In celebration of National School Library Month and National Library Week (April 7-13), South Orangetown Middle School Library Media Specialist Kimberlee Landgraff and SOMS Challenge Lab teacher Edith Nowak worked together to create a fun, multi-disciplinary project inspired by books!
“For this project, we’re combining the library with aspects of STEAM to create ‘Bookface’ photos by having students pick out book covers and merge themselves or an object with the book cover. We’re working on perspective photography to get the desired effect,” explained Nowak. Before they were camera-ready, Landgraff worked with Nowak’s seventh grade Challenge Lab classes to find books they could use for the project. “To start the project, I met with students to use our online databases to research articles explaining what ‘Bookface’ is before we began searching for books they wanted to use for their photos,” said Landgraff.
After carefully selecting their books, each class visited the library and worked in small groups to capture their ‘Bookface’ photos by aligning their face or body with the cover art to seamlessly blend the two together. After taking their photos both inside and outside of the library to use the perfect backdrop, students uploaded their photos and edited them so they are ready to be displayed. “Our goal for this project is to get students excited about books and promote reading for fun. We are planning to display the photos on the monitors in the library so other students can see the final products,” noted Landgraff.