Happy Thanksgiving

Loved this mural in the library at McNary, had to take a picture! More Google training today.

• Forms
• Sheets
• Gmail
• Calendar
• Hangouts
• Meet
• Sites
• YouTube

When I went back to the library I checked in books and worked the book fair, put away books and closed things up for the long Thanksgiving Day weekend.

Googl-fried

Spent the day at my Google Educator training. We trained on lots of Google related apps. I got together my list! 

• Slides
• Photos
• Docs
• Classroom
• Drive
• Groups
• Chrome
• Keep

When I went back to the school I played around with them a little before I had to leave for the night. Glad that’s over with!

Friday Before Thanksgiving

Six classes came in and visited the book fair. It was a busy day. Taking care of students, either checking in or out books, or selling at the book fair. I took the centerpiece cranes and strung them up like the others.  I did some book repair. Tried to make a new craft for the MakerSpace, a string tree with beads for a card. I don’t like how it turned out. Not happy. I’ll try something else I think! I had to take a Chromebook home for my class on Monday. Only two days next week, then Thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for!

Sign Sadness

Got in my car this morning at 33 degrees and thought how wonderful it was I didn’t have to put up Scholastic signs this morning. Then I saw my big sign hanging on the fence. Draped over it. I thought someone had cut the zip ties I had on it, and got some new ones from the custodian since I only had two left from yesterday putting it out. When I trekked out there, I saw that it had been pulled off the fence. Grommets and all. The top and bottom of the sign looked shredded where the grommets had been. The grommets were still zip tied to the fence. It was an old sign, but still would have worked for the rest of the year. There’s no way I could fix that, so I took it to the trash compactor and threw it in. Made me very sad 😞 .  But the fair went on! I had to take most of the morning to set it up since I didn’t get a chance last night and still had students coming in to buy stuff. I love that I set up the money box with change and have all my money I put into the change all back by the end of the first day. Just barely, but close enough! Had lunches in, ten students for five minute spots. Worked out a set of students coming in with the lunch crew. Got some email addresses from parent volunteers who would like to help with the fair, so I emailed them about the schedule when I would like them in if they could now, or possibly in the future. So that was a good end to the day.

Spirit of Unity

I worked hard today to get the library all set up for the reception today for the Spirit of Unity awards. We had five schools honored and one teacher and heard from Professor K (I will get his whole name from work!). It was inspiring. I had the library closed all day and they all came in after the ceremony and loved it. I was a bit sad at first because I thought they were coming in before, and no one showed up. Sad face. But after, Happy Face! Coffee and snacks were all out and ready for everyone! After I made the tissue paper nests for the cranes, the little signs and beads on a string, I was ready to start getting ready for the Scholastic Book Fair. I opened the boxes and put the books on a cart since I didn’t want the carts out during the reception. I used the empty boxes to build my display in my office for all the little stuff. Before I left I put out my signs, the two on metal stands, the new plastic eWallet one (couldn’t get the second one in the ground) and the big sign I put up on the chain link fence for cars driving by. Should be cold in the morning so I was happy to get them out!

Looking Spiffy

Today we worked on cleaning up the library and getting it ready for all the guests who will be coming tomorrow. I had the aides dusting all the shelves. I did a couple of sections. Put out books that I thought would be appropriate. Put away books. Washed tables. Had both lunches in. Did some repairs. I think things look good! Ready for tomorrow!

Jumbled

I think it is a jumbled day and as I look back at what I did? I’m not too sure!! A student wanted a book that I needed to glue and I forgot to do it Friday, so that was the first thing I did. The Scholastic Book Fair arrived today, and I actually didn’t need to go out and meet the truck, the custodian did and they brought down all the cases. I found room for them in the back rooms. With the Spirit of Unity awards, I wanted it out of the way, so it wouldn’t eclipse the awards. They are too important. Put out a new puzzle today, and two of the pieces needed a bit of help, so I colored oned and glued two back together. Most pieces of cardboard, are in layers, and it looked like one had gotten wet, so I peeled the layers apart, glued each layer and then set them under books to dry for the night. Sent out a book, wanted to do another one, but it really needed some glue for the spine back, so I glued that and will send it tomorrow. We had a special AVID day. I had my aides, and our other library person, and two aides from the office and we went through the long presentation to see where the students are at in regard to thinking about graduation and how their habits at school can lead to success in life. They had worksheets to do and a step path to color in to see if they were on their way or needed help. So we were on an assembly schedule today, and it was different to have short classes. Put away books. Talked to all my aides today that I wanted the library to be totally excellent and no one would notice anything out of place since the library will be the reception place for the award ceremony on Wednesday. I also reminded them that book reviews were due on Friday. Had both lunches in but no  MakerSpace stuff until after the book fair is over. Sent an email to the office to get the book fair on the Leslie website. So, I guess I did more than I thought! A crazy Monday!

Cranes

This morning I reminded Ms. H that she had asked if she could hang the crane art they had done. I let her know that the Spirit of Unity awards were next Wednesday and since they were having a reception in the library, it would be awesome if the cranes were here. She asked if she could bring her classes in and since we were open I said ‘Yes!!’ And she was in for the first four periods of the day hanging them with both the ladders we have. I helped a little, but did more math stuff, had four books that really needed to be edited so they’d be shelved in the 921’s rather than the crazy places they were, so I did that. Had Quiet Read day in for lunches since she had gotten done. We also had students come down for their ‘treasure’ from going through the ‘Escape Room’ in Ms. S’s classes today. So I had about three groups come down each period to get their bounty from the bag that Ms. S had left in the library this morning. Gave away a bunch of containers that the math stuff was no longer in. All in all, a perfect day in the library. Loved having the cranes go up (and they flutter around a bit when the HVAC circulates! So awesome!) and having students in almost all day. Great day!

A Little Bit of Everything

Today went by in kind of a blur. I had a request for old Prentice Hall Lit books from our principal who needed to teach a class today. Even though I’d withdrawn them, I still had 21 left, so she said that was great and I had an aide take them up to her for 2nd period. Cleaned up more of the math manipulatives and finally went on the Google spreadsheet for extra math stuff. I also sent out an email to the math teachers and our principal that I was putting those things out there. I decided that since we had 33 sets of the Shapes (those 206 piece packets) that I was done with those, so I took the rest and put them in the bins we had and put them away. There were about 12 of them, unsorted. I think if we ever get rid of the 33, I might consider putting more sets together! I got all of the stuff cleaned out. More math stuff tabulated and entered, even the Tangrams that we had. I had also found a ton of science stuff and took those to the science folks and they were so happy to have them! Put away a lot of my books today as well. Off to work the radio show!

More Manipulating

Got all the blocks done today but we have a ton of these plastic geometric shapes. Some have never been unwrapped. But many have. There are two of each of the seven different circles (orange). Four each of the A and B shapes (in blue, red, green and yellow) and two each of the C - V shapes in all those colors for a packet total of 206 pieces. Separating all the colors and the different shapes hit my old assembly line life memories, but what a chore! The opened sets were all in plastic tubs all mixed up, and to put a full set together was quite the task. I’ll go until I can’t anymore, then just have a mixed bin, but I don’t want someone to get a packet and have missing pieces. That’s just how I roll. Had four classes in today to do a project for their Language Arts classes and then they checked in/out books if they needed to. My principal walked in as I was taking my break, eating and on my phone! Of course she’d come in then! Ha! Didn’t have lunch students in today because of the classes in. 

Math Manipulatives

I just had to put in a picture of the art city scapes with the books. They are so amazing! Originally I suggested they put some on the windows, but that looked tacky, so I had one of my aides move them all down so now they line the shelf under the window all the way across. So perfect! I had my aide go out to the car with me and get all the wood pieces out of my car and we brought them in. I decided to ask for some sandpaper and hemp cord and hook earrings. We were asked to see what math manipulatives we still had and I had boxes and boxes of them. I pulled them off the top shelf in the copier room, plus the three boxes under the counter in there. Later I had my aides pull everything out of the closet in the old computer lab. Then we started to separate them and get all the different kinds in their groups. Some people do not know how to separate. Makes me sad. I started to take the cubes and find out how they originally went together. They had six colors, 17 of four of the colors and 16 of the two others to make 100 pieces. I had to take the tubs and pour them out and put together these packages of 100 each. I got about six bags all together. MakerSpace lunches today. I made some origami jewelry for a display. The students love the hemp cord. I had picked up this weekend.  Then it was time to score volleyball! Love my job!

Inventory Blues

We really hit the inventory today. We ended up at around 67% to be done. Loving that! I must admit my aides did a fabulous job on that. Did Quiet Reading day in the library during lunches. I had one of my aides help me get wood out of the Industrial Tech room since our principal said I could take them home and get them cut up for projects. I spent time working on my MakerSpace cart since it was a mess! Had our art teacher bring in some city scapes her students did and we put them under the windows with books in front, it looks so good! More than ready for a three day weekend! Huzzah!

Just Because Gift

Got my new books all ready today! Covered the paperbacks, put in tattle strips. I had a student that wanted the new Hikaru No Go books and I had a new DreamJumper book too, so it was great to see him get excited today and check those out! More MakerSpace stuff today and I put out the Stawbees and made a dog so show them how to use it and some of the students did that today. It’s going a lot smoother without the paints out! I’ve also started to put out the Raspberry Pi carts and some students are enjoying that. We had a fire drill today and since I didn’t have any students that period, I took a book out with me to read during the drill. It was nice! Put in a heat ticket for a Chromebook that had frozen up and a tech came out at the end of the day and got it running. Gave another Chromebook to a substitute teacher. Then had leadership students come in and get eight Chromebooks for their class to use. Definitely a Chromebook day. At the very end of the day, a girl comes in with the heart string art she made and asked for super glue. Mine was all dried up so we settled on a glue stick. She told me it was a present for her mom, no she wasn’t going to paint it, they liked rustic stuff. I asked if it was for Christmas or just because and she smiled and said ‘just because I love her.’ Awww, melted my heart clear away. That made all the MakerSpace worth it.

Wednesday, Nov. 6th

Totally forgot about this last night. Had students in for MakerSpace and there was A LOT of pounding hammers going on. Got in my new books and played with them a little bit. Decided on my water loving aides to have them work on the 2,800+ math books we need to inventory. Bwa,ha,ha. I talked to them about it, then put them to work! If I think of more I did, I might just put it in here! 

Fog Curled Like a Cat

Loved watching the fog outside the windows today, all nestled and curled around the trees outside. It was truly lovely. Spent most of the day working on the math inventory. Had students in for lunch and MakerSpace activities with 4 hammers! I put in an order for those ones I found yesterday, so I’ll be glad to get those hammers back to their homes. Almost at 50% for the math inventory and even found one more math title to get rid of! Best news? My Follett order is on its way to the school! Now that’s a delivery I’m anxiously awaiting! My aides were playing with water and cups. They had filled the cups, put a plastic ‘lid’ on them, turned them over and the lid would stay on by itself. Very nice. Very creative. They left the mugs on the counter, but didn’t clean up the water like I wanted them to. So I went in the next period and decided to clean up, there was water around them, ‘ah, kids!!’ Then I picked up a mug, that was upside down and filled with water. It went everywhere! I swept it with my sleeve into the sink, then pulled out a ton of paper towels and had to pull up two more mugs, yes, all filled with water. It did get under our microwave and on the floor. I did get most into the sink though. Glad the sink was right there. They obviously had too much time on their hands. I must think of something to keep them busy - insert evil emoji here. Had a teacher come in and get 30 books for her class at the end of the day. Scored the volleyball game after school. We lost, but hey, it was the first game of their term. I’ll be scoring on Tuesdays, four more to go! 

ISBN’s

I finished up the last of the teacher resources I had pulled Friday and got those titles all taken care of. I got an email from our textbook guru asking me to get all the ISBN’s from all the titles that I had deleted that had no more copies anywhere in the district. So I spent some time getting all those together on a spreadsheet for her to easily pull those numbers. Worked some more on my puzzle piece and didn’t like how it was turning out. I have a different idea, that will be easier to do. I have 14 students working on string art projects and only one hammer! They are using pliers and other things to pound in nails! I asked for hammers today and then a teacher said to check out a site, and I could get some small 8 oz. ball peen hammers for only $2.99! What a great deal! I was glad to not have to clean painting today. I put all that in the back. I also had the 3D pen and glue guns in my office and when a student took it, I explained exactly how I needed them put away at the end of the lunch. I bought a new puzzle from Salem Public Library, and I had five boys (!) all putting together a puppy puzzle during A lunch was so cute! Most students today, were in the MakerSpace area. They were having such a good time! 

Puzzling Piece

This morning I worked on making a new puzzle piece to replace the one that went missing. It made me angry that it was a brand new puzzle and boys were throwing pieces down each other’s backs, and around. So, I took a copy of a pic of the puzzle, and cropped it then got it to the right size, printed it out. Then because I had to enlarge the original picture, the colors had faded a bit, so I got out the colored pencils and etched in colors closer to the missing piece. I thought it turned out rather well! I glued three pieces of old folders together to hopefully get about the right thickness and let everything set for over the weekend. Maybe I can be a lost puzzle piece guru! After that I hit the math books. So many old things laying around and I went in clearing off the top shelves of the math area and deleting old books and resources. I started to compile a list for our textbook person to clear off the titles that no longer had copies. I ended the day with deleting all the Oregon Focus math books we had. I emailed all the math teachers and asked them to come and grab what they wanted if they wanted any. I was putting books everywhere, deleting books everywhere, or as I told our textbook guru, I was getting down and dirty, literally. Garten came and picked up my pallet, so I’m glad the first 31 boxes of this year are gone. I have two more boxes started and getting ready for the next set. Glad they could get it while the weather held! I’m tired, but I think I have most of the old math stuff done and out of there. On to the books we do have for the inventory side!