Peace

Today I loved lighting my battery operated candle as I came in and had it going all day. Very nice. Did three book talks and I love it when I put the books down and the kids just dive for them! Boxed up some Ancient World books that needed to head back to their home school. Emailed with the person who works with Ben Mikealson who will be in the area about doing a talk! I am so excited! I think our students really need to see an author at our school and hear what he has to say. I am hoping admin approves it and we can get it rolling! Put away all the non-fiction books today since my parent volunteer did not come in (rats! I was going to have her do it!!). Helped the Scholastic driver get all our carts out of here! I didn't think they'd be here until next week, but yeah! They came today. Put out repaired books. Stapled up the Book Fair posters to remind kids they have until Saturday to buy online. Helped kids with passwords on the computers. Helped them tear poster paper off our big rolls. Lots more little stuff, but glad for the work and the day!

Seasons

Today I worked on the non-fiction shelves to put them into a winter mode and took in some of my unused decorations to use. It turned out just lovely. Gave five book talks today. Checked out two classes of math books and checked some in. Put away the ones checked in. Checked in two class sets of History books. Laminated this afternoon. Put new books out. Took down the Veteran's Day display I had on the wall by the front door. Let a teacher take a bunch of my boxes for the Lego Robotics class. And finished off the day scoring for a volleyball game. So exciting! Every game was within 2 points, the rally's were unbelievable! Both teams should be very proud of their showing!

Grief

The library was closed today for our counselors to come in and be there for our students who were dealing with the death of a classmate. It was hard to watch them come in, but I was so very grateful that the library became this sacred space. I got the Scholastic book fair all packed up and reports run, only to hear later in the day that our truck was broke and it might be a week until it gets picked up. When our afterschool program was coming in, the lady who leads it here in the library helped me move all 5 carts with their boxes on top into the back of our first textbook room. I feel so much better that they are out of the way. I got all the books I bought, all the OBOB books and others just for the library stamped and listed and sent off to LMSS. Sent off the request for more date due slips. Did a few more pages on my book review binder. A very quiet day. I pray for the student, the family and all those who knew. So sad.

Happy Thanksgiving

A long 12 hour day and so very thankful for my amazing co-workers. I spent the first hour at LMSS picking out new books for my library!! Then back to school to work there! Finished up the repairs I had waiting and set those to dry the glue over the long Thanksgiving weekend. Should be good by the time I get back, or ready to glue the next part! Worked more on the review book and feel pretty good about it, so ready to put it out for students starting Monday. Did some laminating and ran a poster for a teacher. Had more great sales at the Scholastic Book Fair - our final total was $2,857! Our best fair since I've been there! Cleaned that all up, boxed up, carts into the computer lab to get them out of the way. A great way to end the Fair! Had to go out in the rain to pick up the signs and got drenched! Glad to head home with my current book! See you all on Monday!

Pathway to Conference

This morning I had to go our Library Media Assistant Pathway at South HS for three hours. I loved the Google doc spreadsheet! So much better than the calendar! I got a copy from another school and just have to x out their appointments. Luckily there wasn't very many! So I will work on that some more and then share it with our staff. That went from 8 - 11 so I had to wait to go back to Leslie until about 2:30. So, I had lunch with my hubby, took a nice walk, a bit of reading, then back to work! Did a lot of Scholastic Book Fair sales. Did some repairs. Loaded surplus boxes into my car to drop off at LMSS in the morning. Helped laminate a ton of posters that our Instructional Coach created. Had a teacher give the library a vase from a student that said it came from Iraq. I asked if I could take it to LMSS and they could put it in our Realia collection and she said yes! So I put it in the car and will drop it off tomorrow! I'm really excited for that! I should our IC the videos from the Realia collection and she got so excited, I sent her the links to the videos we have and she hopes to use those in the spring! I packed up the money and headed home. Long 12 hour day tomorrow then off for Thanksgiving.

Day 5

We are up to about $1,800 and that is exciting because the fair is not even over yet! Spent a lot of time selling today. Did a book talk with the fair, talking about the books, which we had in our library already and which we didn't. It was good! Checked in a lot of books today, but nowhere near the 450 that are lost or overdue. Got out the back room stuff and put out in the library for Monday and Tuesday conferences. Sent off two boxes of books that will be for our Professional Library. I had waited because our office was swamped, but now things are better, so time to send them in. I had to stamp them all too! Was glad we got through the day without too much craziness! The students have next week off, and we only work Monday and Tuesday. I even bought some book fair things for my granddaughters! Happy Friday!

Day 4

Went a little bit better than yesterday for sales, but two of my students were very happy when my restock order came in just before 3pm! Covered four of the donated books that I'd had on my desk for a week or so. Cleaned up emails. Did some Yammer contacts conversations. One of them was from my old school. Did a report on how many lost and overdue books just since school started, over 450 books!!! Put in an announcement for tomorrow!

Day 3

Not much happened with the book fair today. This morning things were brisk, but the rest of the day was slow and not much went on. So I boxed up the books I will take to LMSS for their surplus pile next Tuesday. Then I also went through my repair pile and weeded it down. If it took more than a simple repair, I withdrew it and put it in a box for teachers to use. There were quite a lot of pictures in those big books, so they could use them instead of cutting up magazines we no longer have. I did do some repairs while I had all those books out. I looked at the book, how many other copies of that did we have, how old it was. Did it need to be replaced? I only had two medium boxes, so not as many as I thought I might have, and if the teachers can use them, that would be awesome!

Day 2

Had a great second day with the book fair, we're up to about $1200 in sales! So that is good indeed! Had a ton of sales this morning and more during lunches and some more after school! Got money up to our bookkeeper this morning. Had a teacher who needed the book numbers for her class, so I looked up the four classes and wrote down their numbers for her. Had another teacher ask for 40 of the Medieval World books, so had my aides get that for her. Ordered more books from Scholastic for the book fair. We are already out of 2 popular titles. Cleaned up emails. Forgot to laminate!! I will have to do that first thing in the morning! Tried to find books for a couple of students. One book I could not find. Another student still has a lost book he says he never checked out. Argh! I am so unhappy when those things happen. On the whole, a very good day. Love my job!

Day 1

Of the Scholastic Book Fair that is! Had a great first day since one of the teachers has some really generous friends who donated money for her to buy at the book fair! I was astounded and definitely the best opening day ever!! The students purchased a ton of stuff as well so all is well in the book fair world! Checked in and out a bit today. I had come in early to set up the carts and unpack the boxes, so it was quite the rush to get it all up before they released the students down the halls this morning, but business was brisk and we did more during lunches and some after school! I had some amazing helpers from our Leadership class and Mrs. B came during lunches as well to help out. Had a fire drill today and was very glad it wasn't raining too awfully bad. Also for helping out, I let the leadership students pick a book for the library. I will buy them with my Scholastic dollars and put them in the library with a little note that it came from the Leadership class of 2016-2017. Broke up all the cardboard boxes today (I had lots!) so they can get taken down to the cardboard recycler. It was nice I came in so early, because they moved the volleyball game up 15 minutes and I had to leave to score! So that worked out nicely. Oh, and on Sunday I put up all the Book Fair signs since I knew it would be raining today! Glad I did!

Ready...

Well, almost! Got the back room all ready for the Scholastic Book Fair, but since I thought the LEAP program would be in this afternoon, I just have all the Scholastic carts still in the computer lab. Then there was a meeting, so I could have put them out!! Argh! Should be relatively easy to do Monday morning. Brought home the Book Fair signs so I can put them up on my way in on Monday before I go inside. Got four sets of stuff sent off today to LMSS and schools. Cleaned off my desk pretty nicely. Had my BOB (Battle of the Books) presentation in the library today during lunches and enjoyed having about 20 kids come to see what it's all about. I handed out just about the last of my Halloween candy (good thing!!) as they left. My order for new books went in!! Huzzah!! Though I have not much hope they will be here before Winter Break. It's a 30 day turn around at the best, so I think we will be out of luck. But at least we'll start the new year with new books! 

Celebrating our Veterans

Worked on this display this morning and also books that have to deal with the wars we have been in. Everything. Had my wonderful volunteer Ms. B come in and help out with pulling books and displaying! The Scholastic Book Fair carts came in today! I was thinking they wouldn't be here until tomorrow! They came during lunch, then had to wait until the kids were out of the back where they could park (some kind of violation thing...) so I ended up spending my lunch getting the carts in so the driver could leave before the next lunch started! Had two Book Fair preview video views today. Peer Helpers were in for their last training all morning. Students were in individually the last part of the day. Busy!!

Morning Rush

Four classes came in back to back to watch the Scholastic Book videos and then check in and check out books. Then we had classes in the computer lab for four periods, then our usual set of students in and out all day working on projects and swapping out books. It was a busy day! Did some laminating. Did a lot of call slips for books that were on hold to students, saying we now had that book in and could they come and pick it up. Sent off borrowed books back to the schools they came from. Managed to watch just a bit of my Webinar, glad I will get a link to watch it all tomorrow on new non-fiction for youth. Made a vine to go with my Thanksgiving display and hopefully students will make leaves to hang on it for what they are thankful for! I made a cluster of grapes with family on it, from my great grandparents down to my granddaughters! It was fun! After I get it going a bit more, I'll put up a picture. Love my job!

Referral

I had to write my first referral today and hopefully my last. I really hate doing them, but this student kept doing things I told them not to. Slugging (really hard) another student in the shoulder. Wouldn't give me their name. Refused to go to class because they didn't want me following them. I just hate it when that happens. Ugh. I guess they have had issues with others, so I'm not alone. But I still hate it. Had two classes in today and showed them the Scholastic Book Fair videos along with the endorsement by Gene Luen Yang. Lots of students in and out today. The leadership class wants to help volunteer for the book fair, so huzzah for that!! Checked in and out books for the classes today. Love to help students find the right books and got two amazing books into the Leadership students hands, one on Paige Rawl - Positive+; and one on Gabrielle Douglas - Raising the Bar. So excited I had these here! Made some more book review pages. Sent off books. Checked in and resensitized books. A teacher brought in two huge boxes of old, really old English books, no barcodes that were in his room, so I unpacked those today. Filled my whole flat cart. Made two posters to promote our Battle of the Books informational meeting on Thursday. Sent out two announcements for the rest of the week. I love standing in the hall during passing and having students hand me books to check in! Got in a volleyball book for a student she had requested from another school. She was so happy to see that! 

Peer Helpers

They were in again all day today, and I truly enjoyed the fragments of things I heard. The students were amazing and the teachers were wonderful with them. I got all the non-fiction put away this morning. Put up a new poster by the front doors of all the presidents with book cover images related to presidential things since the election is Tuesday. Listened to a webinar on Genre Bending and love that title! There was a great piece of it where the author talked about how much libraries meant to her and it was fabulous! I sent it out. Did most of the day working on my book review notebook and I worked so hard and it seems that I got so little done! I'm glad I had two days to get a good start on it, but I need to make a real commitment to getting it done! I had to leave at 2 to go with my mom to see her doctor. Since the library was virtually closed anyway, I figured it was a great opportunity to sit with him and her and see how she is doing. Medically it looks good, but her confusion is there, just a sign of age the doc says.

Note Book

We had the Peer Helper training today in the library, so we were pretty shut down. There were a few students in, but they were mostly quiet, in and out quickly. I sent out my bulletin board folder and then started to work on my review notebook. Taking all the books I have read, putting two on a sheet. Book cover image and brief description of them, put into a sleeve. I worked so hard on that today and when I started to put it together, it seemed so little!! But, at least I got it really going. I will work on it again tomorrow since they will be in again all day. Made some bookmarks for the BOB meeting I'll have next Thursday. Did some laminating. Just a lot of computer work today!

Drive

I put almost all my bulletin board pictures in a Google Drive folder that I'll get to send onto Mr. G and Ms. P tomorrow. I luckily still have this blog with all my pics on it, so it was just a matter of scrolling through all the years. Took some time, but if it gives someone an idea, that'll be great. Added more books onto my Scholastic Book Fair window. Set my Book Fair video up for two classes today and they seemed to enjoy watching the trailers. A few even asked me for the new books since I had held up a few! That was exciting. I didn't take down my Boo - k Graveyard since it was the Day of the Dead. I will take it down tomorrow. Checked in and out books all day. Got projects slated up for the next two days since the library will be a venue for our Peer Helpers and training. A great day and fun to see all my old bulletin boards again!

How-To

How do you help students learn how to write a how-do article? Why you bring them books to show them how it's done! So Ms. S brought in her students to see How-To books today and look to see how others did their 'how-to' books. I did a better job with her 6th period class than the 1st period class, but that's just practice! I had taken a bunch of our 'how-to' books and put them out on the tables so they could look at them and check them out if they wanted to. Had two classes of math students come in and trade books today. Took down my Margaret Peterson Haddix display and put up a book fair display that I'm still working on. Tried to play the Book Fair CD from Scholastic and finally got it to play on my computer, but couldn't get it to play on the computer cart with our projector. So I ended up going to the website and streaming the video from online. I had that playing during the lunches today. Though they didn't pay much attention! During 6th period I had in my math class swapping out books, my 'How-To' class and our Leadership class looking for books about strong leaders. Busy!!!
Laminated after school as well. Love my job!