All Hallow's Eve

It wasn’t too bad for being the day of Hallow’d Even! We’ll see how tomorrow goes! My aide did a fabulous job putting up the tissue paper for my display and got it all done today. I think she did a great job! Sent into our textbook guru that I didn’t think my math inventory was right, ALL the subjects were coming up, not just math, so she checked and yes, I was right. It hadn’t been set up right. So she ditched that one and started me a new one. Luckily I hadn’t done too much on it. Good thing I asked now rather than at the end of the year. That would have been frightening! Withdrew some old LA books and told our guru that all of the entries for that were now all ‘no copies’ anywhere in the district so she could delete them, which she did! Garten will come tomorrow for our surplus books I have out there. Sent in my JLG order, then found out I needed a quote! I thought we were all set to put it in! So I emailed them quickly to get that done. Had both lunches in and the MakerSpace was crazy busy. I really must get a handle on the painting. We had glue being poured out of bottles without lids on. Paint on the cart. Someone had taken their plastic paint pallet and just put it paint and all into the cart rather than the sink in the back! Oh my. That has to stop. I emailed our other LMA at another school to ask how she did it and she said that yes, sometimes it was too much! All my magnets are gone and I never saw them being used for anything. I have a note where the balloons were that they need to ask for them. I’m learning as well! Off to home to be there for the trick or treaters!

Inventory Weeding

Today I went ahead and weeded out the rest of the 800’s. I pulled three shelves of a cart off. There were so many. I felt so sorry for some of them. I had great angst as I pulled books. I wonder if the other LMA’s have these same feelings? I was wondering about the math inventory so I took the Butterfly books and inventoried them. Then I ran a report and they did all check in. Regular other stuff, putting away books, found some books that were missed on their section during inventory and got them checked in, reset passwords. Had the MakerSpace lunches in today. I had to tell one of my aides to take off their hood three times in that period, so I finally called them in and told them I felt disrespected, and I needed a note from their counselor if they wanted to continue. It really made me angry. It shouldn’t, and I know they are going through stuff, but aren’t we all? Got home and took a walk in the glorious spread of fall that graced this day.

Halloween Dance

I helped out tonight! It was quiet where I was! Pretty much! There were two students running the ‘Guess the amount’ in suckers and candy corn. But first! I got out all the boxes for Garten to pick up today. Our substitute custodian got the gate open and I had that all done by lunch time! I had my aides helping me. That was a huge accomplishment for the day! My hand truck that comes down to a cart, lost a wheel! So I put it back together, and did the cotter pins a bit more tapped in. I started to pull the 800 books. Some were from the 90’s, rarely checked out. I’m getting ready to do that inventory, so it needs to be done, it’s in our weeding schedule for this year. Then I noticed that I think the math books we did last week, did not get done. I’m not quite sure how that happened. So I started to poke around with that. Had both lunches in and the MakerSpace open today. Then I came back to be the staff member with the ‘Guess’ students. I also got to direct Caesar, the No Drama Llama to the back of the school for his hugs and photo ops. that was cool. He had been to three places already today! Loved to see all the students having a great time, and loved seeing one of our teachers’ son in the cutest little snail costume! Loved him!

Just a Monday

Got in some inventory today. I did the 700’s and had my aides work on math today. I withdrew some books that I had pulled the other day. Just lots of other little stuff all day. Had to reset a student password right away! Did some check in/outs today. Had three of my aides gone today. Did the AVID slides with my students today. Had both lunches in and MakerSpace things being done! I can’t really remember anything else! Maybe later I’ll be back!

Birthday Girl

Can’t help bragging that my youngest granddaughter is eight years old today! Here are a few more MakerSpace projects I’ve done this week. An LED candle, some origami leaves and a modge pod of ginkgo leaves. I watched a Common Sense video on Digital Citizenship. It took me nearly all day with having to do things here and there, but I did do it! I sent most my aides to help another teacher all day. We had our reteaching on the during passing fire drill today. It went a lot smoother than the other day! Had Quiet Reading day in the library today and it didn’t do too bad, though I did tell two groups that sitting and holding a book and still talking was not quiet reading! Put paper in the copier machine, twice. There was more, but I did leave early to meet my hubby for a doctor appointment. I did bring a sandwich and needed some lettuce, so I went out to the garden and picked some lettuce leaves. Turned out pretty good! See you Monday!

Cleaning House

Today I had to make some decisions about boys in the library during lunch. I sent four boys outside to play rather than play on the furniture in the library. And a group of nine that I have had to constantly ask to settle down, be quieter, chill I finally said they were out and could not come back. I’ve been dealing with their behavior all last year and had already banned them once this year. I was really sad that a student came in yesterday when the group was here and asked if I had noise cancelling headphones, no I said. He picked up all his stuff and left. That made me sad. And I was sad the group of students pushed me into that decision. Had the MakerSpace cart out today and a lot of students asked to do string art, so they picked out boards and a template, then got a thumbtack to prick holes through the paper and then use the nails to make the design. I quickly ordered more nails! I worked on some origami leaves and have those hanging on the cart now. Worked on my display and had my second period aide work on the tissue paper backdrop for it. I actually made some great heads for it! I’ll post a picture when it’s done. I brought out all the new group books and got them all displayed. Half out on the display, the other half are in the back. Chromecarts went in and out. I moved the one full cart to the right of the aide desk, and put the bigger one on the left. So glad it is out of my office! So glad the one cart fit in the space between the desk and the door! Worked on a Modge Pod project. Started a new book. Had email conversations about QR codes and how that might work. Students are not allowed to use their phones at school, so we were thinking about how to do QR codes using iPads maybe, or their Chromebooks? Sometimes the space between a great thought and how to put it into practice takes a bit of finagling. Thank Goodness it’s Thursday!

Feeling Safe

Today was first semester CPR day and the Firefighters/Paramedics were in the library for four periods today teaching our 8th readers CPR and AED protocols. I love it when they are here and I feel so safe! So that made me very happy! The library was closed all day. Even though they were here first, second and third, they took a break because the last class was seventh period. And what do you know? Between fourth and fifth, as some students went to class, and others to lunch, right at passing, someone pulled the fire alarm (yes, it was on video). So we had to empty the school and wait for the firemen to show up - if only ours had stayed! That was so funny! We ended up standing outside for around 20 minutes while all the students had to find their first period teachers as they were all over the building and we had to account for each student. We finally got released back inside and they had to reset the lunches because we were outside so long, A lunch didn’t happen. It didn’t effect me at all, but I got a bit cold standing outside for that long! I did inventory on the 500 and 600’s. And found a few of the missing books. I think I had only about nine books that I couldn’t find after I ran the report. I pulled down the old display my aide did so I could work on a new one for the group Lit books. We got our OK for Junior Library Guild with the deal our boss had brokered. I had to get two more Chromebooks to Ms. M. Finished Piecing Me Together, fabulous book and the Salem Reads book this year. Absolutely lovely! And I made a MakerSpace LED candle. I tried! It does work, but it’s not pretty!

Inventory

Spent the first hour of my day checking for three books turned in but never came off the account. I went through every one of the math book he had, every workbook of the kind he had and checked about 12 shelves for the library book that was supposedly turned in. I couldn’t find any of them. I felt really bad. And I usually feel that way when I can’t help a student. I also organized the math and workbooks just to make sure. I worked on more inventory today since it was pretty quiet, started the 500’s. I stopped and started because of students that were getting extra help from several different staff. At least I got some done! I was hoping to get them all done, but oh well. Did some heavy laminating today. We had new maps of the school put together by our lovely Ms. P. There were a lot! Then some for Ms. K and Ms. S. Had the kids in for MakerSpace today. Put away all the date books that weren’t chosen. So sad. There were quite a few, about 50 or so. That gave me an excuse to check the shelves as well. Checked to see if there was a pallet outside to put my surplus boxes on for pick up. A great day. 

Aide Book Reviews

A crazy day in the library! We had nine classes in! Four periods had two classes in simultaneously! That was a lot of students! They were Speed Dating Books and it was a lot of fun for them I think! They checked in and out books at the end of their dates! There were, I heard, 20 instances of true love. Awww, that’s so sweet! I did all eight of my aides’ book reviews today. Got them all printed up and put in the student binder they can use to see what books are out there. I boxed up five boxes of surplus books and then went in and cleaned out the closet in the non-fiction area from old math supplements and added four more boxes. I got down and looked deep into all the shelving and found a small stack of math books from 1978!! Oh my! They were so old!  Then I went back behind the student store and got three more boxes of those supplements and some other old Algebra books. That was a lot of lifting today. No lunches because of classes. Right before I left I got a quick email from a teacher that some of her Chromebooks weren’t charging right, so I grabbed keys to pop open the back and found that one of the two plugs for the charging pods wasn’t in all the way, so I pushed it in and made sure that the other one was all the way in as well. Hopefully tomorrow they will all be totally charged! Then off for Book Club at the Yard!

Pink Out

So, my pumpkin here is definitely not pink! But I wanted to make a quick string art piece to show students and see if any were interested in making one. I need to maybe do more string work, but really pleased with how it turned out today! We had Ms. M’s classes in today working on book spine poetry. She brought them down and had a worksheet. If they got that done, they could go around the library and take real books and make poetry using real books! It was really awesome. I also finished xovering the last of the Lit books, so they are all ready to go! I took three more Chromebooks to one of the math teachers. They decided that one of the math programs wasn’t working and canned it, so those students were filtered out to other classes. Pulled books for the ‘Speed Dating with Books’ classes coming in on Monday. They needed about 60 books, so I pulled about 10 - 15 more in case students wanted to check some out. Had ten quiet reading students in for A lunch, but then we had some math students pulled out of class and I decided since they were a bit on the undisciplined side to not add the B lunch students in there. We had stuff in the library from the Book Poem classes, so I didn’t feel too bad about leaving the library closed. We are now part of Microsoft Teams and our ‘techie’ LMA from Crossler set up a ‘team’ for us middle school people and we were on there today. I was feeling a bit ‘oh, wow, another app to make life easier’. So we’ll see how that goes. I ended the day with getting an email from our art teacher about books for teachers once Salem Public Library shuts down for its retrofit. I asked our boss if he knew about the program and he was like ‘NO!’ So hopefully we’ll have info on that Monday. I’m kind of sad that the teachers heard about it from a source other than the library. Ready for the weekend.

Week End of MakerSpace

I was so proud of our students today working with their MakerSpace items. One took the skewers and webbed the hot glue gun back and forth to make a spider web! It was so cool! One gal took the 3D pen and made a cubed rectanglish shape! Very nice! I told them today that tomorrow we will just have quiet reading in the library, so no MakerSpace. Very cool. I came in late because I had a stress test this morning, but I still came in around 10:30ish. I got a Chromebook to a teacher and to another teacher who needed one more for his class. Got my nails for string art, so I’ll work on that tomorrow. Was a great day and I even got some reading in. Pink out day tomorrow!

Another Ditto, Well Close....

I did more tagging of books with the ‘This is a textbook’ labels, covering paperbacks. Did the MakerSpace for both lunches. Took me a long while to clean up after A lunch. Class came in during 7th period and I talked about these lit books and they checked out all the ‘When’ books. I was excited that the students fell for it like I did. All seven got checked out and I had kids asking for more! That was a great book talk. Scored the last 8th Grade volleyball game. A great day.

Ditto

Yep. Just kind of ditto yesterday. Really. Except the volleyball game. There wasn’t one today.

God’s Eye and Painting

I was really pleased that I got a ton of interest in my MakerSpace cart today during lunches. I had about eight students A lunch all painting (they did a pretty good job about cleaning up!) and B lunch had students working on making God’s Eye with yarn and pop sickle sticks. So, it was pretty cool. We’ll see what tomorrow brings. I pulled out the cart I had of the new group read books. I needed to put a label on all of them about that they are ‘textbooks’ so need to be checked out that way and the date due for textbooks needs to be changed for them. Then I still need to cover the paperbacks so they’ll last a bit longer. My aide made a Hispanic display, and I want to replace it with these books like one of the LMA’s did, just sat about half of each title on a shelf and checked them out. I got interested in one of them and had to start reading. Had to help students get onto their Chromebooks and StudentVue sites. I put away three big stacks of graphic novels as well. I also had a student added to my aide list and I immediately called to say no way. I had written them up last year for what they had called me and I did not even want to try. Not worth my pay grade. I really wish their counselor would call me before they just stick someone in my aide slots. I sent them up to the office and they changed that class. So, at least they understood the situation and made that adjustment. Scored volleyball after work today and there’s only one more game for our magnificent 7th grade girls. I love to be involved and see these girls just make great plays! Home for Salmon Chowda Mac. Yum!

Thursday the 10th

We had our LMSS Middle School Library Media Assistant pathway today. Back later.

End of Six Weeks

I worked on getting the art/drawing books ready to go to the art room. Marking out the Leslie stamps, adding the Discard labels and stamp with the date. Our art teacher said she’d take them all, so they are hers! I took the cart up after school today. Fire drill times two! We had our monthly fire drill today and as soon as we got in, the alarm went off again! So off we all tromped out again. I heard that a volleyball hit a station and got set off! I chivied my aides today to get their book reviews in and I got six of them to get them in. One sent in a review, and it didn’t sound quite right to me? So I plugged in a phrase and it was 100% Cliff Notes! I let them know that plagiarism is not ok. She needed to redo it and a notice that in high school they check everything! They resubmitted another one. Had both lunches in. And another set of volleyball games to score after school.

Six Classes

We had classes in all day today. So busy! I had two classes in where I was the only one there. One with only one aide. It was a great day to check out books! Scholastic called about the fall Book Fair and we talked for at least half an hour (can I admit I was multitasking?) I know it’s her job to be upbeat and gung ho, but I’m just not there! I had both lunches in as well! Laminated my poster and two new aide passes for the year. I did a few resetting passwords today and got the students connected up. I loved today, the students checking in and out and even during lunch we had a lot of check outs even then! Put away books and got the student books ready to be put away tomorrow! Got 30ish books ready for Ms. S, she wanted ‘how to’, instruction books so I got those ready and took them up to her. Then I went out and helped with the track meet. There were only three races, so it went pretty quick, only to come out and find my car wouldn’t start! Luckily Ms. W was parked right next to me and she had jumper cables! So I got home! One more student contact day!

Poster Day!

Today was a great day and I got my poster done! But yes, I had to do a couple more posters because I forgot the green screen option! I also went in the side door this morning, because I remembered we no longer have an industrial arts program and there’s probably wood up there I could use for string art projects and there was! I went in for a quick chat with our principal and she said go ahead and take what I wanted, so I did! There’s a lot more that would need to be cut, but I got two small boxes full after school got out today. I got a call from JLG and though I knew there was something in the works, but this lady talked with me and set me up with a quote, so I emailed our PA, Mr. G and he called me back to say that yes, they were working on a deal and I had been the third to raise questions about what was really going on so he had called them to say, whoa! We are not ready yet. So hopefully he’ll have it all straightened out by our meeting Thursday. Helped students get their passwords set. Put away books. Got two AEM devices out for our AEM person today. Had both lunches in and even put out the MakerSpace cart for students to look at. A great day and two days left until the end of the first six weeks. 

Friday Part Day

I needed to be with my hubby this afternoon, so I had a sub come in. I worked a lot on a poster for the MakerSpace, and I kept getting one done, then was like, drats! I need to add another piece! I’m pretty happy with it, but I’ll check it out on Monday. I got things ready for my sub for the rest of the day, and put away some books, reminded my aides that book reviews were due by Wednesday. See ya Monday!

3D Pen

I started the day with the usual, getting the computers up, unlocking everything and opening all the doors. Taking a moment to see the sun rise above the bank of clouds over the mountains. When my two online kids came in and my aide, I started to do the inventory on the 400’s. That did not really take very long, it was only one shelf! I’m wondering when I’ll start the 500’s - now there’s a quite the haul through that section - sciences, animals. It’ll be quite the slog. I took a picture of these old math paper supplemental booklets (ha! Had to look up something like brochure, but not a book! Thank you synonyms!). Sent the pic out to our math department and one of them - thank you Mr. S! - sent it to our head of curriculum and she said to go ahead and surplus them. So with the eight or so boxes of them I have enough to get a pallet together for Garten - they need at least 20 boxes and I already had 18 packed up. I then created a Math group in Outlook contacts since I didn’t have one yet and obviously that would be nice to have. Showed my one aide how to order the math books they inventoried and he did one set, but had hurt his hand the other day and it was all swollen so I had him stop and I did all the rest of them later in the day. Had both lunches in and they did well. Had to put out a new puzzle, the 50 states done in license plates. We’ll see how long that takes! Then I turned my attention to the Maker cart we got in. I think I have everything out now, organized somewhat, pulled more crafty books for ideas for students, ordered in some books, one on 3D pens, one on jewelry making, origami jewelry since we have origami paper and that would go so nice with the jewelry stuff. I had never used a 3D pen before and so one of our aides is pretty creative, so we got it out and she played with it. Very cool! So, a very creative afternoon playing with the cart, I think I will put it out next week and see what the response from the kids is. Am I ready for it?? Ah, maybe!

Scoring Cranes

Worked on inventory today. I did all the 300’s today with the Chromebook on a cart. I also had my aides work on the math inventory. I showed them how to do it, then set them loose! I think they did a great job. I did some book talks with Ms. R’s 7th period class. I had about eight different books I went through pretty quickly, and only had one checked out, the one by George Takei! A great book! Had both lunches in today and they finished the tropical bird puzzle. We got a call for staff to come up and judge the art class crane figures. I had fun doing it! Then I went on to score volleyball. Then I went to MOD pizza to help donate 20% of my dinner to the Leslie Garden! A lovely day.

Laminating

I read a lot of the day and put books away. I worked with my aide on her alphabetizing again today. I took all her books and we went over each book and where it belongs. Had a band student in again since he is getting transferred out. I did a lot of laminating this afternoon. Cartoons and education posters and Lunch Detention signage. I had both lunches in and worked on a Rubik’s Cube to show them yes, it can be done! I got all one book done - it was a novel in verse. And half way through another since I have a book talk tomorrow. Helped a student reset her password after school. No volleyball tonight, so it’s gorgeous out and time for a lovely afternoon walk!