All Hallow's Eve

It wasn’t too bad for being the day of Hallow’d Even! We’ll see how tomorrow goes! My aide did a fabulous job putting up the tissue paper for my display and got it all done today. I think she did a great job! Sent into our textbook guru that I didn’t think my math inventory was right, ALL the subjects were coming up, not just math, so she checked and yes, I was right. It hadn’t been set up right. So she ditched that one and started me a new one. Luckily I hadn’t done too much on it. Good thing I asked now rather than at the end of the year. That would have been frightening! Withdrew some old LA books and told our guru that all of the entries for that were now all ‘no copies’ anywhere in the district so she could delete them, which she did! Garten will come tomorrow for our surplus books I have out there. Sent in my JLG order, then found out I needed a quote! I thought we were all set to put it in! So I emailed them quickly to get that done. Had both lunches in and the MakerSpace was crazy busy. I really must get a handle on the painting. We had glue being poured out of bottles without lids on. Paint on the cart. Someone had taken their plastic paint pallet and just put it paint and all into the cart rather than the sink in the back! Oh my. That has to stop. I emailed our other LMA at another school to ask how she did it and she said that yes, sometimes it was too much! All my magnets are gone and I never saw them being used for anything. I have a note where the balloons were that they need to ask for them. I’m learning as well! Off to home to be there for the trick or treaters!

Inventory Weeding

Today I went ahead and weeded out the rest of the 800’s. I pulled three shelves of a cart off. There were so many. I felt so sorry for some of them. I had great angst as I pulled books. I wonder if the other LMA’s have these same feelings? I was wondering about the math inventory so I took the Butterfly books and inventoried them. Then I ran a report and they did all check in. Regular other stuff, putting away books, found some books that were missed on their section during inventory and got them checked in, reset passwords. Had the MakerSpace lunches in today. I had to tell one of my aides to take off their hood three times in that period, so I finally called them in and told them I felt disrespected, and I needed a note from their counselor if they wanted to continue. It really made me angry. It shouldn’t, and I know they are going through stuff, but aren’t we all? Got home and took a walk in the glorious spread of fall that graced this day.

Halloween Dance

I helped out tonight! It was quiet where I was! Pretty much! There were two students running the ‘Guess the amount’ in suckers and candy corn. But first! I got out all the boxes for Garten to pick up today. Our substitute custodian got the gate open and I had that all done by lunch time! I had my aides helping me. That was a huge accomplishment for the day! My hand truck that comes down to a cart, lost a wheel! So I put it back together, and did the cotter pins a bit more tapped in. I started to pull the 800 books. Some were from the 90’s, rarely checked out. I’m getting ready to do that inventory, so it needs to be done, it’s in our weeding schedule for this year. Then I noticed that I think the math books we did last week, did not get done. I’m not quite sure how that happened. So I started to poke around with that. Had both lunches in and the MakerSpace open today. Then I came back to be the staff member with the ‘Guess’ students. I also got to direct Caesar, the No Drama Llama to the back of the school for his hugs and photo ops. that was cool. He had been to three places already today! Loved to see all the students having a great time, and loved seeing one of our teachers’ son in the cutest little snail costume! Loved him!

Just a Monday

Got in some inventory today. I did the 700’s and had my aides work on math today. I withdrew some books that I had pulled the other day. Just lots of other little stuff all day. Had to reset a student password right away! Did some check in/outs today. Had three of my aides gone today. Did the AVID slides with my students today. Had both lunches in and MakerSpace things being done! I can’t really remember anything else! Maybe later I’ll be back!

Birthday Girl

Can’t help bragging that my youngest granddaughter is eight years old today! Here are a few more MakerSpace projects I’ve done this week. An LED candle, some origami leaves and a modge pod of ginkgo leaves. I watched a Common Sense video on Digital Citizenship. It took me nearly all day with having to do things here and there, but I did do it! I sent most my aides to help another teacher all day. We had our reteaching on the during passing fire drill today. It went a lot smoother than the other day! Had Quiet Reading day in the library today and it didn’t do too bad, though I did tell two groups that sitting and holding a book and still talking was not quiet reading! Put paper in the copier machine, twice. There was more, but I did leave early to meet my hubby for a doctor appointment. I did bring a sandwich and needed some lettuce, so I went out to the garden and picked some lettuce leaves. Turned out pretty good! See you Monday!

Cleaning House

Today I had to make some decisions about boys in the library during lunch. I sent four boys outside to play rather than play on the furniture in the library. And a group of nine that I have had to constantly ask to settle down, be quieter, chill I finally said they were out and could not come back. I’ve been dealing with their behavior all last year and had already banned them once this year. I was really sad that a student came in yesterday when the group was here and asked if I had noise cancelling headphones, no I said. He picked up all his stuff and left. That made me sad. And I was sad the group of students pushed me into that decision. Had the MakerSpace cart out today and a lot of students asked to do string art, so they picked out boards and a template, then got a thumbtack to prick holes through the paper and then use the nails to make the design. I quickly ordered more nails! I worked on some origami leaves and have those hanging on the cart now. Worked on my display and had my second period aide work on the tissue paper backdrop for it. I actually made some great heads for it! I’ll post a picture when it’s done. I brought out all the new group books and got them all displayed. Half out on the display, the other half are in the back. Chromecarts went in and out. I moved the one full cart to the right of the aide desk, and put the bigger one on the left. So glad it is out of my office! So glad the one cart fit in the space between the desk and the door! Worked on a Modge Pod project. Started a new book. Had email conversations about QR codes and how that might work. Students are not allowed to use their phones at school, so we were thinking about how to do QR codes using iPads maybe, or their Chromebooks? Sometimes the space between a great thought and how to put it into practice takes a bit of finagling. Thank Goodness it’s Thursday!

Feeling Safe

Today was first semester CPR day and the Firefighters/Paramedics were in the library for four periods today teaching our 8th readers CPR and AED protocols. I love it when they are here and I feel so safe! So that made me very happy! The library was closed all day. Even though they were here first, second and third, they took a break because the last class was seventh period. And what do you know? Between fourth and fifth, as some students went to class, and others to lunch, right at passing, someone pulled the fire alarm (yes, it was on video). So we had to empty the school and wait for the firemen to show up - if only ours had stayed! That was so funny! We ended up standing outside for around 20 minutes while all the students had to find their first period teachers as they were all over the building and we had to account for each student. We finally got released back inside and they had to reset the lunches because we were outside so long, A lunch didn’t happen. It didn’t effect me at all, but I got a bit cold standing outside for that long! I did inventory on the 500 and 600’s. And found a few of the missing books. I think I had only about nine books that I couldn’t find after I ran the report. I pulled down the old display my aide did so I could work on a new one for the group Lit books. We got our OK for Junior Library Guild with the deal our boss had brokered. I had to get two more Chromebooks to Ms. M. Finished Piecing Me Together, fabulous book and the Salem Reads book this year. Absolutely lovely! And I made a MakerSpace LED candle. I tried! It does work, but it’s not pretty!

Inventory

Spent the first hour of my day checking for three books turned in but never came off the account. I went through every one of the math book he had, every workbook of the kind he had and checked about 12 shelves for the library book that was supposedly turned in. I couldn’t find any of them. I felt really bad. And I usually feel that way when I can’t help a student. I also organized the math and workbooks just to make sure. I worked on more inventory today since it was pretty quiet, started the 500’s. I stopped and started because of students that were getting extra help from several different staff. At least I got some done! I was hoping to get them all done, but oh well. Did some heavy laminating today. We had new maps of the school put together by our lovely Ms. P. There were a lot! Then some for Ms. K and Ms. S. Had the kids in for MakerSpace today. Put away all the date books that weren’t chosen. So sad. There were quite a few, about 50 or so. That gave me an excuse to check the shelves as well. Checked to see if there was a pallet outside to put my surplus boxes on for pick up. A great day. 

Aide Book Reviews

A crazy day in the library! We had nine classes in! Four periods had two classes in simultaneously! That was a lot of students! They were Speed Dating Books and it was a lot of fun for them I think! They checked in and out books at the end of their dates! There were, I heard, 20 instances of true love. Awww, that’s so sweet! I did all eight of my aides’ book reviews today. Got them all printed up and put in the student binder they can use to see what books are out there. I boxed up five boxes of surplus books and then went in and cleaned out the closet in the non-fiction area from old math supplements and added four more boxes. I got down and looked deep into all the shelving and found a small stack of math books from 1978!! Oh my! They were so old!  Then I went back behind the student store and got three more boxes of those supplements and some other old Algebra books. That was a lot of lifting today. No lunches because of classes. Right before I left I got a quick email from a teacher that some of her Chromebooks weren’t charging right, so I grabbed keys to pop open the back and found that one of the two plugs for the charging pods wasn’t in all the way, so I pushed it in and made sure that the other one was all the way in as well. Hopefully tomorrow they will all be totally charged! Then off for Book Club at the Yard!

Pink Out

So, my pumpkin here is definitely not pink! But I wanted to make a quick string art piece to show students and see if any were interested in making one. I need to maybe do more string work, but really pleased with how it turned out today! We had Ms. M’s classes in today working on book spine poetry. She brought them down and had a worksheet. If they got that done, they could go around the library and take real books and make poetry using real books! It was really awesome. I also finished xovering the last of the Lit books, so they are all ready to go! I took three more Chromebooks to one of the math teachers. They decided that one of the math programs wasn’t working and canned it, so those students were filtered out to other classes. Pulled books for the ‘Speed Dating with Books’ classes coming in on Monday. They needed about 60 books, so I pulled about 10 - 15 more in case students wanted to check some out. Had ten quiet reading students in for A lunch, but then we had some math students pulled out of class and I decided since they were a bit on the undisciplined side to not add the B lunch students in there. We had stuff in the library from the Book Poem classes, so I didn’t feel too bad about leaving the library closed. We are now part of Microsoft Teams and our ‘techie’ LMA from Crossler set up a ‘team’ for us middle school people and we were on there today. I was feeling a bit ‘oh, wow, another app to make life easier’. So we’ll see how that goes. I ended the day with getting an email from our art teacher about books for teachers once Salem Public Library shuts down for its retrofit. I asked our boss if he knew about the program and he was like ‘NO!’ So hopefully we’ll have info on that Monday. I’m kind of sad that the teachers heard about it from a source other than the library. Ready for the weekend.