New Year Library Centers

Are you ready for an amazing new year in your school library? I am! I’ve rounded up some fun New Year library centers to celebrate the start of the new year. Not only are we celebrating a holiday together, we are also teaching important skills like writing the new year, setting goals (resolutions), making plans for reading, and reflecting on the past before moving into the new year.

I have New Year Library Centers available throughout the month of January, not just in the first week, so that all students have an opportunity to participate.

New Year Math Library Center

We don’t often get to include math in our library centers, but here’s your chance! This free New Year Color by Number , will let your upper elementary students review the hundreds chart while they color in the hidden picture of the numbers of the new year. It’s updated every year

Number sense is something our teachers are always working on, and we can help by including this fun January learning station!

New Year Reading Resolutions Bookmarks

Traditionally, we make resolutions for the new year. The school library is a great place to discuss our reading resolutions. Laura Trapp shared these free printable bookmarks. You can print the bookmarks on colorful card stock and provide students time to browse the stacks, or table displays, or the online catalog to choose books they’d like to read in the new year. Students can bring the bookmark back with them on library visits until they accomplish their reading goal.

Goal-setting is another life skill that we want to impart to our students, and the new year is a perfect time to teach and review this skill.

New Year Coloring Pages Library Center

As a just-for-fun, calming library center, you can share these free New Year’s coloring pages.

I’ll print these out as a library center for students who don’t have enough time to complete the other new year centers, and for students who want to take one with them to color later, and for teachers who like to sit down and relax during a library visit.

Picture Books to Read Aloud in the New Year

You might like to read aloud one of these picture books related to the new year and goal setting:

• Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution
• Ambitious Ninja: A Children’s Book About Goal-Setting
• Brave Irene
• Flight School

I hope your new year is as amazing as you are! What do YOU have planned for next year in your school library? Any librarian resolutions? Let us know in the comments, or in our LearningLibrarians Facebook group!