementary library I was suddenly getting things for free or very reduced price. It was amazing
how much people were willing to help!  With some spray paint and sheets (my mom covered
the chair pads with sheet sets to save $ instead of expensive fabric) and voila, I had “new”
furniture and flexible seating options! I did stay away from anything bouncy since I see the
whole school and I needed it to last. I was able to put my plan into action with a little
imagination and lots of time (which is why I gave myself the summer to work on the remodel)
and help from my mom and sister, thank goodness for family! Fingers crossed, I didn’t want
to go back to the way things used to be.

Back to School Night I stood nervously awaiting the kids reactions. Would they love it as
much as I did? Would my principal and administrators approve? Would my labor of love pay
off?  I was relieved and ecstatic when the kids eyes lit up upon entering the library. As each
kid came in excited and exploring the new space my smile grew. Throughout the night kids
and even parents wanted to come see the altered library.  Word had it that was the talk of
conversations. I couldn’t have been happier! My hard work paid off and I couldn’t wait to
start the school year, everything newly refreshed. The head of district media came in to take
pictures and said she bragged to the higher ups about how my library was where we wanted
the future to be, a learning commons.  Even my new superintendent gave me positive
feedback on how he liked what he saw and how he would like to see more libraries make the
change. Yes, whew!!

It’s been trial and error.  I still pick 3 bean bag kids each class time (although it’s harder to
find kids who want to just sit in the bean bags) and I pick 3 different kids each time to pick
their “special spot”.  So far this plan has kept fighting over a spot very minimal. Kids know
they will get their turn to pick, even if it means a different spot every time. There is no saving
spots, they have to find their books first and then find a seat. During library time I also look for
kids who are on task and invite them to the creation station.  This is what I call the maker space
area. While kids are checking out and during read aloud these chosen few can remain at the
maker space area and create. I have legos, puzzles, checkers, chess, paper crafts, coloring, or
making bookmarks set up in this little area. Only kids that are chosen may be in this area so it
cuts down on fighting and noise.  I have found this little reward entices most kiddos to stay on
task. I plan on continuing to grow my maker space area by asking for donations from families
as time goes on.

So far the flexible seating journey has been a success and a much needed change for me.  Hope
my story can inspire others to take the plunge too!! Happy new school year.

1

Close Reading with Sketchnotes

Have you heard of sketchnotes? This visual note-taking technique uses pictures, words, arrows, lines, and doodles to capture a main idea, and you don't have to be an artist to do it! Sketchnotes are not about art, but about triggering both sides of your brain to help you remember important ideas using visual cues to highlight information. This technique requires a deep understanding and synthesizing of information in order to capture the big ideas. 

I see similarities between the concept of sketchnotes and book snaps, one of my new favorite ways of having students interact with text, and I fully intend to mesh these two strategies together this year!

Introducing Sketchnotes to Students

To introduce the concept of sketchnoting to students, we started with a low-stakes assignment where students got to share something about themselves. With a new concept and/or a new tool, it's important to give students time to experiment before asking them to do something that has a lot of heavy content. Think about your level of anxiety if you were in a class that asked you to use a technology tool you had never used before, and you were told you had to complete a high stakes assignment that you would be graded on the first time you ever used it. Yikes! The time spent "playing" around with it so you can figure out how it works is well worth the time spent so you know how to use it later when heavier content is layered in. When you're familiar with the tool you are using to create something, it frees up working memory to focus on your ideas rather than how to use the tool.

We introduced sketchnotes with a short video: Sketchnote Frenzy: The Basics of Visual Note-taking.

I created the sketchnote above digitally proving that you don't have to be an artist to try sketchnoting! I got the idea for the 4Cs sketchnote from Expressive Monkey's Sketchnote Toolbox on TpT. Here is her blog post: The Visual Structure of Sketchnotes.  We began with sharing what we did over the summer through the 4Cs. We started by putting our names in the middle, and in the upper right hand corner, we chose something important we wanted to communicate. In my example, I shared about the opportunity I had to take a tour of Google in Boulder, CO. It was amazing!  In the lower right hand corner, we shared something creative we did. This summer I became Raspberry Pi certified, and I learned how to do a lot of sophisticated programming. My picture shows a Raspberry Pi and the lights I programmed like a stop light. In the upper left hand corner, we shared people with whom we have collaborated. I went to two different conferences this summer, so in my example, I listed the teachers who came with me to those conferences. In the lower left hand corner, we used critical thinking to start brainstorming ideas for genius hour. Students wrote what they were interested in learning more about.

Technology Options for Sketchnotes

If you're using a windows 10 device, these apps are great for sketchnoting:

• Fresh Paint (this is the app I used in my example)
• Paint 3D

If you're using an iPad, these are my favorite apps:

• Paper 53 
• Book Creator – this is not a drawing app, but it has the potential for adding drawings, pictures, voices, and even videos in an ebook making it a much more dynamic way to create a sketchnote!
• SeeSaw – this is another tool that is not a drawing app, but it has the potential to add drawings, pictures, voice, and create videos and put them into a digital portfolio. Another great tool for creating dynamic sketchnotes!
• Pic Collage EDU – this tool is for making collages with pictures, but it also has the ability to add drawings, words, and pictures. Check out this post from Erintegration: Drawing on Pic Collage with A Simple Hack.  
• Popplet – this is another tool that is not a drawing app–it's actually a visual mind-mapping tool or graphic organizer that has the functionality to add pictures, videos, words, or drawings to organize your thoughts or data. Popplet can be used on the iPad or computer.

If you don't have access to a classroom set of devices or you prefer to write/draw with a pencil and paper, there is still a technology option for you that I'm SO excited about! I recently learned about Rocket books. These notebooks look and feel like real paper that use Frixion Erasable pens or markers (some of my favorite!). You can add your sketchnotes into the notebook, then scan it with the rocketbook app and send it straight to your google drive, dropbox, email, or even send it in a text (which is great for my son when he wants to send his picture to grandma and grandpa!). Once you have saved your sketchnote digitally, put your notebook in the microwave with a mug of water on top of it, and it wipes all the pages clean so you can use them all over again! Amazing! These notebooks are pricer than regular notebooks, but if they hold up, they can be reused over and over by different classes each year. I'm writing a grant for a couple of class sets so I can test that theory. I'll keep you posted on how that experiment goes . . . 

Close Reading with Sketchnotes

Now we're ready to jump into content using sketchnotes. I chose the picture book Stellaluna by Janell Cannon. According to the article Closing in on Close Reading in ASCD's Educational Leadership, "When students are learning a process, such as how to search for a recurring theme, reading short texts allows them to make more passes through the entire sequence of a text. It could take weeks or even months to read through a 100-page novel to identify a theme or concepts related to the text as a whole. A short text of a page or two can be digested in one lesson."


Stellaluna was a bat that landed in a bird's nest when she was just a baby after falling out of her mama's grasp during an owl attack. Stellaluna was raised by the mama bird, and although she had some similarities to her adopted bird family, she did not always act like her bird brothers. Stellaluna did not like to eat bugs, she had trouble flying and landing during the day, and she liked to sleep hanging upside down by her feet. After her three bird brothers tried hanging upside down by their feet too, mama bird told Stellaluna that she would have to stop teaching the other birds bad habits if she wanted to stay in that nest. Later Stellaluna meets other bats, and she discovers that she was not wrong, she was just different than her bird family. But in the end, they can all still be friends despite their differences. 

First Read: Determine what the text says.

In my sketchnote example (I used the app fresh paint to create it), you can see I labeled a #1 and #2 to represent my focus during the first and second read. Sketchnotes are a great tool to use when close reading because you can easily go back to your notes and add more during successive readings. On my first read, I focused on comparing the bat Stellaluna to the birds Pip, Flutter, and Flap. I made a kind of double bubble map with their similarities and differences. 

Second Read: Figure out how the text works.

On the second read, I was focusing on the author's purpose.  When Stellaluna met other bats, she saw that they hung upside down when they slept, they ate bugs, and they flew in the dark. When the other bats asked her why she wasn't hanging upside down she said, "Mama bird said I was wrong." The other bat responded, "For a bird maybe, but not for a bat." I added this quote after my second read because I thought it was a good illustration of the author's purpose. It is also a great opportunity to apply the author's purpose to students' own lives and have a discussion about race or peer pressure. Stellaluna tried to do the "right" thing when she was in the bird's nest, but was she really doing anything wrong? How do you think that made Stellaluna feel about herself? Have you ever felt like Stellaluna where something you do is wrong in one place but not in another place (like at home)? Why do you think that is? How do you handle it?

Third Read: Analyze and compare the text.

On the third read, in my sketchnote example (created in a rocket book), I compared Stellaluna to a poem by Maya Angelou, Caged Bird. An except of this powerful poem can be found in the book Poetry for Young People: Maya Angelou. I added the quote, "The caged bird sings with a fearful trill/ of things unknown but longed for still/and his tune is heard on a distant hill/ for the caged bird sings of freedom." In this poem, the bird is in a cage and his wings are clipped and his feet are tied. It made me think of Stellaluna, and although she wasn't in a cage in the story, in a way she was caged too. She did not have the freedom to do things that came naturally to her like eat fruit and sleep upside down, and she forced herself to live in a way that didn't allow her to be herself. In this poem, it's as though the birds and Stellaluna trade places, and they know what it feels like to lack freedom. This poem is a metaphor that has implications for things students face today. There are a lot of ways that you can experience a loss of freedom. Have you ever done something because everyone else was doing it? Did it make you feel like your wings were clipped and your feet were tied? In other words, did you feel like you couldn't be yourself? 

These short texts give a lot of opportunities for deep, rich discussions, and you can capture this higher level thinking with sketchnotes. 

How will you use sketchnotes?

0