Lost Monday

Talked to our teacher today about her unit on mythology. She has her class start with The Lightning Thief. We have one class set, and I’ve gathered in books from the district for another set, but some haven’t come yet. So I sent her a list of all her students I do have copies for and emailed the others that I’d really like to get those in! That took a bit of time today! Then I worked on a new display, or rather a “Can’t find that book you want?” display where I put up lists on how many copies I’ve bought of some books and how many are lost. I put the info for Diary of a Wimpy Kid books in for announcements today and they totally did not do those stats. I’ve bought 66 of those books and 46 are lost. Just said that lost books were due. Really??? I’m sure there were all sorts of reasons they didn’t, but still made me angry. I don’t think the students realize the impact it has on others when they don’t turn in books. :(   Had PE classes in today using the old computer lab for a health unit on body changes. Mr. S did a great job I thought. Book talks tomorrow!

Half Day

Finished up my year long pathway on helping traumatized children learn. It was really good. I think the whole district needs to study this. Part of our yearly mandatory training. Such a great growth learning lesson for students and teachers and everyone who’s walked this earth. See you Monday!

Ground Hog Villian

Today was Super Hero vs. Villian day at school. Also last day of the 6 week grading period. Also the AVID team was in all morning from the district. I could not find my batgirl shirt, and didn’t think much of it because otherwise we were to wear our AVID shirts. I had worn mine yesterday and thought, huh, I’ll just wear exactly what I wore yesterday and be Ground Hog Day Woman! A lot of the students had no idea what it meant so I explained. I took Piton, even though he is a pika to be my ground hog and pinned him to my scarf. Two the of the teachers said I was a villian because they certainly never wanted to do Wednesday over again. Made me smile. Put books away. Worked on an order through Scholastic. Found a great new book to get in and expanded our very ancient world countries collection. Did some more repairs. Got the document camera and DVD player all set up for Monday. Traded in and out Chrome carts and laptops. A good day. As always!

Sandals Again

It’s been hot here! My goodness! Up in the 80’s! Yesterday I wore sandals, and today a different pair. It’s been that hot! Grilling! Eating on the deck! It’s been great! No grilling at school today. Had a call from our office that a couple of links I had sent for our MakerSpace kits only led to a cart that didn’t have anything in it! So they were resistors and I looked them up again along with another item and resent those in. I have to hand it to our office! All these parts from 11 different middle schools! Glad I am not ordering them! The ladies there are amazing and I love them for all they do for us! Talked to teachers about students today. Some coming in, out, letting teachers know what I observed on some of them. Got my repair pile down, books ordered. Cleaned up some books. Put away books. Put together a cart for our teachers for the next two weeks. I had brought in some contact mat stuff to hold the DVD player and doc camera on the cart and found two little ornaments that my mom had given me that had been missing!!! I was so happy! They were wrapped in that, nice and safe! Glad I was careful unrolling it! Had both lunches in, and wanted to work with my OBOB students, but only one was in and more interested in being with his friends than doing OBOB. So I still wonder if it will happen! A pretty normal day, a great time in the Leslie library.

Extract

Today I only worked a part day because my son had to have 2 teeth pulled. So, I went in and got the library running. Put away books and got things ready for my sub. I had to email and a teacher that needed to come in and get books and let her know that the sub would be in here. Had to let lunch people know as well that we would have a sub, print up the passes and that a class would be in before A lunch could come in. Had a phone conference call scheduled and rescheduled that for Thursday. Then I left. Came back to find all was well. Had to clean up emails when I got back. Worked on some repairs. Did some laminating. Sent out another books, got some back. An easy day for me! Played with the OBOB Jeopardy game that one of the other LMA’s put together. It was fun! I only scored 3,800 points! Good thing I’m not on the team!

Slacker

My goodness! I didn’t post last Wednesday or last Friday! How did that happen?? Just too busy I guess, or too tired! But since I am a grownup, I will let them go! Today was an easy day. Sent out 5 books to other schools, did some repairs. Made some decisions on what to keep and what to toss in the repair pile. Like Fablehaven. I had a book with some problems, so I looked in the catalogue to see that I had 10 copies! And 5 of them were PermaBound! That one got discarded and I put out two of the PermaBounds on the shelf. They had been safe in the back room! Nearly pristine! I did that with a few others as well. Decided to add some books that are in bad shape to my new PermaBound order, nice to know I’ll never have to repair them again! Had two classes come in today to get new math books. Had a book come back on Shaquille O’Neal and it was just about toasted. So I tried to find basketball player books and finally ended up on Amazon! They had some! Some of the books still for sale were so old! 2003! 2009! And he played until I think it said 2011! Hall of Fame in 2017! So I will look into those more.

Bathroom Girls

Seems I have been finding groups of girls in the bathroom lately, doing other things than what a bathroom is for. Today I was asked to go in and check on some girls by our male counselor and some of the male people who were concerned about one of our new students. One was in the last stall peeking her head over when I walked in. I told them that there were people outside who were waiting on them to come out and one girl said she had a bathroom pass. I asked for names, and they gave me three of them, but there were four sets of feet in four stalls. So I told them I counted four. When I came out, the men said they had all been in there about 15 minutes and when one of the other teachers came in (in response to the call) there were only two sets of feet, and no had left. Interesting!  That was just part of the day. Went up at the end of first period to get the Chrome cart for Ms. K and Mr. F had forgotten to put in the Chromebooks again! So he recruited some boys and we grabbed the Chromebooks from the desks and I got the cart down in the library for Ms. K. Then I took it back up when 2nd period was over. Had a presentation to do for Mr. H on looking up books on the search engine using lexile and interests. That was fun and the students really seemed to enjoy it and come away with books they were interested in. I set up the DVD and document camera today for the health class to use and found the remote for the DVD player. Let them know that all was ready. Helped more students today find their biographies and worked on an order in Titlewave to maybe get purchased over the summer so we’ll come back to new books! Got in 19 of the 30 or so Lightning Thief books I sent out a call for. Great response! Love my job!

Home Too Late

So I’ll post once I remember what happened on Wednesday!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yes, today is really my birthday and it was a good one. I had new books to process in and get on the shelves. A talk with my PA and I got new maker sets and Chromebooks that I was not expecting at all! That was another great birthday present for the library! Kept up the cart for the research kids working on their projects. Had a class in to pick up their non-fiction books and I got most of the ones they didn’t want put away this afternoon. Redid some barcodes that weren’t quite right for where I needed the books - example: Jedi Academy is under 741.5 Brown and 741.59 Brown then the new guy that took over is F K...something. So I made them all 741.59 JA (for Jedi Academy) and then the author name. Turned out really well. I’m happy with it. Got all the new books out and put away today. Had students in for both lunches. Time for dinner and cake!

Researching Viewpoints

Today I walked Ms. K’s class through all of our databases so they could begin a research project. It was a lot of fun. I researched Jazz Music since it is Jazz Music Appreciation Month. A really nice fit to show them where to look. I did two book talks for Ms. K as well, then we had her Lightning Thief second class (ha, that was kind of funny, lightning thief second class!) No, we have a class set for one class, but needed to bring in other books from other schools for this class so I had them all come in and signed them up through Destiny for holds on that book from other schools. I’m hoping it works well. We had the library shut down for lunches today because a special speaker was supposed to come and they didn’t. But our students still met with our counselor and he talked about the summit for them coming up. It was a great busy day and I got in one of my book orders!!! From PermaBound! I was so excited! I got a couple ready for my last book talk of the day and one of them got checked out. Tomorrow I’ll get the rest ready to go out on the shelves. A lot of them are replacement copies for very worn and ancient books. Like Lightning Thief, Sea of Monsters and Titan’s Curse. A couple of Unfortunate Events books as well. Some graphic novels and I was so excited to get in March book 1 by John (I think!!) Lewis. I had book 2 & 3 but #1 was always on back order, so very excited to finally get that one in! Happy day tomorrow! I also forgot my work keys this morning, so luckily my hubby was still home and brought them by <3. That was sweet.

So Tired

I think I only got an hour of sleep last night. I even went downstairs and finished off a quilt square. Ugh. I fortified myself with a Pepsi and some mint M&M’s to go along with my lunch! Five classes in today and I gave a little speech on biographies vs. autobiographies. Then they went for it. My 921’s are a good third gone! It was great to see them look through and pick out the books they wanted and the people they wanted. Though one gal took a book on Joan of Arc just because it was the smallest - Ha! I dragged chairs over this morning so the classes could sit in that area of the old computer lab. Had to move a table over so that one of our counselors could work with a group of students on their interviewing skills. They were selected to interview for a great program with Willamette University, a great honor to even just get an interview and they spent time today talking with them about how to present yourself, enter and shake hands, what are some possible things to say, making yourself memorable. It was a good lesson. Garten came and picked up my discard/surplus books I’ve been gathering from last fall. The miniature pallets did not work! But luckily we had a very nice driver that waited while I called the custodian, who found a big pallet, then waited while we took boxes off the little ones and reloaded the big one (a big thanks to Mr. S who came by and saw us and started a ‘box brigade’ that did the job really quickly!) then the custodian had to take the pole out of the doors to outside so the driver could get that big pallet out to his truck. I am so glad those are all gone! Time for the weekend! 

Mediterranean Cruise

That’s how I thought I’d word an announcement tomorrow for all the lost book slips going out I started with 357 students, but some students are gone so we’ll never see those again. So if all the books were brought back, the district would be so happy that I’d get a cruise! Or something like that! Got those all done today and ready to go out to students tomorrow. I was interrupted by little things all day! A student needing to know about a book. Another needed to look over the books from Monday and make her choices. Chrome carts coming and going and signing up here and there. I’m amazed I got anything done! Laminated tonight, got the AV cart out for the class tonight. Finagled things around for a very busy 2nd period tomorrow. I’m glad it was time to go home! Now stuff to do there too! A very productive day!

The Breeze

That’s the name of my hubby’s radio show he does every Wednesday morning from 9 - 11am and when I can, I try to listen! Like today, I ran off all the overdue/lost notices for both library books and textbooks. I had my aides sort them and give me all the ones that had no homeroom on them so I could look them up, so that’s what I did while listening to him. Listening to contemporary jazz while slogging through a stack of papers and combing through our Destiny program and Synergy was not a bad call! Took my miniature pallets (I keep thinking they are like miniature horses, but pallets instead) put them down and loaded them up for Garten to come. I contacted them and they called back right away. Making sure they were books. Then a driver called and he will pick them up on Friday morning. Got all the notices done, now I’m going through them again to check which period they are in so the teacher won’t have such a pile to go through. And some students had actually changed teachers, so good to catch that. I am disappointed that more students are not around for Battle of the Books. I only have two since one was taken out of school yesterday. One is super upset and I could tell very disappointed when I was talking to her today. She still wants to try and make it work with just two. Packed up 15 Red Kayak books to send off. Got some Chrome carts checked out. I was going to get all my empty boxes sorted through since I had all my boxes for Garten out of the back rooms, but didn’t make it. Maybe tomorrow!

Seaman

That was the name of Captain Lewis’ dog on the Lewis and Clark Expedition and another LMA requested our copies and I was happy to send them off where someone wanted them! It’s a good book! I sent off 24 copies. I sent off some onther books to other schools and we got some back. Our PA called and we talked religious books. He said my collection was already up to 2002. At least it’s more current than some other pieces! So I did a bit more searching and adding in a few more titles. I had two booktalks today and did the books I had put away over a week ago! It was fun. Only had one checked out, but that’s all right! Had both lunches in. A good day. 

Rotate Boxes

We had Mrs. M's class in today picking out reading books. So Mrs. M and I had worked on a list of books and then I added in some more so her students would have more to choose from. I got a box in of the 2018 ALA Award winning books that I didn't already have. So I prepped and got 13 books ready to go out on the shelves. Up in the office they asked for a display of books, so I sent up a stack of books and textbooks to go in our display window when you first enter the school. Did a stack of math books to grid out and get in order. Then I took the 8th grade sheets and started to go through them looking for books that got turned in, but didn't get entered properly. I found two! out of 15 pages! But better to find them now than later. I hate it when a student gets charged for a book that they really did turn in. 

Math Grid

Today I worked on putting our math books in order. It's easier to look for lost books. My aides helped me get two sets done today, a great start. Got my new books stripped and made a label to designate they were from the LMSS Diversity Grant just above the date due label. Got them all put out on the non-fiction rack we have. Started to look through our 8th grade lost books list to make sure they weren't actually on the shelf somewhere. A good day.

Nevertheless

Love my new display! I had my aides help cut out the ‘boulders’ for the hill and then another to cut out the women climbing up. I love it! Helped students today. Helped a teacher find biographies and some other non-fiction texts that she’ll use for reading groups. Talked to another teacher about a class read and what we might be able to find for that. Put away books. Helped a student aide get his books put away. I’m mentoring him. He tends to just do nothing. And I go and help him find where things go. Sent out emails to all our 8th graders with what books they have overdue and what they owe. Sad fact that when they leave, all fines are forgiven. Everyone, no matter how much. Hopefully all of us in the Middle Schools will be able to get some back. One of us is emailing them every day!! Ha! I might do the same! Helped some teachers with Chromebook carts this morning and went over how that should work. I have four of them out right now and only one in the old computer lab. Had a teacher ask me to go over the online resources for her class in the future for a project they need to do. Thought I’d get my new books out, but no! Too many other things cropped up today. I was looking for new bibles and came across a Minecraft NIV bible! Ha! Then got into a discussion with our PA on religious books, what is acceptable (resource, nothing proselytizing) and what to look for. Sent boys out of the library during lunches today. I just shake my head. Why? Why do they just act like stinkers? Lie? Snicker at my attempts to talk or just ignore me. Why? All in all, another good day and lots to do and keep my mind active! Love my job!

Not Coming

Today I got some great books for my booktalks and then an aide came and said that they were testing and not coming. I had such good books too!! No one is coming for another couple of weeks so I pulled the sticky notes out of them and maybe next time. Another teacher had her students that were done testing come to the library so I asked our IC about that. I thought this was the test that students had to stay in class for, whether they were done or not. Because if you were done and got sent to the library, then many would hurry up to finish so they could be away too. Found the jumper cables I needed on Amazon for our Maker Space electronics. I will have to order them on my own I think. They don’t cost too much, $5.99 for two bundles of the sizes I need. Put away all my books today. Found a book that had a wrong call number and our LMSS senior secretary said that yes, I was right and she had changed the MARC record so I could print up a new label with the correct call number. Got in a box of the diversity books that LMSS ordered and got them checked in. They’ll start going out tomorrow. Finished up my ‘Help! I need somebody!’ display but forgot to take a picture. Got more books for my women’s month display. Left at 3pm for a dentist appointment. Goodnight!

Counting Parts

Finished up listening to two more books on DAB (Digital Audio Book) today, so I only have one more to go. Lawn Boy had some issues, but it did play. As much as I loved reading Fairest, I think if I had to listen to one more song sung, I’d have tossed it in the trash! The singing was fine, the voices were fine, but the tunes were, ah, a lot of them, and ah, a bit dreaded whenever I was in my office and had to actually listen to one. I am very glad that I won’t have to listen again. Packed up the books I got from the Scholastic Book Fair, stamped them all, wrote them all up for the count, sent them in. Sent off three other requested books. Did some laminating. Thought it was time to get out the maker kits we got in the special workshop last year and see what I had and what I needed to have Maker Mondays. Yes, I am missing some things. Drats. Will have to try and find some jumper cables (no! Not the car kind!). I only had 5 of the 10cm M/M and none of the 20cm M/M. I was all set to put in an announcement tomorrow, but that won’t happen now until I find out where I can get some. Radio Shack, Amazon, some company in China. I’ll have to research. Worked on my women’s month book display and need to get in my signs for my “Help” display. Scholastic came in today and picked up all the carts and I was glad to see them go. A student was in and when I asked him if he wanted to help push the carts out he said sure. He got two of the six all the way down the hall, the Gold Hall and out to the truck. I really appreciated it!

Only Two

We were back today from break and I need a break to recover from my break! I had three classes in today for book talks and two of them agreed with me! It was tough to come in and get everything all up and running again after being shut down for over a week, but of course, I managed! Had three book talks today, finished up the financials for the Scholastic Book Fair. We’ve had worse, but I was still a bit disappointed at our only $1,700. I was of course, hoping for more. Got the money all counted and up to the bookkeeper. Printed off all the forms so she could send in that payment. Made an announcement that today was the last day for the online fair. Had my aides take down all the posters. Trolled through all the emails from the last week and a half. Signed up for a seminar on new books. Went through all the books I had repaired during conferences and got all but two out before the end of the day. Good to be back! Looked at the calendar and saw that we only have two days off until the end of school. We might make it!