Oops, so I may have forgotten about my promise to blog daily about all the fun things that are going on in my library. It seems like every day is more fast paced than the previous, and I'm holding on for dear life at times.
October has held a bunch of different, fun things. We had our first late start/no letter day where all the co-curricular teachers are able to put on fun activities for different grades. Our space being so small, we decided to just work with 2nd grade and have a "fall" party. C read the students a story in the reading room, and I helped teach the children a pumpkin craft. There was no checkout, and that was okay. We had to reevaluate some of what we did after the first two classes.
The first round of kiddos were divided into two groups: the readers and the crafters. C read to the first group while I went ahead and taught the kids the pumpkin craft. It was quite fun, but a little hectic with these first groups. A majority of the kids could not finish to save their life. So, after they were done in the reading room, the first group joined the second and finished their crafts.
We had quite a bit of time to reevaluate what had just happened; our "lunch" break was almost two hours long! We were both really delighted, though, to be asked to help with Pre-K and K lunchtime since the TAs were not going to be present that day. I got a great little class of sweet Pre-K students. There's nothing quite like being greeted with a "Hello, library teacher!" and a ginormous hug.
Our next 2nd grade groups went smoothly, and they all really enjoyed their projects. The last class was by themselves (since there are 5 different classes), so I sat with a little boy who said he didn't have many friends. We decorated pumpkins and chatted, just to make sure he wouldn't feel left out. It was a good time.
Since then, every day has been a blur. I've been doing some shifting projects in the nonfiction section, mainly to get all the books on top of the shelves migrated into the actual collection. Nothing else frustrates me more than not being able to keep up with where everything goes! Nonfiction being divided into two sections, as well as fairy tales separated from the rest of the nonfic collection is hard enough for me to remember, let alone a volunteer. I just want to try and make it "make sense" and flow really well.
I attended a really awesome Region 10 meeting in September, and I'm super stoked about book covering now! Okay, maybe stoked isn't the greatest word to use, but I'm glad I learned book repair and accident prevention. Since I've been inputting our massive and very first book order, I've been worried about the paperbacks in our collection. Do we order them because we then can afford more books? Or do we stick with hardbacks that may be duds? With some of the products from Kapco that we used, I'm pretty sure we'll get more than a few circulations of paperbacks.
I missed yesterday's meeting due to some routine biopsy of sorts. Terrifying, yes, and I would much have rather been at school than at the doctor's! C filled me in on everything that I missed, and its definitely motivated me more to stay on top of my journaling (blog), stay focused on the kids and their learning great literacy skills, and organizing. I know this is my first year, but I want to leave a mark on this school in a most excellent way. I'm hoping that I am starting to do that.
Oh, and it's been 6 weeks already. Can you believe it?!
-Christine
