1 Silent School

The school is quiet at last! Students are gone, lights are off! Computers in a silent sleep...I was not out in the halls much because I was usually checking out books in between! But it seemed to be not too bad out there! I covered books today, put away a lot of books since I hate having carts with books on them over break. Did two classes of book talks and they did check out some of my talks. Finished reading Schooled. Played my Pandora Celtic Christmas mix all day. Had both lunches in, one of my aides is moving! Oh no! Had about 15 students with withdraw slips today. So sad they are leaving, but hopefully it will be good. See you January 2nd!

2 Laminations

One of our counselors came in early and asked if I could cut out the things she had laminated. These were all about bumper sticker size and for our AVID team teachers and some for our students. It took awhile. Then she sent me a poster to print out and run through our poster maker machine for eight copies and then laminate those. So that took up a huge chunk of the morning by the time I got done and sent things upstairs! Did two more boxes of discarded books and I think I am nearly done with the weeded reference books! So excited! One more box should hopefully do it! More snowflake cuts cleaned up. More books checked out and lots came back today as well! Started ‘Schooled’, another OBOB book I needed to read. So funny! Had a fire drill today during 7th period. Since it is supposed to rain tomorrow, I am glad we got to stand out in dry weather! Lots to clean up and get ready for the break tomorrow! One day to go!

3rd Music Assembly

So excited to go to our winter music assembly today! I love to hear our students play! We had our choirs, band, orchestra and jazz band play this morning! Absolutely loved it! Though I did start to cry, thinking about my mom and all the concerts we went to together. I loved bringing her to the school concerts with me because she so enjoyed it. I really miss her. I cried on and off all day but held it together. I think what started it off was a teacher who I am the secret Santa for. I had made a card with a leftover top from all the cards my mom had saved for years. He told me he tossed the card, and I was like in my head going, ‘you have no idea how much that meant to me to share that card with you, and you threw it away.’ Which of course, got me to thinking about my mom for the rest of the day. I got to listen to part of my hubby’s jazz show while I covered the OBOB books. Finished reading ‘Found’ today. Pretty darn good book! Put books away, had both lunches in, cleaned up snowflake cuts from around the table after lunches, but the students are making some amazing snowflakes. Some they keep, and others they leave so I put them up! 

4 helpings of M&M’s

Maybe more than 4! I asked my secret Santa for mint chocolate and these arrived today in my mailbox! Happy snacking! I did happy snacking while finishing up the overdue/lost notices and got those sent out to classrooms today. Books started coming in, and that was a good thing. Gave all my aides two of those tiny candy canes today. They have really done a great job for me this year. Had a couple of teachers ask about what books did I have on other countries, and then she was asking for the Lexile of those books and her auto-spell check put in ‘textiles’ - so I got a sentence asking if I could look up the ‘textiles’ of the countries. That made me truly laugh out loud! I told them it was more of a what countries did I not have, because we do have a huge collection. Then I suggested they come down with their Chromebooks and use them as well as pulling books off the shelf for their country. Ms. T liked the ‘textile’ idea and thought she might have them do a paper quilt of countries! Put my books away today. Cleaned up the snowflake table, twice. Had both lunches in. Put books back in the ‘repair’ boxes. Was supposed to have two classes in for book talks, but they moved them to Friday. So my book talk books will sit on my desk a few more days. Cleaned up glitter in the back room. Was thinking what a happy day it would be if it snowed tomorrow like it did last year on the Wednesday before winter break! But no precipitation is in the picture at all! Very nice sunrise this morning with the sun coming up through bands of cream sickle colored clouds. Made me stop and look several times!

5 Overdue Notices

Yes, today I printed out 317 overdue/lost notices for our students. Got them all sorted by class and only had a few I needed to go in and edit in their Language Arts class. Other than that, a pretty normal day. I read Found again for our OBOB books. Put in all the iPad mini’s that were emailed to me and I got this morning. Put some repair books in the back after I edited them to show they were not on the shelf but ‘out for repairs’. I spent a bit of time on the Library Guild order and thought it was just the books that were going to be $7, but it was way more complicated than that and I really didn’t have the time to scroll through their 150+ pages of books on offer. The only way you see the discount is to actually check out and that was not going to happen. And since I got notified that my PermaBound order was on its way, I only somewhat regretfully canceled all that. Maybe if we had librarians at our level it could have happened. Had a tech come in with a cable for the students to be able to plug in their Chromebooks. Now we just need the ActionTec for the teacher Surface Boosk. Started a Make a Snowflake table in the library today and had some students during lunch making snowflakes. I even printed up a tutorial for them (and me too!). Teachers came in after school for data teams. Helped Mrs. F on the laminator she needed to get things done for tomorrow and I ran the other things that had collected for me to do tomorrow. Very cold in the library this afternoon, I ended up wearing my scarf all afternoon to keep warm! Put some leftover Pumpkin and some Irish Soda Bread out for staff and they ate it all! So glad it didn’t go to waste! Left my Secret Santa gift in the mailbox of the teacher it is for and had made a thank you card for the poinsettia I got to take home Friday afternoon! 

6 Tree Decorations

It was just one tree. My aides helped make it and each of them got to ‘hang’ two book ornaments on it. The ones that were here today. I was missing a few. I put one ornament on and one book present. It was fun to see the students and what they came up with for books and then some creative flashes of brilliance! Worked with Mrs. M on the iPad mini’s today and almost got them all straightened out. I’ll finish that up tomorrow. Got all my books put away. Had both lunches in today. Had to send some students packing. They were horsing around too much and one nearly got hurt (one student was kicking at his feet and he fell backward and nearly cracked his head really good on a bookshelf - that same student started messing around with the projector that was just reinstalled this morning - where’s that rolly eye smiley when you need it??) Had a tech in this morning and set up the projector and gave me insight on what bits I needed to order to get the results I wanted. An ActionTec device and HDMI cable. My principal has to approve all this of course, so we’ll see. I love our techs, they are all amazing and do so much for me! I actually did a bit of reading today. Finished up a book and will read one of the OBOB books next. A lovely Friday with smatterings of students in here and there, but some quiet pieces too. Back on Monday for our last week before break!

7 iPads a Wanderin’

Talked with our tech guys this morning to see about getting our wireless projector remounted and then routed to sync with teacher Surface Pros and student Chromebooks and they said we had two ActionTecs already in the building, but that’s what I would need. So I emailed our principal and he said to go ahead and have them put in the projector, but didn’t say anything about getting us another ActionTec. I tried to find a price, but that’s a whole company! So I asked our tech team for some advice and pricing on exactly what we would need. Had my aides work on a Christmas tree by our doors today. They have to each pick out a book and we’ll hang books on the tree, or like gifts under the tree! We’ll see how that works! My first two aides I asked for book suggestions came up with Stephen King’s It and then Deadpool. Not very Christmas/Holidayish to my way of thinking! We had a district employee come in with our missing iPads today and I got them all received into our system and then checked out to students. I still have some to go, so hopefully Mrs. M will get her students to bring theirs down or send me the info. I sent her the barcodes so she might be able to just email me the information. Sent off some books today for another school who is looking for OBOB books. Covered two books and got them out and one was checked out already! Sent off the last 4 OBOB books I picked up from Escape Fiction. Gathered together all the OBOB books I have on hand and got from Scholastic that we will be using. Five copies of ten titles! My back counter is nearly full!

8 Math Groups a Working

Mr. A came in today and asked if his math classes could come in and just work in the library and I said ‘YES!!!’ They were in four periods today and it was great! Though we didn’t have 8 groups, we did have 4 classes in with 6 tables being used by each class. Loved the buzz going on! Tuned into the LibraryCon virtual conference today! That was pretty cool! Even though I had many interruptions I still got some great book titles out of it! Listened to a few of the speakers, asked a question to Gene Luen Yang and he answered it! About what was the hardest thing to draw and he does not like drawing animals! Make me smile, because I really do love his stuff! I got to hear him at the OASL conference in 2008 and write a bio on him for the conference magazine, so it was good to see him again and promoting libraries and books! He told how he first saw comics and found his friend was already seriously into the comic scene. So Gene goes with his mom to the comic store and she sees a pretty revealing cover from a Conan the Barbarian comic (I think it was!) and tells him he can never go there again! So he and his friend get their parents to drop them off at the library and they head down to the comic store, then get picked up back at the library! He also talked about the great way comics diversify our world - like Superman, and explained the similarities between Superman and people of Jewish origins. Sent off on a rocket (Moses), kryptonite (Samson getting his hair cut off), hiding who they really are (during the war and with anti Semitic people) and how that also related to him and his Asian roots, being two different people in the same body. Pretty cool! And how he’s working on diversified super heroes. Might have to get Ms. Marvel! Got my order sent in for approval from my principal today for Titlewave. Only had one lunch in since the math students were in for one lunch. 7th period saw the math class in, our Leadership class in making posters, another small group studying under an IA in the old computer lab. So good to see the library so busy and a hub of great things going on!

9th Day Delete! Delete!

We had an email asking if we were done with inventory, and I told the office what I had done and they said they could work with that, so I decided to do a bit more and started an inventory on the textbook side instead of the library side, so of course!! Nothing would scan! I had to send an email to Ms. D and ask her to delete that one. I did get two sets done, so that was good! Packed up two more boxes of discarded books. Got in my box of new books! Well, new to us! These were from the books Sprague sent me last spring and they are finally here! I put them all out on our new rack. So I shelved all the books that had been on the rack and my other books. Found some real issues out on the shelves. Sometimes I just need to go and cry that my aides have no idea how to use the alphabet. Found a KE book in the middle of a ton of KO books....heavy sigh. Laminated and got those ready for tomorrow for deliveries. No volleyball tonight!

10th Day a 3 for 2 Day

Got a call from Junior Library Guild today about Leslie’s upcoming renewal and an offer of 3 new catagories for the price of 2! I love getting the non-fiction and non-fiction plus catagories. I used them to enhance the non-fiction sections since they have been so outdated. So I picked three new ones to add, Auto/Biographies, Sports and Social Studies. I think they will all be great new additions to our library and getting new and relavant books in for us. I also gave three talks today to Ms. K’s classes on how to use our search engines to find books by Lexile. It’s nice to have that option since we no longer use the AR. With the new reading interventions we have, it’ll be great for students to be able to look up on their own a range of Lexile’s and the books that go in that range. Did a bit of book repair on The Plot to Kill Hitler. Someone had checked it out and did a pretty darn good job with tape and such from an obvious dog teething fetish, but I knew I could do better. I took off all the tape, and pulled off all the lamination from the cover, reglued the torn cover together, then touched up with marker pens from the white edges, got a nice piece of paperboard to put on the edge where the dog had nibbled it off, then colored it as best as I could for the book cover colors. I’ll tape the chewed corner up with cloth tape tomorrow, it wasn’t bad, but definitely a tiny bit deformed from slobber! I’ll laminate the cover tomorrow and it’ll be all set to go out. What an awesome book! Loved reading it! Got the chance to interact with quite a few students today as they came in to check out books. Put my books away. Had both lunches in. Nice out, but really cold! Getting down in the low 30’s this week! Freezing time...brrrrr! 

On the 11th day Before Break...

Sent out a bunch of book requests and got in a bunch for my students! Put away all the books under my wings. Helped a couple of students with theirs. Had both lunches in. Got my order for OBOB books approved and ordered. And I actually spent some time reading. I read all the time, everywhere, at home, waiting in places, and a lot of time it is for books at school so I can give book talks. But today I decided that my reading time could be done at school, it’s part of my job, and should be a priority at times. So I did. Really would love to do a seminar on book cataloguing that our PA brought up. Sounds fascinating to me. Not sure if I want to though since I will be gone one week of that time frame. Got back in all the rest of my OBOB books that I had taken out of the Scholastic Book Fair, so those are now all on board!