'Tis the Season to Be Busy!

Author's Note:
I earnestly meant for the post to be, er, posted quite a while ago. Sickness, group projects, and Thanksgiving threw me off completely. Here it is, only edited for certain time periods.

                                                                                                                                                                                                 

This time of year can be crazy. Trying to cram in things before the holidays, like book orders and certain lessons, or just general housekeeping of the library space. In my personal life, its homework on top of homework while my husband is diligently working on the Christmas production for his job. Needless to say, I feel a bit frazzled at times and am ready for a week of rest. It's not to say that I don't enjoy my work, its that I am just plum tired.

Last week a few weeks ago, I started off the busyness with taking a couple of workshops through Region 10. Region 10 offers professional education courses to teachers, librarians, and other people that work in a school environment (like me!). Friday was a session regarding Lego Story Creator sets. We only spent about 45 minutes there discussing how to use the Story Creator set and making different stories in groups. Our presenter Betty Justus (doesn't that sound like a super hero name?) gave us all trinkets and a Lego pigeon to take home!

You jelly?

The next day was a full day workshop for Makerspace Magic. The presenters were from Arlington ISD and were so awesome! I felt that the session was a bit long, especially with an hour and a half for lunch. The first half of the day, we reviewed websites for maker spaces in various types of schools. Obviously not all of them would work at an elementary level, nor would they work in an independent school like we are. It was fascinating to see different set ups, though.

The second half of the morning covered the ins and outs of securing the space, how to get funding (can independent schools get grants?), and what to do that would be appropriate for certain age groups. That was the best part of the entire day, even though we got to play with a bunch of different stations.There's all kinds of creative stuff to be done. I guess my homeschool upbringing was good for something! Having helped my mom pick out my own curriculum, what crafts I wanted to do, and all that stuff, I guess I have been exposed to more crafts than any one person should ever be.

I love it.

So now it is the post Thanksgiving rush, into the Christmas/holiday rush where decorations must be taken care of post haste. Ours in the library are looking pretty pathetic right now. Maybe when this stomach bug passes and I have a free evening, I can take care of it. Poinsettias sound pretty nice and quick to me.

Here's to a stress-reduced December...ha!

Christine