I’m not sure where I first heard of The Principal’s Book of the Month, but it was one of those things that I tucked away in the back of my mind. When my school got a new principal at the beginning of the 2020 school year (yes, during COVID) I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to build a relationship with my new principal and for her to build a relationship with the students, many of whom weren’t physically on our campus due to COVID. She loved the idea when I approached her with it and the planning began. The premise for our Book of the Month is for everyone to interact with the same text in a variety of ways to create a literacy community but also reinforce mindsets and habits we want to encourage. I wanted to choose books that teachers could use as a mentor text for reading, writing, SEL discussions and refer back to all year long. I had recently seen Jo Ellen McCarthy talking about her book, Layers of Learning and really loved the C.A.R.E acronym she uses (Community, Agency, Respect and Encouragement) to talk about books. I decided for our first year of the Book of the Month, we would use some of the books she recommended in Layers of Learning.
For our book of the month, we wanted each of our 30 classrooms to receive a copy of the book, which was going to cost about $3,500. Unfortunately, most of the books I had chosen were recently published and only available in hardback. I had Scholastic Dollars left from book fairs and was able to use them on 2 of the titles. Since I was not going to be able to have an in person author visit, I used that money on a few more of the titles. Our student council was able to cover the rest of the cost.
Galapagos Girl by Marsha Diane Arnold was our first book. We were starting in October so this would tie in with Hispanic Heritage Month as well as having animals which I knew would capture the attention of the students. My principal and I delivered the book to each of the classrooms on October 1st. For the virtual classes, she was able to actually get on the teacher’s camera during delivery and tell the kids about the book. I sent the teachers a video recording of her reading the book aloud and a couple of extension ideas for the book. Throughout the month, I received messages from teachers showing me things they had done with the book so I put up a bulletin board to showcase different activities classes submit. We have had anti-bully posters, poems, letters to characters, pictures relating to the story, persuasive writing samples just to name a few.
As the months went on, the students looked forward to the first day of the month when they knew we would be bringing the next book. It was so awesome to see their faces light up or the cheers they would shout out when we walked in the door. My principal says it is her favorite day each month because she knows we will be visiting every classroom. I personally loved seeing the connections students made to the books. During one of my library lessons we were looking at the wordless book, I Walk With Vanessa and one of the students made a connection to The Invisible Boy which was a Principal’s Book of the Month 2 months prior to that. It was also so rewarding when students would get excited to find one of the Books of the Months on the library shelves and want to check it out.
Although a bit costly, this was such a great program for our campus. Each classroom received 8 new books for their class library. My principal got to start a new tradition of positive interaction with students about reading and everyone was talking about BOOKS!
We are going to continue this program for the 2021-22 school year with a few changes. First of all, my principal actually picked the books for next year. In May, I gave her about 20 books to look through and choose 9. She thought she had done a great job and when we counted she had only eliminated 5 of the books. So she had to go back and narrow down some more. I told her I would keep the 6 she eliminated the second time on our list for possible 2022-23 books. I am going to let the teachers know all of the titles in August when we go back to school, that way they can better incorporate the books as mentor texts into their upcoming plans. Lastly, we would like to get families interacting with books in some way.
Things to think about:
Titles: think about the goal of your program - will you have a theme? Do you want the books to teach a lesson? Portray a message? Or simply just be good books? Look at reading lists like We Need Diverse Books or Reading Rocket’s Themed Book List for ideas.
Cost of the Books: consider titles that come in paperback. Ask your book fair vendor what titles they have that you can spend book fair dollars on.
Funding Sources: Book fair, PTA, Student Council, Grants, Ask community business to sponsor one month
Examples of other programs: Just Ask eNewsletter; Heathcote Elementary
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