Winning Back-to-School Activities for Every Age

Presented by: School Library Journal
Event Date and Time: Monday, August 26, 2024 | NOW ON DEMAND
Duration: 60 minutes

Looking for sure-fire ways to interest and engage students this year? Join three librarians for some show-and-tell as they discuss and demonstrate brain-building read-alouds, tantalizing tech tools, and crowd-pleasing crafts and activities. This event is sponsored by OverDrive.

Mary R. Lanni, youth literacy & outreach specialist at Douglas County (CO) Library, shares new read-alouds and shows how complementary activities like fingerplay, singing, and play-acting boost development among young elementary students.

Karina Quilantan-Garza, 2023 School Librarian of the Year Finalist and library media specialist at the Jaime Escalante Middle School in Pharr, TX, demonstrates her top five tech tools and her favorite ways to use them, from Canva to ISTE’s Digital Citizenship Resources.

Cindy Shutts, “Cindy Crushes Programming” columnist for the SLJ blog Teen Librarian Toolbox and teen-focused librarian at White Oak Library District in Romeoville, IL, delivers how-tos on popular activities for tweens and teens, such as in-person escape rooms, TikTok ornaments, lighted jars, and book-page paintings.

Moderator: Sarah Bayliss, senior features editor, SLJ 

	Mary R. Lanni is a library professional based in Denver, CO. Her career has been primarily focused on youth literacy and she has been reviewing for SLJ since 2017. She co-authored Early Learning through Play: Library Programming for Diverse Communities (Libraries Unlimited) in 2019, and she is currently a youth literacy outreach librarian at Douglas County Libraries.
	Karina Quilantan-Garza, or Mrs. Q., as her students like to call her, is an award-winning Texas librarian, keynote speaker, and university instructor. She is a middle school library media specialist in the Rio Grande Valley on the U.S.–Mexico border. She currently serves as Chair-Advisor for the Texas Maverick Graphic Novel Reading List Committee, was the Texas Library Association Librarian of the Year in 2022, and in 2023 was recognized as a SLJ School Librarian of the Year Finalist and LJ Mover & Shaker. Karina can be found sharing all things libraries on social media @cuethelibrarian.
	Cindy Shutts is the author of the popular series “Cindy Crushes Programming” on the SLJ network blog “Teen Librarian Toolbox.” Passionate about teen services, she also loves dogs, pro wrestling, fairy tales, mythology, and of course, reading. Her favorite genres are romance, mystery and fantasy. Cindy is the teen-focused librarian at the White Oak Library District in Romeoville, IL.