More Schoolwide

 We had our morning meeting today and most of it is for teachers, so I kind of half listen, look over from time to time and do multitasking! Got all the new stuff on the cart for lunches today. Chromebook help, always. Worked on getting the Schoolwide boxes done, still not done. Got the notice that our surplus books will be picked up on Friday, so tomorrow will be a day to load up pallets. Had both lunches in and put a notice on the library doors for my lunch that said 'Library Closed. Open at 12:54' which is when the B lunch starts. I can almost get in my whole lunch that way between the student lunches and no one came into the library! I think that was the first time I didn't have students wanting help! I did turn off all the lights, so hopefully they thought I was gone. One of the LMA's said she has to go eat in her car to eat undisturbed! Jeans and a t-shirt tomorrow for the pallet load. It will be so good to get those boxes out and I'm already thinking I can at least get the Chromecarts in there and out of the library workroom. We'll see!

Saved by the Puzzle

 There is one little girl who comes in every day during A lunch to work on the puzzle and B lunch finished it yesterday. So we pulled it apart a bit and I put it out today for her to finish it (again!). And when she came in, someone, I didn't see who, had already finished it. She was so sad, couldn't believe it. I felt so bad, I went over there and it was done!! No one there fessed up. So I told her that she could pick out the next puzzle. She was like, 'you have more?' and so I took her and her friend into my office and opened up the closet and let them pick out the next one. She was happy. I was so glad I could give her a special treat. Today I started to pull apart the Schoolwide resources. So I had to throw away the teacher binder papers. Saved the binders for someone. Withdrew the boxes. Saved the books. That took just about the rest of the day. Got in my Makerspace stuff I ordered. So excited for a student who has asked every day if the new stuff is in yet so tomorrow I can say YES! Then I remembered that I have a 3D pen, so I ordered some more filament. I also got some glue sticks from my office. The usual Chromebook issues. Was a good day and I got to drive straight home! 

New Picture of the Library!

 

I am so happy with the way the library looks after the bit of remodeling I got to do! I had to take a picture last week and finally got it loaded today! Looking good Leslie Library! So the header picture is from the back of the library and this is from the left window side. Love it! Today I finished packing all the empty boxes I had and got all the Language Network books gone and some of the Junior Great Books. I now have 77 boxes ready to be picked up and sent Garten a notice today that they were ready and to contact me for a day to pick up. Both lunches in, More Chromebook issues. I put away all the books that were on the shelving cart. Had a new aide in today working with the EGC team and it went really well. Sent in an email on the Schoolwide kits. I had one of the curriculum people in and she said to go ahead and take them apart, but I just wanted confirmation before I started that. And began to look at the science books...so many. Each set has over 300 books (A - O) and we're only going to keep maybe a class set of each. We do use some quite frequently, so I will keep those. But others we have hardly used at all or ever. And they are on the surplus list. I also got to score Volleyball tonight! We did not do very well at all. Our team was miscuing and just not playing like they have. There were some really great rallies though! Then time to head home!

SLJ - DoD

 Today was the School Library Journal Day of Dialogue.  Some amazing authors and their stories of why and how they wrote what they did. I ordered some of the books that weren't already on my list from this summer and entered into lots of exhibits and picked up some nice 'tote' bag items to look at later. Had both lunches in. Still Chromebook issues floating around. I also got a notice from our PA that we had money to spend on our 'weeding' non-fiction for this year. $400! So I spent the afternoon after the conference looking at books for our 400 section. It's not much of a section! I thought, 'I'll get a new Dictionary/Thesaurus' and the one we had was 2008, and the one I thought to buy was also 2008! That would be silly! There were a few that I was excited about like the Welsh to English dictionary, but it was over 400 pages! Not going to happen! But I think I will buy the Latin/English dictionary. I loved it when I took Latin and realized how many words came from Latin. It really increased my vocabulary and my comprehension of why some words were spelled that way. 

As for yesterday, I did some packing, some reading. Had both lunches in and it was so blasé. I did find a website to pick a word for the year that will be the word you live by, and that was pretty cool. I sent it out to the Language Arts teachers for maybe a writing prompt. That's all I can remember! 

Time Capsule News

 Oh my goodness! What a shock to learn that when Leslie moved to its new location, they actually opened up the Time Capsule! One of my aides found an article about it. They took some things out, put some other stuff in and then sealed it back up. I am kind of sad about that 😞 so we'll see what our principal decides to do. I found a picture in the 1971 yearbook. And another in the hallway just across from the library, then my aide found the article online. It was fun to sleuth around and see what we could find. I took an old notebook of transparencies and pulled them all apart. Then had an aide do the other one. That took forever. Had both lunches in and had the math team come and get their new books. Somehow I missed a teacher. I have no idea how that happened. I was short about two books for her class and I felt really bad and have no idea how I missed getting her on the list for the new books. She looked very disappointed. She came down 6th period and I grabbed the books out of boxes, got them all on a cart, then my two aides and I took off the wrapping from each book and got it done really quickly, then I had them take the cart to the teacher. I felt bad. Had more Chromebook work today. Worked on reading Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy. Really good stuff in there.

Time Capsule

 As I walked in the door this morning, I glanced at the little plaque on the wall about the time capsule from the old Leslie. I had to stop when I saw that it was to be opened this November! The 5th to be exact! I let our principal know. Now I'm kind of excited about what it all is! We had our tech guy in today and he recovered another 10 computers to come back on. He only had to take about 20 back to his office to get worked on. I did ten, he did ten, so we recovered half of what was there and we could get back into circulation. That was great as I answered questions and got that settled. I packed more boxes today and got rid of the last big cart of books that I had withdrawn last year. Then I started on packing up the Language Network books, they weigh 2.15 pounds each! That's a hefty little book! I had unpacked all those big math books, so I started using those boxes to pack them. I had both lunches in, took my lunch during Advisory. Then I started working on the teacher resources for those. They are big spiral bound books. So I had to cut off the spiral end and then roll them through the holes to the end. I noticed the section papers were nice and thick. Not quite cardstock, but good enough to make book marks out of them, so I did! They made a lot. I got through about eight of those. I put the rest of the papers and ends into our recycling bins. I had my 6th period aide work on the book marks as I worked on the old transparencies books. Back in the day when teachers all used overhead projectors (!), and started pulling those apart. There is paper between each transparency, so I am saving all of those and throwing away the actual transparency. I'll keep the notebook as well for someone to use. A pretty good day for a Monday.

Flame and Carts

 So many carts have been brought into my back rooms, all the computers for the kids, new math stuff, my discard books, I've been sending my principal other ideas for the carts. Holding for bodies. Storage for clothes for kids that need some. More than I want to remember! Then I remembered that all our metal from the Beachie Creek fire went to Cherry City metal, why not take them all there? So we'll see. I really think the clutter is becoming a safety issue. I also requested new date due slips, have to get approval then I'll submit that to reprographics. I also requested some new things from Amazon to use for the maker cart. NO paint or bottles of glue though! Not on the new carpet!! But papers for things, bookmarks, origami paper, beads. I think the kids will really love that. We had Advisory today and the students that come into the library are with our Behavior Specialists, so they are challenged kids. One of them was sitting at the table waiting for things to start, pulls out a bic lighter, and TURNS IT ON! A flame 8 INCHES high shoots from it. I must admit, I was freaked, demanded the lighter (he claimed it wasn't his, he had just found it outside) and when one of the Behavior staff walked in I handed it to him. I think he left with the kid and we had to have our school security fellow sit with the boys for the rest of Advisory and then our Assistant Principal came in too. Always interesting in the library. Oh, and I also had five classes in the library checking in and out books today, both lunches in. And why are students obsessed with having a Bible? I have more requests for the Holy Bible than I can imagine. All by boys. I actually got one of my two back today. I also opened a book that had a love note in it for the girl who had checked it out. Luckily in pencil, but deeply etched. Young love.

No 180

 I closed the library today for students to finish their iReady testing and not that many showed up. I was a bit taken aback. I had maybe 40 all day rather than 40 every period. I got all the checked in books put away and cleaned up the books for the classes coming in tomorrow. I went through all the Chromebooks that had been turned in and I seemed to find ten that were really all right and put them back to available. Then I took the ones that needed to be sent back, put them in piles of what was wrong and sent in a tech ticket on that. I had 33 Chromebooks that need to go back. I had students bring in more Chromecarts. We don't use them anymore and tech doesn't want them. I have 13 in the library workroom now, along with the four carts with the new math books. Three more Chromecarts in the textbook room and there are at least three more coming. I asked if we could move them and kind of got a 'there is nowhere else to put them' response, which really sets off my clutter alarm. I am really hoping they can find a place for them, but I have no idea how. Shipping container maybe???

NonStop

First of all our weekly meeting. Ms. G asked me to make some book talk slips for her kids. She wants the jacket blurb, and the first two pages all on just one page. I had done that last year and I managed to get her the ten she asked for me to get for her. I was so busy today. Classes in every period. I finished getting the math books ready for their teachers. Each book was individually shrink wrapped and I had to unwrap about 152 of them! That's crazy. I managed to get all the books checked in today from classes, but didn't get anything put away. I will do that tomorrow when I have iReady kids in the library. I had four shelves of books come in. I also got some books for another teacher who needed books to test bridge structure weight holds. Since I had some great books I was discarding and he took them. I had to mark out all the stamps and barcodes and mark them withdrawn. Chromebook issues here and there as well. Glad I got to just go home this afternoon.

iReady Help

 Today I was approached by my principal who asked if I could open the library up for iReady testing without our Instructional Coach there and I said, sure! I plunked the testing into my calendar and have Thursday set completely aside for testing. Then I saw the numbers of students that need to complete, about a third of them need to finish! Not sure what I've gotten myself into, but hopefully it'll work out. Had both lunches in today. I found out I could put out my little stools again, and the students loved having them out. I also had a student offer to clean up the Makerspace cart. I put her name in for student kudos for this week. Because of her, other students as got to enjoy using it as well! Finished up that cart of books and yes, they were all withdrawn already, thank goodness. Now I just need to box them up. Emailed a bit on the new math books, and it looks like we won't even barcode them, but let each teacher have a class set. I just want the boxes for my withdrawn books! I put away all those science books I got in yesterday. Checked out books here and there all day. Did some Chromebook things as well. A satisfying day all around!