Isn’t it Friday?

I really kept thinking it was Friday today. Even with Monday off! Started putting the rest of the books off the top display shelves onto the regular shelves. I just have one section left to do. Put away books today before Mr. H’s class came in today as well. I don’t want my aides out there while he is holding class, so I did a lot this morning by myself. I also had three carts worth of teacher materials in my office that I checked in today. More of the Schoolwide resources where I had to check in all the components and three class sets of Language Arts books. I only have one wall to finish putting away and then we’ll be about set to start searching for lost books. Had to run over to my mom’s to make sure UGM took most of the rest of her stuff. They did. Glad I was there to get them her stuff.

Sheepish

Ran upstairs and picked up carts today from Mr. A and Mr. F. It was interesting to pull and push two of those Chrome carts down the hall and into the elevator! Had a teacher that needed a cart, so I had him wait while I checked all the Chromebooks in it since hardly any were where they should be and students had brought me several over the last couple of weeks. We ended up with only 2 missing off that cart. Finished up my evaluation and got that sent to my supervisor. Then scheduled my appointment for that for Friday. Covered half of the paperbacks I had gotten in for my last order. Got in the Language Arts boxes from Mrs. B so I went through them. Made sure they either had their components or that I had changed the count to ‘0’ pieces. Each box has anywhere from 7 to 12 components, so I have to tally each piece before the program will let me check it in. We had some boxes that didn’t even have barcodes, so I had to create barcodes for them. There was one book, This is Just to Say... that had something spill on it and it was moldy. We can’t have that in the school so I had to destroy it. I let her know. Then she sent back all the Bud, Not Buddy books we had borrowed earlier this year. I had to send books back to 12 different schools. I took her list and checked off the ones she sent back to make sure that they would get checked in on the other end. Got in the Prentice Hall language books from a teacher. It was so funny! She had two aides bring the books down, they each carried some, so I asked if they’d like a cart, they said sure, so I gave them a cart and they left it in the library and still carried down the books! I asked them why they didn’t take the cart and they said they didn’t have an elevator key, so I mentioned, well, I have an elevator key.... they looked kind of sheepish and took the key and a cart up to get the rest of the books. At the end of the day we had someone set a fire in the trash can in the girls bathroom by the library. Smoke was getting everywhere. Someone bravely got the can outside. We didn’t have to evacuate the building, but students were not allowed in the halls. Fire department came and fire doors in the area were all shut to contain the smoke. Glad it was taken care of! Got all the non-fiction books put away today.

Mendel Kind of Day

I totally forgot my keys this morning. Luckily I caught my hubby before he’d gotten to far and he went home and got them for me! Thank goodness! I did go up to the office and get a master key so I could open my office since I had three teachers looking for Chrome carts! Got them all squared away and then the office called to say my keys had arrived (had to give hubby a head rub tonight!). Then the library got scheduled to hold a science class all day. When Mr. H walked into class he had a puddle in his room. Water from the classroom up above dripped down into his room through the ceiling! So his class got moved into the library and studied Mendel’s laws today. It was fun for me! I worked on my employee evaluation today. Luckily I have this great blog to remember all I did this year! Signed up for my evaluation for Friday. Also had to ask for an hour off for Thursday so I can get UGM to pick up some furniture from my mom’s place. Then I helped get the library set up for a meeting today with our school superintendent. I was so excited she’d be in here to see our amazing Leslie Library! She actually helped clean off tables! I did the tables first, then worked on the carpet. The vacumn worked a bit, then I just used packing tape to pick stuff up off the carpet! Old trick from when my mom would call and remind me to vacumn! I’d pick it up with tape! We had everything ready and I think Mr. M appreciated what I did. It was a crazy day, but very worthwhile! 

Last Day to Check Out

Yes, some of the students are not happy about that, but time to close that door for the year. Loving the way the library looks! Did some shelf filling in today and got things looking spiffy and sweet! Put great new books up on top of the shelves. Went in the back and organized the books I had put back there yesterday. Took all the books that had come in and put away in the back the books that were on those shelves. Put up new bulletin boards. One saying ‘Thank you Lions!’ For getting in lost books. Another with a poster then had my aides make book spines for the side, they got about half done. I also put up a travel display with maps and some books from different countries, kind of a ‘where and what will you do this summer?’ Kind of display. I did some more dusting, straightened up books on the non-fiction shelves. Looked around the library and thought, looking pretty good! Time for a three day weekend. 

Reset!

Over half done! You can see the cleaner carpet from 3 sections gone in the foreground. Then another one down at the end of the three I’m working on. Loading the books onto a cart while hopefully not getting them mixed up!

Putting the shelves into the Old Computer Lab. Tables and computers used to be along this wall.

All done for the day! Looking good!

The Old Computer Lab is getting a new life!

Had a great day getting the old shelves moved! I was so excited to take that leap and just do it! My aides were a great help. The shelving wasn’t too heavy after the books and take out shelves were gone, but just bulky. So my aides helped me get them tilted back onto the hand truck, then I wheeled it over and they helped me lower it so it wouldn’t just slam down. Then they loaded up the books onto it. It won’t stay that way, I’ll probably put the non-fiction all in there next year. I put the extra books in the back textbook room for now. Just have to make sure I keep them straight. Took me a period or so to get my idea and how to move stuff set, but once done, I experimented with one set, then I was ready to get all 7 sections done! Loving it!

New Book Rack

Had to pull that out today to make sure most of our new books got out since Friday is our last check out day. All the hardbacks I got in are all out there, and managed to get one paperback covered and out there too! Hopefully a few more will get out tomorrow. Mr. M also came down and we talked about moving some of the standing shelves out of the way and start working on the reset part for Ms. Perry’s speech on Tuesday. To start to get ready I had all my aides work on cleaning their shelves today. Taking off books and wiping down top shelves and the book shelves. I’ll start putting books on carts tomorrow. Lots of changes going on! Our meeting for Tuesday was cancelled and they decided to go ahead and hold it June 1st. A week from Friday. The one year anniversary of my mom’s passing. Been a hard month. I don’t remember all the heartache near as well as my body does. Good thing I have lots of work to keep me busy.

Lexiles

Dizzy, coughing, sneezing but still at work. Processing in my new books. I noticed that my new books did not have Lexile. I know we were supposed to maybe get those added, but these weren’t. So I checked the new books and found one with the Lexile, but the others didn’t have them. So I made up a list with the ISBN, the Lexile, title and author and sent that in. They got them done like 30 minutes later! Love it for when our students are looking for books in their Lexile! I’ll have to do the rest of the books I got in as well! Maybe even go back to some previous books from this year! Then I took our new country books and went over to that section - the 941’s plus and weeded out the old 1990’s books to put in the new 2015 and over books. I need to go and see what other books I need. A good day. Hopefully feeling better tomorrow!

More New Books!

What a great jackpot! I got in my two boxes on Friday and today got in three more from all the bits and pieces I’ve been sending in. Some had been over at LMSS since January! So happy to see them! Finished off stripping and putting in the date due slips on the first books and started to put in their Lexile numbers on the inside front cover. I so wish we could get our program to do that for us! Would be so much easier! Then I checked in the new books, had to go through about 3 inches of invoices to find all the ‘books to process’ papers I had written up! So I am in new book heaven! I did manage to get out just a bit into the hallway. It wasn’t too bad today. Then I came up with a thought to send to Mr. M tomorrow about moving the book shelves for the big meeting we will have when our superintendent Ms. Perry comes next Tuesday! We’ll see what he says. I’m thinking we could move two sets of the stand alone shelves over to give our main meeting room more space. But we’ll see what he says first. I’m up for it. It’ll take a lot of book shifting, but we can do it!

Friday - May 18th

Yes, we had a party to go to this night so I totally forgot to write since we were out pretty late. Got in my last Follett order for the year! I was so excited! Two boxes of brand new books! So I worked on putting in their strips and date due slips today. I also excused myself from hall duty. Still not feeling it, perhaps Monday! Loved just being surrounded and playing with new books! Even checked one out to a favorite student.

New Books!

 My last order came in today!! Huzzah! Student's will get a week to check some of them out which is the most exciting part! I worked on stripping them and putting in their date due slips. Even checked one out to one of my favorite students! Pay of the bond passing wad to do some renovations on the Leslie library. My principal said he thought we'd be able to do at least putting on the locking wheels, but maybe not much else. So I sent that information to my PA. Watched the best 18 for middle school webinar today and got some good titles. Some I already had on order, that always makes me feel good. A good day.

Weight of Knowledge

I decided to just not go out in the hallways today. I think it was a good thing! I feel much more relaxed and felt comfortable in my little library world. Started getting in books today since I had an aide deliver all those slips this morning. Was good to see. Had to answer questions for quite a few students. Sent in my Leslie Reset PowerPoint to my principal today. We’ll see what he says! The bond passed, so here’s hoping there might be enough money to do those few changes I’ve asked for. I made a few more different ways to space things out, took pictures, put them in the PowerPoint. I’m hoping I’ll at least get a ‘that could be possible’. I think my order may be coming in, I noticed today that most of the books on my order are on my catalogue!!! I’m so excited!! We only have a week left to check out, so maybe some will get out there. We also had a big discussion as LMA’s about a book, The Hate U Give. We’ve been told we can’t have it at middle school level and people were giving their thoughts. So I finally came up with a quote by Corrie Ten Boom from her book The Hiding Place. It’s the one where she asks her father a question. So he thinks a bit, then asks if she can carry his suitcase of parts for him. She tries, but replies that it’s too heavy. And he tells her that it’s the same way with knowledge. That it’s ok for her not to know right now, but one day when she is stronger and older she will be able to carry that knowledge. Same with books I think. Our students have so much out in the world, I don’t mind being a bit old fashioned about what I think they should have access to in our libraries.

Done Noticing

Started the day with writing three referrals. The pushing and shoving and disrespect are just pushing all my buttons. So I took 2 students up to the office before classes even started. I must admit that it is a very small percentage of our students, but they make their feelings shown to all. Then it was back to work on the overdue/ lost notices. Got them all done today so we can hand them out tomorrow.  Did two book talks, put away all the books that had accumulated while I was working on notices. A long day on the computer, but worth it!

489

How many students we have with lost/overdue books. Some of these when I looked them up today to see what class they were in were no longer students. I have no idea if they are still in the district or just not at Leslie, so I didn’t change any of their info on my Destiny program. I looked to see if they were still in Destiny and they were there, but not in my Synergy. So, I will leave that alone! So I got all the notices printed up, put them through to print up the extra notes I put on. Then had my aide cut them in half (I print two to a page) then had them sorted by other aides while I went through the stack that didn’t have a homeroom to put in their homeroom. That took a long time. Then I started to put in the period of the class in the ones that had the automatic homeroom and got one teacher all done before I left today! Should have them all done tomorrow and ready to hand out!

Magazines

A teacher had asked me for magazines a week or two ago, so I was cleaning out the last of my mom’s upstairs closet and came across her Lladro magazines. I brought them in to see if anyone wanted them and went through them making sure the nude statues were all gone! I brought them home and put them in the recycle bin! Quiet day. Had a class come in to get books, then I got ready for a book talk for her next class and we had a fire drill! So the class did come in, but book talks were cancelled!  I got all my books put away today, and for one of my aides who hasn’t been here. Sent off some books back home. Got in my damaged Antarctica book so will send that off tomorrow. Started to read Killer of Enemies by Joseph Bruchac. Wow, looks pretty good! Might have to pick that one off my shelf and give it a spin! Had teacher Data Teams in tonight, so got the cart set up for the WOU class that will be in after. Took home Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy to finish, I was so close!

Quiet Day

I managed to work the design program and even though this is not to a complete scale, it’s fairly close! Top is the current layout, bottom is what it could be! I had a lot of fun playing with things and finally decided I needed to just cut out my furniture out of pretty construction paper rather than try to find stuff to add in on the program! Was a quiet day in the library. Our custodian picked up all the chairs from the health classes so I could put that back room in some kind of order. Got in some Phantom Tollbooth books back from a school we had loaned them all too. I was so excited when our custodian came and said, ‘I brought you books!’ I was so hoping they were new ones, drats! We only have two weeks left to check out books and by the time our new ones get here we’ll probably be done. Drats again! I know our office has been swamped with the diversity grant books, but still! I want my new books! I even had a ‘quiet reading or homework only’ day in the library for our lunch students. Yesterday went way too crazy so I was thinking that I should take the day off for mental reasons. Then I thought, if I feel like that, I bet others do too! So, the quiet lunch day. I think it turned out fabulous!

Leslie Library Reset

Sent off more books to LMSS today. I think I’ll just keep sending them books until they send me my orders! I’m sad that our orders will probably not come in for students to check out. We only have two more weeks of checking out left to do. Would make my day tomorrow to have my order come in!! I can hope! Today I took measurements in the library to see about moving things. I worked on a PowerPoint, added in pictures, wrote down my goals. Then I tried to make a schematic of the library and the layout is way more complicated than I thought! Getting the angles, length of walls, how the library spreads - I had no idea that at the doors, the library is only 10 feet wide. At the end with my lovely windows it is 53 feet wide! I had to really think out how to make that angle happen! A fun exercise. Then I tried to draw it on a free draw your room program! Ha! That didn’t go too well! But I may think about it some more today. I loved that when you drew lines, it told you the measurement! Exactly what I needed! Had to write a referral today during lunch. A student was using what was to me and others, foul language, asked him to stop and he said it about 6 more times looking me straight in the eye. Flipped me off. I hate doing that. I might have ‘sanctuary reading day’ in the library for lunches today. I need it! And I figure if I need it, others may too! Must be spring in middle school! 

Red Flags

Health classes were in again today listening to a DVD on healthy and unhealthy relationships. Red flags to watch for from someone you are interested in. Manipulative, emotional abuse. I got to listen to it 6 times today! It was loud! I worked on my aides book reviews and got those all printed up and into the review binder today. Had a visit from our PA and we talked over some changes to the library and he was very excited about the old computer lab and how that makes a great maker space place. Moving the book shelves out of the way and putting them around where the tables used to sit in the lab, opening up the main part of the library. Lots to think about and see what can be done! Did some repairs. Worked on Chrome cart scheduling with a few teachers. Got in my new Chromebooks for students to use in the library. Did some laminating since another teacher needed some. Busy, noisy good day.

The Great Austino

One of my former aides likes to come in at lunch and has been working on doing coin magic! He’s working on the skills, and his presentation, but I love it when he comes in and says “are you ready?” And he’ll do the trick for me, and whoever else is in the cafeteria. I told him that I would get a share of his take one day because I came up with his stage name :D  I helped him find a book on magic that had coin tricks in it as well. Got my Scholastic books all stamped and off to LMSS for processing. Went over the shared ebook/e-audiobook titles that our PA put together for us. I made a suggestion, and was ready to move on! I’m glad it was his money! Did some laminating. Paper into the copier twice today. Lots of emails to trudge through. Helped a lot of students today. If I think of anything more, I might be back! Goodnight!

May the Seventh Doesn’t Go With Anything

But another awesome day in the Leslie Library!! I had 3 book talks today. One with 8th graders and two with 6th graders. Talked about how we have 342 books lost with a cost of about $4K. Showed them a lost book that was checked out at the end of January (Wolf by Wolf), and just turned in last Friday. Then talked about another book I had two copies of, one went lost and now I only have one (Pax). So hopefully that might get more books in. I also talked about our last day to check out books. Redesigned my cart check out sheets since I have two more carts to oversee and didn’t like how the originals were. I messed around with about 4 different fixes and none of them were cooperating. Then I thought, hey, if I just move the top text block to the bottom, voila! It worked perfectly! Had to get some speakers for the DVD for the health classes. It was really quiet with the sound even though we had all the volumes up. Speakers worked to heighten that! Loved helping students after book talks. I used to just go to my office and hide, now I mingle, suggest, help find that one book, you know, the one I talked about back a time or so ago? Had something to do with a girl? Got in my latest Scholastic order, all non-fiction and a lot of countries to get updated. One book was damaged and I requested a new copy. They were not packed very well and I don’t want to pay for a book that was damaged before I got it. They replaced one for me, so hopefully they will do this as well. May all folks find a job they love as much as I do!

May the Fourth be with you!

A great day as we stood in the halls today wishing all the students “May the Fourth be with you!” Most of them smiled as they walked by. Worked on how to do our meetings for next year with the other LMA’s and also maybe doing some meetings once a month! I fielded all the comments and sent them to our PA. We’ll see what we can do! Some great comments came from students. My favorite was “and tomorrow is Return of the Fifth!” Got my Lightning Thief books all settled I think! Got my new diversity books all stripped and out on the rack (5 of them! WooHoo!) Helped a lot of students today with picking out books. Shelved books again today. Worked with the Chrome Carts. I have two in my office right now and heard their little clicks from them switching recharging back and forth was a little annoying! Did not have any of the health students in today, so some part of the day was quieter than it has been all week! Had a teacher come in and take all my discard books to put in a box so one of our DLC students can sweep a box of books off the shelf rather than doing it to a shelf full of books! Added up all the lost books today, 342 worth around $4K. I put that in an announcement for Monday. Hopefully we’ll see more come back. I am ready for the weekend! See ya Monday!

Sable Soldiers

Today I looked at some of our just in diversity books. One was on the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. All the thought, planning, and work that went into making a museum of world note. In that book they mentioned the Sable Soldiers. I don’t think I have ever heard that before. I like it. It is on display on our non-fiction side of the rolling rack.  Today never seemed to stop. A whirlwind of students, books, helping, putting away a whole side of a cart of non-fiction books and for a student who is on a family vacation. Talking with students, getting the Lightning Thief books settled into hopefully the right hands. Had some mix ups today. It seemed the program had them right, but when I checked them out, no, it didn’t. So confusing! Talked with Mr. M about the superintendent coming to use the library. We talked about how many people would be coming and I mentioned that maybe we didn’t need tables? Maybe just chairs? He liked that idea and was going to check on that. I also had to reunite a Chrome book with its cart. Take on two more Chrome carts that are now locked up in my office. I was so busy I almost didn’t get to the box I picked up yesterday at our meeting to see those new books! Always glad to get new books, and hoping my new order arrives soon! So at least the students get to check some out before we stop check outs for the year. Watched the new books webinar and had one book on my order and added another. They look good and hopefully will get ordered this summer so we come back from summer with new books! Did a little bit of book repair. Some page tipping. Gluing a book from another school into its spine. I just didn’t have the heart to send it back looking so bad. Sent off some Hate that Cat and Love that Dog books to another school. Found a cord for a teacher. Checked out 40 science books this morning and had an aide take them down right away. The teacher was very appreciative. Also had an aide take up math books to Mr. G for his six classes. It was a long crazy day.

Bharatanatyam

Today we actually got to have an LMA meeting. It really felt good. But, off to the regular day! Came in to do some Chrome Cart management at first. Then got ready for book talks. Since our cart was out from the night before I looked up Bharatanatyam dance so I could show the students what that looked like and then book talked A Time to Dance. I loved it. Them, not so much. No one checked out any of the books I book talked, two periods and 60 students! Ugh! I always feel I let them down when no one picks one up at least. Then at my lunch, I totally spaced it that I had told Ms. K that she could send down students to pick up copies of The Lightning Thief! When students came in me and Ms. V chased them out!! I felt so bad when I finally heard one of them say ‘Ms. K.....’ I was so sorry I told them. Had totally spaced it out!! Oh well! Had both lunches in. Got four new books ready for the shelves from our diversity grant. Little by little these back ordered books are trickling in. When I went to LMSS I got another box of 4 more of them. Books are books! I brought in my basketball stars books and they got put back on my shelf in the back - made me cry a little. Health classes in all day again. At least there wasn’t a video for today! A very long day, time to head for bed. Goodnight!

How do you Compete?

Today was another day with our health unit and a video on the body changes that are happening or beginning to happen to our age range of students. It was a really good video, presented the facts well. The only problem was I had three classes in for book talks and how do you compete against that subject?!?! The book talk students were great and I cut my talks really short since they had come in later in the periods, but still! Tough competition there! Got in my last new cookbook and my new sports books on some great NBA players. What we had was so old! Good to get in some great current books! Started checking out copies of The Lightning Thief today for Mrs. K’s two classes. It worked out pretty good! Sent off a bunch of requested books. Also a box of The Outsiders for another class. I had put away my ‘Nevertheless, she persisted’ books. Our poor shelving cart was really overloaded, most of it my books to put away! Got in my new JLG order. Did some straightening up since the library was scheduled to be a part of AVID parent night tonight and 5th grade intro to middle school night. I was just hoping that our LEAP program left the library nice. Did some laminating tonight as well. Good night!