The daily life of a Middle School Library Media Assistant.

Thursday, February 28, 2019

Finishing Orders for the Year

It's time to finish up ordering and using up the budget. I spent most of the day working on the order and then I pulled up Goodreads and had my aides go through the 2019 best middle school books and see what they might like to have in the library. A lot of them and I had the same books, but they also had some others that I ordered. Part of the order was for this school year, but a lot of the books are not out until after I have to have the order in, so I had to make another order for next year, so I titled it fall 2019. That way I don't forget some really great books that I'd really like to have on our shelves. Made up an article for the Leslie Newsletter about the Scholastic Book Fair. Our attendance guru called and asked if I wanted basically the same as last year and I said 'No! Let me send you a new one!' so I did. Pretty quiet day. I think I like a three day work week!

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Another Snow Day...


Yummy Shepherd Pie dinner.

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

STEAMING the snow!

Kind of an everything day today, and we had our STEAM kids in during lunches today. Checking out books, putting away books, helping aides. Just one of those scattered to get things done days.

Monday Snow Day!


Saturday, February 23, 2019

Friday Flannel Day

Which I totally forgot about until I went to school today! Oh well, I don’t have any flannel anyway except a queen size quilt! Had a call for some old science books so I withdrew them and will send them off to a high school next week. Had both lunches in for quiet read day and there were only a few for A lunch, but B lunch was packed and they all sat and read!!! It was the best quiet read day ever! Maybe it was the flannel. Had our rep from Follett come by and we talked for about half an hour and then I checked out some of the options on their site that she had helped me navigate around. Left about 20 minutes early to go over to LMSS and pick up my origami papers so we’ll have them for next Tuesday.  It was a really good Friday.

Thursday, Feb. 21

Too busy to post! Or rather, just forgot on this one! Had both lunches in. Put away my books. Helped students out all day. A pretty typical day. See what happens when I don’t write stuff down right away??

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

More Inventory

Yes, I did about all I can except for the System 44 items. I can't find them and I finally had to send a note to our textbook guru to see if she knew what was up with them. I got all the others in the inventory pretty much down, but those, I'm not sure we'll find unless they came last summer and got locked in a closet somewhere. Had the STEAM kids in today and I was so happy they loved the Go games I had out. A couple of the students had even played it and had a clue as to what was going on. I was so glad! I had the K'nex bridge building and roller coaster out and the Raspberry Pi set ups since I didn't have the Origami paper yet. Hopefully by next week it will arrive. A very fun day watching the students play Go and do the bridge building! A good day and I have a new box of books to play with tomorrow! Huzzah!

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Forcasting

Today we had in the South High School counselors and they worked on the schedules with the 8th graders for their freshman year. They spent all day in the library talking to all our 8th graders and it is a really exciting time for them as they prepare to make these years count towards graduation. Mr. R came in and asked for Astronomy books so I quickly checked them out to him and took them up. Someone absconded with my elevator key and I won't trust a student to use my master, so I took them up, then brought the ones he was done with down. I did more inventory and by today's end I was at 85%! Getting there! I also attended a Webinar from Scholastic on the new registers they are now using. Very techie and wifi upgrades. Should be interesting! Glad I got so much inventory done, now I have to find the hard ones!

Friday, February 15, 2019

The Hedgehog of Wisdom



I was so happy today to come in and find the Hedgehog of Wisdom residing on the top of a shelf! I didn't who they were at the moment, but they were so cute!! I found out that they belonged to our Instructional Coach for having the best insight of the month at her meeting yesterday and she gets them for a month! I had so much fun with them today! (Don't you love my inclusive pronouns??) I held them up in the hall during passing and have never had so many students smile! They sat on my counter during check outs and played with students at lunch (I think Connect Four may be their favorite!). Other than playing with them all day, I finished deleting English texts from the back of the student store and finally felt comfortable enough to start the Language Arts inventory. I'm just taking it piece by piece so I don't get mixed up and forget anybody. A long day of scanning books and getting things worked out. Three day weekend! Huzzah!

Thursday, February 14, 2019

Math, Withdrawing, Wrestling

Today we had six classes come in to check out their new math books. Then since I have the table in the back nearly empty, I went into the old textbook room and brought out more of the old Language Arts books that needed to be withdrawn. I had to go through some teacher resources and later in the day we pulled out another three carts worth of books from back there and I got them withdrawn. Maybe next week I'll be able to actually start the LA inventory! I wanted to get things withdrawn first, then start, so I'm feeling hopeful! Then after school today I timed and ran the scoreboard for wrestling. It was our last home meet and I was glad to do it. When someone left, they hit the cord just enough to unplug it! All the scoreboards went blank! Luckily I tracked down the cords to the socket and after some wriggling, it came back on! Thank goodness! We lost, but we wrestled! Nothing very exciting for Valentine's Day for me. I was feeling run down all day, probably because my alarm woke me up this morning right in the middle of a dream. 

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

AVID Wednesday

On Wednesdays we all have to wear our AVID shirts and I was cold all day! I did take one of my scarves that really opens up to a nice shawl and had that on most of the day in one form or another.  I was to have classes in today to look at World War II books so I spent some time this morning pulling books. Non-fiction was pretty easy and then I did some fiction. I had a Scholastic Book Fair call with my amazing rep and am taking a Webinar on the new registers they are using. Touch screen, WiFi, pretty sweet! Then, the classes did not end up coming in after all, but I'll leave the books for a few days to see if they make it in. I got to talk with the substitute who is really nice. His classes were not in a mind set to have the proper library behavior, so I'm glad they stayed in class. Maybe I'll do a PowerPoint for them on those books! I did a new poster for the new set of STEAM activities. Origami, Go, and K'nex bridges and roller coasters. We'll see how that goes. Covered a book. I had one lunch in, took the Rubik's Cubes and Cubelets out to the car with the help of an aide so I could drive them back to LMSS this afternoon. I ended up leaving just after 3 to get over there. I love going over there, such a great place though I'm not sure I could work there, no windows!!!

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

New Library Picture

I've had this picture since October, but hadn't posted it. So I'm glad it is now on here! I still have some work to do in there, finish up weeding to get the shelf size down, but that may take a bit longer while I work on cleaning up the Language Arts inventory. But, I'm happy it's on there!  I put up a new display in my window for the Scholastic Book Fair with the new books they sent me. It's still a month away, but I was tired of the old display. I finished covering the new books, and then took a picture to send to LA teachers, but decided to try a power point of the new books instead. Nine new books and a quick review for them. We'll see how the teachers like it. It took awhile to get it all together. Helped Mr. M get the new computer hooked up. We have classes in from WOU (Western Oregon Univ.) and the lady is not very tech savvy, so he wanted to switch out the hard drive for one that would work the DVD player. Switched it out and realized the one he brought didn't work either! So he got another one where the DVD did work and we tested it. That took a bit. We finished up the Rubik's Cube loaner kit and I had ten cubes that needed to be solved. I had planned on taking them into our office tomorrow and sent out a call for help! Mr. C who teaches across the hall from me found a student after school who could do them! He did ten in about 10 minutes!! It took me 3 hours to do one! I gave him 20 lion shares (to trade in for stuff at the store!) and Mr. C promised him Reese's pieces! A whole big bag full! He was pretty happy and I got all my cubes cleaned and packed up! Yeah! Home to relax after a huge busy weekend! I may just veg in front of the TV all night since we have plenty of leftovers!

Monday, February 11, 2019

British Invasion

Covering books
Go
DVD player
New spine labels
Back l

Friday, February 8, 2019

Go!

Had a quieter, well maybe a bit day today! I finished covering the new paperbacks today and I played Go! With getting in the origami paper I thought we should also do a game of Go for STEAM. I still need one more activity to do. Probably end up being the Raspberry Pi carts. We had two PE classes in getting a behavior reset. I have to give major kudos to the teacher. Certain students were incredibly disrespectful. I always feel sorry for the students that are in a class and are just normal and have to put up with them as well. I think some students just dread going to class because of some behaviors some of our students work at. She brought in two classes today. Have company coming in for the weekend so off I go!

Thursday, February 7, 2019

Thursday, February 7th

Today I shelved the books that are mine. I also looked at ordering some Origami paper and sent that in. Our financial secretary called to say if I ordered another pack, then we wouldn't have to pay shipping, so I did that! We have a lot of origami books and that'll be a fun activity. Opened all the new K'nex bags. Looked through 'rent/loan' other items for libraries trying to find someone cool enough to ship me something like Rubik's Cubes. No luck. :(  Got in part of my newest book order! 24 new books so I stripped them and put in date due slips!! We haven't had as many classes down for new books that we've had in the past, so I laid them on the carpet and took a picture and sent that to all the LA classes. We'll see how that goes! I told them to maybe just put it up on their projector for a moment or two to entice the students to come down and check out the new books! I got them all put out today! It was a great day!

After the Snow...

Tuesday, February 5th was a snow day so this is all about Wednesday the 6th which I forgot to post because it was my hubby's birthday. I had to work, but at least we had the evening together. Today I helped students with lost book returns. They had finally gotten their grades and bills, so I made sure the lost books were in. Our game storage was a real mess, so I went through all that and straightened and cleaned it up. Looked at the Rubik's Cube set and will have to send it back next week, so I contacted my office to see how they wanted that to happen. They want me to just drop it off and they'll make sure it gets shipped. Pulled out the Scholastic Book Fair planning kit and went through all that. Ordered my replacement books from two different vendors. Since we were off yesterday, I had the STEAM kids in today, so I had to pull that stuff all out for them and then put it away after lunch. Took care of holds and sent them all off including seven Touching Spirit Bear for Crossler.

Monday, February 4, 2019

Conquered Python


I feel pretty proud of finishing this course. I spent most of the day copying all the lessons, revising them for a Word document so I'll always have them. Did the usual stuff, but was so happy that I got through these four weeks!

Friday, February 1, 2019

Stabilized

I didn't lose anyone today! So it was time to assign shelving sections to aides. I showed all of them what I want done, and how I want it done and so we'll see. We had classes in all day. Mr. A brought in students for math using playing cards for those who had finished their assignments(!). At one point we had a class come in that had a clear out. Had one lunch in. Worked on coding. Glad the week is over. See you Monday!