Battle of the Books!

Today I had my first Battle of the Books meeting. The turn out from lunch was really small, only 5 students per lunch. That was a bit disheartening. I had made up title\author mix up sheets, some bookmarks with the books all on them and a sign up sheet. So, we'll see how it goes. Several students checked out the books though! So I'm hoping they will get even more excited about it all! Maybe get friends involved! That would be nice. I am off for the evening, might add later, might not! Mr. M asked for a document camera for room 114 so I knew I had one, but didn't have time to do it, so I put in a tech ring and our amazing techs came and took it over to the room and got it all up and running! Yeah for delegating!

Much Easier!

I thought yesterday would tap me out! And I even did go to bed early, but today was much easier! I had to find the 'Order in the Library' game and it wouldn't come up on Google Chrome, but I finally just went to Internet Explorer and it came up on there! Thank goodness! A few of my aides just whipped right through all eleven levels, so that made me hopeful that I may have some of them that can do non-fiction! I managed to get one coding book covered for a student who had asked for it and when he came in at lunch was happy I had finally gotten it done. Got in 14 new country books from Scholastic with my Scholastic money from the last book fair. One wasn't glued properly, so I asked for a new one and they are sending a new one! That was good. Got them all stamped, repackaged and off to LMSS for processing. Put a couple of new books on my Titlewave order that came from an email from LibraryConLive I attended. Checked in science books from Mr. R today while my aide that period 'Ordered' the library. Put away some math books in the back. Oriented the aides that were not there yesterday. Printed up a nice document on the 4 S's - Sorting, Shelving, Shifting and Shelf Reading. We'll see how it goes! Had both lunches in today. Ms. M came in with her class and had them working on their books with the white boards and crafting a graphic representation of their books! It was so cool! One group was in the main library, and the other was in the old computer lab. Loving the use of the space and watching the students getting their literary game on!! Will have the PE students in starting at the end of March to do a health study in the library, and that will be awesome! They are just trying to figure out how to make the space work for 50 students at a time! I'm sure they will come up with something! A very good day and I don't think I need to go to bed early today, thank goodness!

Second Semester

Today we began a new semester and I have 12 new aides! Thank goodness not all of them showed up! I also have two students in, one using the library as a study hall, the other on a PE substitute because he's on crutches from this weekend. Poor thing. So, I spent the day working with the new aides, getting them their expectations, their shelving assignments and we also had six classes of math books to check out and two book talks with checking in and out to do. So I was very busy. I didn't get to my breaks until after school was over for the day. Tomorrow should be easier! Ms. K wanted a talk on sports books - heavens! I never read those, but I could walk around the library and show the students some of the authors that do sports and talk about that! Not too shabby! Tomorrow should be a bit better, as we crank into it. Got some good resources from two of the other LMA's. One on shelving, another on responsibly using the check out computers. So I will print those up probably tomorrow. Tired, so just went home after work. Goodnight!

Semester End

Gave all my aides an extra treat today from my 'little stuffs' boxes. Just stuff that's been collected here at school. Also some stuff I gleaned from my mom's house. She had so much little stuffs that people had given her over the years, it seemed a nice tribute to let my aides pick one if they wanted to bring home. Got all the books put away today. So when my new aides start on Monday I can work on training them. Sent home some books. Asked for other books. Cleaned up the textbook transfers that came for specific students but I never saw them. Sent off other requested books. Started to clean up my office. Getting ready for our district Battle of the Books! We will start on Wednesday! Helped out at the wrestling match again tonight, running the time clock and scores. Went soooo late! Didn't head home until 6!

Ursula K. LeGuin

I was so sad to hear of her passing. I knew she lived just north of us up in Portland. What happens when an icon dies? There is a piece of us that aches, the stories end. I've read many of her books and will be sure they stay on my shelves. Today had some lovely bits. I gave two book talks. Trotted out the cart with all the new hardbacks on it for students to peruse. Gathered in more books for Mrs. B, sending out requests for Bud, Not Buddy. She was very excited to know if we could get those in. She found a new curriculum to go with that and was excited to see if we could find enough copies. Had to take away four cell phones during lunch today. Got in a few more book reviews for my binder. Tomorrow is the last day of the semester. Got in attendance sheets for Mrs. D for their new math books to check out 'Kercheski' style, so I had to enlarge them and get them ready to check out. Managed to get one class done, so will work on the rest tomorrow. Put away all the non-fiction I had to do and by the end of 7th had a whole half shelf again to put away! I'll do that tomorrow! Had more students down in the library today. As classes wrap up their work, some teachers sent students down who were done. I finally had to send out a notice to remind them that if they send students down, they need to come down with work. A few students were quite at loose ends and would have profited by a worksheet or two for focus! Then after school, we had the after school program come in and I looked up to see one of our older books (Jungle Book from 1968) go flying through the air. I was so angry at those students!!! I handed referrals to the fellow that runs the program and said I'd back him up. I was angry. Good thing I needed to go and work out and do yoga! Some days....some kids.

Back to 1975

I decided to clean out old files today, prompted by cleaning out my mom's files and bringing in the hanging file folders that she had that were pretty and colorful. I found a file with some old budgets in them. In 1975 we had nearly $9,000 dollars to spend on what was then important for the library. About $4,200 of that was designated for just new library books! That's more than my entire budget! Mr. G looked up a money calculator and found that in today's $$ that would be nearly $19,000 worth of books we could buy, just for Leslie. Wow. I sent that to all the other LMA's as well as Mr. G and they were all shocked! And I found that in 1980 we only had 490 students at Leslie! Then we got talking about other things. I shared that I have my aides write up a book review for every 6 week grading period and sent a picture of how that looks to them all. Then I shared my last book order list with another school who asked for it and I didn't even have to ask for help from Titlewave!! I was so proud! Got all the new hardbacks all ready to be checked out, but I've kept them in my office for the moment so that I can share them with the classes coming in for book talks tomorrow. Had a great interaction with a student today. I asked him to write his book review and he wanted to do it with his grandmother he said because she'd be really good. I showed him a very basic book report from another student, so he wrote three short sentences. So I asked him to write a sentence about the main character, and he did. Then I asked him to write a part in the book he really liked and he did! It really did turn out nicely and I really complimented him. Then on the other hand, one of my other aides never did a report last 6 weeks, so I asked her to and she hemmed and hawed. So I handed her one of our new graphic novels and told her it took me about 20 minutes to read and she could do a report on it. So she did read for awhile. Nearly every day, an aide from another class comes in and they sit and talk all the time. So soon, my aide was dancing the macarana, and had closed the book and just blew me off. I was hurt. It's not like my class is hard. She does a great job with checking in and out books. But I still felt dismissed. Only two days are left in the semester and then they'll all be gone. Had some other interesting times with students today, 6th period was a perfect storm of students when I had been thinking it would be nice and quiet! That didn't happen. A student ended up getting written up, I told another student to leave the library and go back to class (the student was not doing the work they were sent with and sat tipping back the chair from the table, talking to two other students that had come in as well, doing bird whistles...) Another student in with a one-on-one picked up book after book and then rather than setting them back the way they were, laid them down in a row...not the best combination. Then another student started blowing up balloons and drawing on them when we are not supposed to have latex balloons in the school. I asked and another teacher asked her to hand them over so we could get them disposed of and she wouldn't....Arggghhh! At least I had my new books to sooth my crazy nerves and helping out scoring and timing our wrestling match!

New Books

Yes, my precious! New booksies for our lovely shelves!! Yes, I worked on them nearly all day. Putting in the due date slips, putting in the tattle tape, writing in Lexiles that I had to look up and starting to put them out on the rack. Fiction and Non-Fiction both went out and got checked out! That made me happy! More to do tomorrow! Love my job!

Joy!!

Talked with staff on how they might be able to use this kit with their students. Then I got a request to for a book review on a book that is rated 10+ from our PA of LMSS so I picked it off the shelf and started to read. It was a quick read, pretty amazing, Girl Rising and I didn't see any trouble with keeping it. Yes, some parts were hard to read, but not overtly graphic. I think he was happy with my assessment and it only took a couple of hours to read. Just as I finished --- \0/ oh Joy!! 4 boxes of new books arrived!!! I was so happy! I got them all unpacked and inventoried and started to get them ready to go out to the school!! Happy end of the week! And I will get to play with them more on Monday!! Huzzah!!

Last Workshop

Finished up the last of the overdue notices today and got them sent out to teachers and a lot of books did come in! Hopefully more will come in tomorrow! Instructed my aides on the importance of making sure books do get checked in, I've found about 6 books these last 2 days that were on the shelf, but not checked in. Ms. B asked for about 6 titles to come in for reading groups so I spent some time today finding out where they all were (only 1 had everything she wanted at Leslie) and sent our requests for them. Some I was lucky that had whole class sets so they were able to get me what she needed from one source! She had looked at some of our old Prentice Hall books, so I started to pull them off the shelf, and most were not even in the catalogue. So I started to put those in and do a bit of repair as well. They are old, but some are all right. So I am taking those and putting together maybe two class sets of them to keep. I already surplused one that was coming out its binding! Then off to our last STEM Workshop. It was fun, though I wish I'd been there yesterday. The things they were working on were really interesting! A car with lights and siren, lit up clothing, lights that came on when water got too high. It was fun and I got to come back with $112 worth of supplies for my students to work with and curriculum to get them started! It is a whole cabinet with drawers for parts. I had to be careful with it, putting it in the front seat with a seatbelt and putting my plastic tablecloth over the drawers so they wouldn't slide out and drop parts all over on the way home! A great time! I can't wait to figure out the stuff I couldn't figure out and do some of the other lessons other groups were doing! Maker Mondays may be coming soon to Leslie!

Notices

Today I printed out notices for all our overdue books - 354 people have overdue books! That's half our student body! I was surprised at the amount of students that did not have homerooms on their slips! I thought I had most of them already, but there were quite a few! Cutting them in half (I printed two to a piece of paper) and then the computer sorted all the ones that had home rooms by home rooms! That was a nice surprise! But the stack I needed to look up and put in their home rooms was quite the stash. I spent nearly all day getting those done, in between other assorted little duties like answering emails, checking out A Monster Calls books (they had to be done a different way). Had both lunches in. Got in the CPR schedules and reminded our two teachers that they were more than welcome to come into the library and use it for the training, so hopefully they will embrace that and you know, first responders are totally OK in my part of the building! Always good to have them around! Notices will go out tomorrow. Had some personal business to take care of with my hubby, so I left at 2:30. Was hopefully going to make my workshop, but by the time we got done, it didn't make sense to go all the way up to Keizer for 20, 25 minutes of class with a commute of 45 minutes round trip. So, I didn't go. Last class will be tomorrow, so I will go for that last one.