Beginning+of+Year+Themes

Fall of 2011 we did "under construction" since our whole campus is undergoing construction. Our building is adding a science wing and safe room and 2 parking lots. So we did royal blue polos to sell to staff that said on breast areas "Lakeside: Building Brighter Futures" with a sun in the middle and LS Staff underneath. We photoshopped the bosses faces into a poster of men in hardhats to put up in the halls and bought construction items from partycheap.com, even spinners to hang from the ceiling and we used caution tape a lot.

Fall 2010 LHS will use "Lakeside Rocks" and the Rock Star Theme with Academic Hero shirts for our teachers and guitar book marks and rock and roll posters and blow up guitars as decor for August open house and part of September; then we will switch to the county wide theme of "Go Hog Wild for Reading" and do a Razorback theme and have the teachers spotlight what YA titles they are reading. We want to ingnite fires like Steven Layne said.

Fall - 2009- Our theme was Hollywood: Be a Star at Lakeside This Year. The library was decorated with spinners made of film and objects like cameras and Action! clackers, along with lights strung all the way around the perimenter. Movie posters of book titles were everywhere also and two blow up Oscars about 4 foot tall each framed the doorway. The double doors were covered with gold paper and old filmstrips were applied to that with reels made from poster boards and painted black; stars were everywhere. The teachers received their Stars on the Walk of Fame too. We had peel and stick stars like those in the famous sidewalk that we wrote their names on with black markers and then stuck by their doorway. Then we made photos of all teachers at the end of the year and put them into frames of film for the big bulletin board outside the library and surrounded that board with the big bulbed clear lights. We popped popcorn during open house and gave it away and had a drawing to win theatre candy like Mike and Ike's and Dots we had gotten at the Dollar Store. We designed and sold a staff polo that was black with golden yellow Lakeside Staff written on it. We sold over 50 for $25 each and made profits from that to use this year. Lori Bush at Lake Hamilton HIgh School knew in the spring this was going to be our theme and saved a huge marquee from their jr/sr prom to give us to use also. Here are some photos:

August 2008 - This fall we are doing "Lakeside Roundup 2008" for our Western themed opening of school and first open house. We have designed staff Tee shirts in yellow with blue bandana lettering to sell and make a good profit. We will decorate with hay bales, saddles, small pieces of fencing leftover from VBS, bandana curtains (bandanas cut in half then tied by corners and taped across the long window wall). I even found a lifesized John Wayne cutout. I found cowboy boots while in San Antonio to wear and some western shirts. We will do this the first two weeks of school at least. We have lots of posters and other decor that we ordered from Partycheap.com. We usually shop the clearance part of that web site and the Orientaltrader.com website to get some deals. We have shiney boots and hats to attach to our hang-me-down spirals attached to the light fixtures. We will put tarps under the hay as we will have brand new carpet in the librar. Ya'll come see us, ya hear? Pictures will be posted later. I got bandanas at Hob Lob on sale; usually 87 cents but 25% off. I cut them all in half diagonally and tied the pieces together one after anothe to make a curtain of sorts for our long wall window. I saved 3 pieces of a tree trunk from the burn pile on our farm; they had had the bark taken off and were 'sittin' size. My husband covered them with some spray and they are in the library by a piece of fence. The 3 bales of hay were delivered one day, but unfortunately two teachers were allergic and I had to go in and take it back out that night. You just never know. Click on this slide show of recent photos from the Western theme.

Some of the Lake Hamilton High School Library displays this year include a wall for books that are on the Teen Read Week Teens’ Top 10 list for voting, a teacher’s Top 10 that they've started and will be adding students top reads to, the Pop Open a Good Book display with books/movies, and they have a window wall that says Just Read It! Lori Bush will be adding a Books With Bite wall soon, also. Here is a slide show of Lori's walls and displays!

August 2006 - opening theme LHS LIbrary and school-wide theme was Elvis@the Library; we all wore attire of the 50's and 60's for open house and one day at the beginning of school. Elvis standups and memoribilia was decorating the library and a lot of it was ordered online from Partycheap.com. We had music and refreshments in the library during open house.

August 2007 LHS Opening theme was Aloha Welcome Back and the teachers wore flowered shirts and we bought leis for each staff member. We served fruits and snacks and punch in the library during open house. Library staff wore grass skirts. Decorations were purchased from Dollar Tree, PartyCheap.com and Oriental Trader.