The daily life of a Middle School Library Media Assistant.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Packed Up

Book fair is all packed up tonight. Went into LMSS early this morning for the free book give away. Middle Schools got 15 books each to take home, then I picked a few more from the back room and then on to Leslie. Got everything all up and ready to go for the fair and had a slow but steady stream of people all day. Ended up with about $600 in sales. Had some wonderful helpers and gave them projects and they really pitched in and did everything I asked. A big shout out to them! Spent the last part of the night packing up the old textbooks that will be picked up in two weeks. I already have over 73 boxes taped up and ready to go. I figure I'll have 100 - 130 boxes by the time Garten comes to pick them up. Yeah! I'll have some shelf space!! Nearly 12 hours of work today, I kind of know what my nurse daughter feels like after a shift, she typically works 12 at a time! I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and finds much in their lives to be thankful for. I know I certainly do! Be back on Monday!

Monday, November 24, 2014

9.5

Got in this morning and worked on getting my advertising all in place for conferences tonight. I figured, the better I hit people, the more it might work! Signs, getting posters hung up near the gym where all the teachers would be. Putting up extra stuff to draw their attention. I put in a lot of miles in the hallways today! Did about $300 tonight in only 3 hours of conferences, so did well. Started to clean up all the stacks of stuff I had lying around. Changed out the rolls of laminating film for this huge poster project they were working on. Had to watch the video again, still so confusing!! But I did it quicker this time and didn't wrap film around rollers where it had no business being! So that was a win in my books! My marvelous hubby came in after his work all day and did calligraphy for people at the fair. I dressed up in my Rennaissance gear and would walk down to the gym to hand out the flyers and encourage parents and students to come see the fair. It was a long day, glad it was over! Longer day tomorrow!

Friday, November 21, 2014

Stormy Windy

Before I left for home this afternoon I paused for a moment and looked out the windows to see the trees just bent over by the wind. Rain against the windows and Ms. V and I just stared. For a moment anyways! Book Fair sales were great today, though so too was the pilfering. So sad :( Tried to kind of clean up spaces tonight because conferences start Monday and I just have stuff all over the place since I've been so busy with the fair. It drives me crazy! Checked in and out books all day, sold stuffs all day. A lovely moment. A friend had us all over last Saturday for a block party. We all had these glass blocks and put lights inside and decorated them. They turned out amazing. My mom didn't make one, but she loved one of the display ones. So Mrs. T came by today and brought that block in for me to give to my mom. That is so sweet! I am truly blessed by being loved by amazing people! Mr. M came in and asked if we wanted the Book Fair in the commons for conferences and I decided no, I'd rather just stay in the library, but they are having meetings in the library for the Professional Development part of the day, so I closed up the rolling carts, pushed them over. One of my aides helped me put the tables all over by where the carts were and put chairs up and she used our pick up vacuum thing to pick stuff off the floor. She is so good! I counted up monies tonight for the fair, and we'll have to see where we came out! I took in over $300 to put up in the office this afternoon so there wouldn't be so much down in the library over the weekend. My day never stopped, though there was a moment somewhere that all of sudden I was like "it's so quiet..." then it was gone!

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Did Not Read Today

Insert picture here - when I get time!
Crazy long day of work. Since my amazing volunteer is coming in today to help out, I stopped on my way to work and picked her up a gift card from Great Harvest Bread. Just for $10, but it's a huge help to have her there while I go to a meeting. Had kids in all day at the fair, made a bunch of money so I made sure to make a deposit up in the office before I left. Had Mr. P from Permabound stop by and I was trying to down my sandwich as a whole class of kids came in and he left his card and remembered me from Sprague! So that was awesome! Had a meeting to be there at 3:30 this afternoon, so had to leave by 3 to make it over to Stephens which is way up in the northeast corner of Salem. Took notes so will type those up in the morning when I get in. Phew. Bed time.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Spider and Thief

Here is my knight guarding the library and book fair books!

The view from my office.
The view from the front of the library.


The cool little 'did you know' signs with a display of our nonfiction medieval books!
I was so excited about opening the fair today, and a little apprehensive too! I hadn't worked the scanner/register yet and so did that almost first thing this morning. Scholastic has some great cheat sheets about it and I really went over them. Still had a few issues here and there. Like one set of erasers likes to ring up negative, then everything else rings up negative. What?!? So we learned how to void things. I have to leave early for a meeting tomorrow, so my amazing volunteer Mrs. M who usually comes on Monday afternoons said 'sure!' so she came in and I walked her through how to work things. She'll be back tomorrow at about 3 so I can leave. She really is an incredible volunteer! You can see some of my pictures here I took on my phone this morning. So busy today! Had classes coming in to check in and out regular library books. Classes in the computer lab. As well as selling for the fair. It's like I turned around and the day was over! We had a student pick up a box that the kids put their lunch passes in and there was a spider in there! I finally got the box away from him and took the creature outside. Even though it's cold, he does not belong in the library! We also had a few things stolen from the book fair today. One boy came in and I noticed he was wearing a bracelet just like the ones we were selling. I asked him about it, and he said it was his, he had put it on this morning from home. Ah, I really didn't think so. So I mentioned how we get a little bit of money off of each item sold and I could buy the library books with that money, but first we would have to use the money to pay back the stolen items. So, if the bracelet was his fine, if not, I'd just go do something else and if he just put it back, that would be great. When they left, we found the bracelet on one of the top shelves. That's something at least. Did $130 worth of business today, since we had plenty, I took back the $60 I used from my account and now the book fair is entirely self supporting. Huzzah! Now that the kids know it's here, I expect much more buying tomorrow! Had a high school ask for our Basic Math books, since they were on the discard list and I packed those up today and transferred them over. A little more room on the shelf!


Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Book Faire Here!

Got the call right away this morning that the truck delivering our book fair was here and they'd send it down and around to the back to deliver the carts. We got four rolling carts. One of my aides helped me move tables around to accommodate the fair. I left them pretty well locked up all day. Had a ton of kids in today. Classes in the computer lab, other classes coming to check out the next math book. Had the aides work on taking down all the regular books we had on display and putting up medieval themed books. I worked the rolling rack on that one. Hung up display flags from the little roof line. Put up some posters in the hall and on the doors. Took our two 'knights' and taped them to the Tattle gates, one on each side. Then after work I had to run to my bank and pull $60 worth of change out of my account so I'd have change starting tomorrow. Wrote a cute little announcement for our wonderful admin assistant to read in the morning. I need a nap! Still have boxes to unpack and display in the morning, lots of little gadgets and dohickey things to do too! Not to mention figuring out the terminal thingy!

Monday, November 17, 2014

Waiting for Book Fair

Spent today wondering if the book fair stuff would be rolling in, but nothing happened. Did some more book talks. Had another student come in to work off his fine for a bit. Got in my latest Junior Library Guild shipment, got them stamped and off to LMSS with a couple of other books I had waiting. Helped Ms. J with her speakers. Played the Scholastic Book Fair book preview video for Middle grades on the computer during lunches today. Checked in and out books. Met one of our new Language Arts teachers. Had teachers meeting in the library this afternoon and cleaned off tables for them - they were so dirty and I had been meaning to do it all day. Hopefully book fair stuff comes tomorrow. Also had conversations today with the other MS assistants and the fact that most of us have book fairs that start this week and a big meeting Thursday afternoon. How will we handle that?

Friday, November 14, 2014

Ten Ren Book Talks!

Today I wore my Renaissance outfit into work so I could do all these booktalks! Ten of them today and a couple of periods I had to do three! I occasionally thought "haven't I done this before??" realizing yes, I had, just a few minutes ago in another class! Helped students in the lab get signed in. Put barcodes and identifying labels on the new books we got in this week. Had one of my aides come in after school and he unpacked another set of the new language arts boxes. Sent out an email to the LMSS webpage for typing and got several thank you's from teachers for that. A great day, logged a lot of Leslie miles whilst cavorting in the halls between classes! 

Thursday, November 13, 2014

BookTalk

So excited today!! We did have a 2 hour delay because of the weather, but I got to go into Mrs. K's classes and do BookTalks for the Scholastic Book Fair that's coming next week. I had a blast! So much fun! The kids seemed to listen and be excited about it coming! I changed out Mrs. S's projector. The new one wasn't working very well with her set up, so I just took it and installed her old one and it all works now. Got new English boxes for teacher resources and need to get those opened up. Checked in and out books. Got my new box of Tattle strips so we can start stripping books again. Our amazing volunteer Mrs. G got all the rest of our CCSS books covered so those are now all on the shelves. A fabulous day and our power at home is now back on! Huzzah!

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

The Last Unicorn

A perfect day. Lots of math books got checked out. More reading books for kids. Had two kids get their work done to pay off fines. Got in some teacher materials for our social study books. Don't really want to barcode them (even though they sent the barcodes!!) but I'm sure I will end up opening up the boxes and getting the barcodes on them. Not sure of where to put them but we'll find a space somewhere. Tonight I'm off to meet Peter S. Beagle the author of The Last Unicorn. They have remastered the original movie (cartoon style) that was done years ago and we'll get to see it on the big screen down at Salem Cinema. It is one of the iconic fantasy stories that I just love. As I was leaving, the copier got jammed in the bottom and I left it for Mr. J to work on. Went home to get ready, only to think I had left my phone at work. So I fixed my hubby dinner and then drove to the school to get my phone and unjammed the copier while I was there and let him know. 

Monday, November 10, 2014

Too Late

A crazy busy but not a lot of real excitement going on. Checked in and out a bunch of books. A sandwich kind of day with two days off before and off tomorrow for Veteran's Day. If I think of something that happened really exciting, I'll come back to this!

Friday, November 7, 2014

Sweeping Up

Today I started with sweeping up the computer lab. It was really a mess!! I got like a whole cake plate full of trash, not to mention paper and the strap off a backpack and Halloween candy wrappers. It was bad. Had classes in the library all day. Lots of kids checking in and out books. Had my aides finish putting numbers on a set of math books. Took one of our new projectors into a teacher's room and swapped out the 'loaner' she was using. Had two kids that were on inappropriate sites and tried to see if I could find their browser history. Couldn't find it, but they did confess to a lot of what an adult saw them doing. That was quite interesting. Really made sure the library lab was nice tonight when I left, put all the headphones away, and am only missing one! I'm sure it's somewhere at school, will put out a call for it Monday. Sent off three books to a teacher at another school. Did more Tattle Tale strips. Got in our last computer and opened it up and locked it in the closet with the other two. Had some subs in and they did some great work reading shelves. Laughed tonight as two of our teachers were in the workroom running the scantron. They were so silly and giggley as one of the tests got stuck and what they did to get it out!

Thursday, November 6, 2014

More Projector Swap

This though was for a teacher. I went straight up to her room this morning. We've gone through 3 bulbs here, and hers blew too. We are totally out of her kind of bulb! So I brought in one of our extra projectors, hooked it up and took her projector. It'll just sit in my office until a new bulb arrives. Found a great page with all the projector types for Hitachi and the bulb that goes with each projector. That was pretty cool! Got in our new projector to match our other three. Stripped some books. Did a ton of laminating after school, took about 45 minutes to get it all done. Checked out a class set of books for Mr. R. Had the aides all check over their sections today, the library really is a mess. Mr. M came in during my lunch and we found that if we jiggled a cord for the library computer lab, the screen actually projected white instead of yellow. Nice. We think we just need a new splitter and then it'll be tight. Hopefully! Checked in and out a ton of books. One of the kids that's in here for a P.E. release started to put books away without checking them in, oh no! Packaged up a book to send back, and the student it was for came in. I told her I was sending it back and did she still want it, and she said yes, so I got it out for her and checked it out to her. Had Mrs. J's classes all in here today, and the kids needed their user names. So I looked up a bunch of them all throughout the day. Helped a lot of kids get logged on. 

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Projector Swapping

I guess someone noticed while I was gone, that we got in three projectors to replace the surplussed ones and they were totally different than the one we had gotten in a week or so ago. I communicated with the techs and after going through the boxes, models, serial numbers they decided to have me pack up the oddball one and send it back so they will send another one like the three I got in while I was gone. So we will see! I also sent a list of surplussed equipment to our office manager so she could order new document cameras. I took off the two that had been revamped and we got back, and sent her the list of the four that are no longer usable. Had classes in the library all day. Science was in the lab, and language arts had three classes come in and check out books. Love it when I have my aides close by to help out! Got in a lot of mail. Sent out a few things. Got another kudo bar for helping a teacher with her projector. I may get quite the stash! So we checked in and out a ton of books today. Had a teacher bring in two sets of science books to check in for him as well. I had a boy come in today after school and ask to help, so I set him to putting in the number notes of the science books. Did a bit of stripping. Took down all the "Sbooky" books and put up new ones. Had the young boy pick out some non-fiction books on the rack there. Trolled through a ton of emails to answer. Had to take a young man's test from the AR (Accelerated Reader) and delete it. I think I figured it out! Tried to help Mr. M install an upside down lamp into a projector. My hubby even brought me a yummy sandwich for lunch since we didn't have anything to make when I left home this morning. He had to leave, but still, it was nice to see him! Glad to be back though my office when I left was in a huge mess!