Cleopatra in Space, Book One: Target Practice

The title Cleopatra in Space directs my mind to campy science fiction movies of years gone by, where aliens are guys in rubber costumes and women are just there to be pretty. Cleopatra in Space, written and drawn by Mike Maihack, has nothing to do with that kind of sci-fi and is unlike any kids gn you've read before.

For fans of the Amulet by Kibuishi, Cleopatra in Space is the quintessential space adventure for graphic novel lovers of all ages. Cleopatra, known as Cleo for short, is a bored and trouble-making Egyptian teenager on the cusp of her sixteenth birthday--and taking over the kingdom. She escapes her boring palace to find her friend Gozi in order to find adventure. Well, they do alright, and Cleo wounds up being sent into the future....WAY into the future.

This future is set in space, with Cleo falling into the hands of P.Y.R.A.M.I.D., Pharoah Yasiro's Research and Military Initiative of Defense.  Yes, everything looks like floating pyramids in space. Think 80s colors mixed with the modern Star Trek reboot and you have the setting and tone for the world that Cleo finds herself in, except with cats instead of tribbles.

This fun frolic in the world of Planet Mayet, learning about Cleo as well as this charming futuristic landscape, and seeing what robot mummies are capable of leaves me wanting more Cleopatra in Space. I know there are more books to come in the future, but the future cannot come soon enough! She is funny, quirky, and an independent female adventure lead, of which there are normally very few.

Please order this for your library! It's perfect for not only fans of Amulet, but for Zita the Spacegirl and any other Westerns/Space Westerns as well. Its funny, witty, and full of surprises. From interviews with the author, it seems like there will be more installments to come. I literally laughed out loud, which rarely happens when reading graphic novels for little ones. This one's a keeper.

Catching Up is Hard to Do

It has been a wet and wild winter here (sorry for the alliteration) so February was not as productive as it should have been. Makerspace Mondays was postponed to this next Monday (eek!) and it has made overdue books a pain to track down. Kids have a hard time remembering where they left stuff because I'm sure its all mixed in with their swimsuits, souvenirs, or ski gear! Spring Break has also thrown a curve ball. We have not had as much time to get certain things done but I think we are finally catching up.

The things I've finally managed to catch up on are:
--Winter 2015 Newsletter
--Greenhill Goes Global displays
--BOOK COVERING (side note: yes, this deserves to be in all caps.  I rarely have time enough between classes, from all grades, to get stuff covered. Its very taxing.)
--Spring cleaning of my desk
--More!

I cannot remember the more stuff, which is why I need to blog more frequently. I think of great and innovative articles or reviews to jot down but then -poof- they disappear quicker than you can say homework. School is cluttering my brain, and while I'm not blaming it for my distraction  or forgetfulness, it is an inhibitor for my creative thought.

March is Women's History Month, where students have been hearing some fabulous biographies and stories about strong, brave women that have changed history. This morning, while filling in to teach 3rd grade, I read them the book Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors? by Tanya Lee Stone. Its the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor in America. This is a great read for having in depth discussions about women's rights and abilities. Some of the quotes from men of the time regarding Ms. Blackwell were upsetting to the students and it encouraged them to think about why it was wrong. I love when the kids get passionate about something, especially in history!

This month is also Greenhill Goes Global, where different global cultures are celebrated through live performances, food, dress, and stories. We did our part in the library by putting up some snazzy flags I had printed up last year for the same thing:

My desk is partaking in the festivities this year, too.

April is National Poetry month and we're already starting to plan all the fun activities. This has been a bit of a challenge, since children are so developmentally different depending on their age and grade. Luckily, there is such a thing as Pinterest and other teachers have been able to do creative things that we are taking inspiration from. There will be a Poetree (is that the correct spelling? I'm not really all that familiar with literary horticulture), riddles, and all kinds of fun activities. We really want the students to be able to take away an appreciation of poetry.

BER: What's New in Children's Literature 2015, Ft. Worth, TX

To say I love Bureau of Education & Research Seminars is an understatement. Of course, it is always refreshing to take a day away from work and analyze what you're doing and how you're doing it. When I first came to my job, I was told that Carrie and I needed to see Peggy Sharp. She was outstanding! Amazing! One of a kind!

All those things are certainly true. More often than not, though, the consensus about Ms. Sharp is that everyone leaves her seminar overwhelmed. After we saw her, we definitely were! She gave us so many great ideas for books, activities, and decor, but we were at a loss of where to start or even if we could start. Now Ms. Sharp is retired and Judy Freeman has taken over the reigns of presenting the material to north Texas. I left anything but overwhelmed...more like super encouraged.

Being overwhelmed by information is not a good thing, in my opinion. Yes, you can cover 100 books in 6-7 hours. Will everyone retain everything? I certainly couldn't. I remember being warned to bring my highlighters in an assortment of colors, as well as sticky notes and pens and bookmarks. PHEW. Did I feel proud once I survived and we gleaned information from her? Yes. There's a HUGE but here. Even though I was presented with a million books, a million ways to use them, and even more ways to get kids interested in them, I reached the saturation point pretty quickly.

That being said, I greatly appreciate and respect what Ms. Sharp taught me and showed us. I think she did amazing things and helped a lot of people! There are some things we do now and still want to implement because of her. However, Ms. Freedman's approach was much more fun and way less stressful!

She is such a gift musician that I felt silly even singing along to some of the songs she performed. They were great! It was an inspiring day for sure. We covered all the major subject areas (math, science, social studies, and language) and even how to connect various texts within the session. The handbook she gave to us is particularly useful, as we are able to use some of the reader's theatre stories (and make our own with her super helpful directions), craft activities, and all kinds of ideas on how to use these texts!

I appreciated her talking about graphic novels, especially El Deafo and the importance of a graphic novel winning the Newbery award.  Its important for the genre to prove that what little text it may or may not have is powerful enough to matter.

It was a wonderful experience and I recommend anyone with an interested in children and what they read to attend--especially administration and reading specialists. It would be great for them to see how various genres and books truly can help the kids and teachers with important skills. I know Carrie and I have talked already and found some great things we are going to do.

Makerspace Mayhem Pt 2: The Update

Having been sick and also dealing with a rigorous course load has kept me from feeling very productive lately. I'm trying to give myself credit, as my husband often encourages me to do, but it is a little tricky at times. Why shouldn't I be able to do 8 million things at once?

There's a graphic novel order in the works, as our book orders are due sometime soon. I keep nitpicking at it, removing and adding things as I see fit (or as I see them on others' orders). There are a few I'm SUPER excited about mainly because I am trying to expand our manga collection. A pocket of fourth-grade girls LOVE manga (and shoujo but they don't know what that is yet!) and I'm trying to appeal to them. I'll post more about that on my other blog, but for now...on to the beast I am trying slay.

MAKERSPACE.

I've made a general document with rules and all that and am making little tweaks on it. Just adding things about when to pick kids up, what adults will be there, etc. Then its on to planning what we will actually be doing--eek!

I thought it would be fun to have a movie themed Makerspace Monday. Mainly because, duh, I absolutely love film and everything to do with it. Also, this lends itself quite well to a bunch of creative projects that kids can do. We do not have a green screen, but that is something I'm going to look for in the future. I think we will start with stop motion animation, just using the iPads. I will bring an old camera that I have but I'm not sure if it'll be good to record video on.


Goals for this first makerspace:
1. Let the kids have (lightly supervised) fun
2. Let them figure out if they enjoy filmmaking
3. Test and see the need/want for this kind of program

With all good intentions, I meant to do it last month but decided that was too much. Since I've pushed it back, I think I am in a much less frantic frame of mind about it. Of course I want it to be a success, but I also cannot beat myself up if it isn't.

Here's to our first Makerspace Monday! Be on the lookout for the next update on February 24.

Happy Voting Day!

Toady is the day we've all been waiting for!

Schools across Texas may have already started Bluebonnet voting, but we officially started this morning. We are so excited! I've surveyed the kids unofficially on what they've been voting for, and it really is anyone's race.

The first kiddos to vote for their favorite Bluebonnet nominee today!

My favorite this year was probably Monsieur Marceau, The Day the Crayons Quit, or Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: One Dead Spy. I felt like last year we had a definite selection of books that kids really wanted to win over others. This year, though, its pretty evenly divided. There's not a book that stands out to be as the I-must-vote-for-this book. 

The best thing we did this year with the Bluebonnet program was creating these screens! It was super easy and cheap. I took blue file folders and glued them together, along with the voting instructions. You can see an example of our voting instructions here.

I'll be posting the results once we know them. In the meantime, happy voting! 

Makerspace Mayhem Pt. 1

One of my professional goals at the beginning of this school year was to create an after school club for the Lower School students. Lego was my weapon of choice, and after speaking with the other librarians and Head of Lower School, I got the go ahead to start work on my Lego club. As excited as I was, I still felt like maybe Lego was too narrow for our students. While the majority of the younger ones love Lego, to the point of shouting "CHIMA!" upon seeing a tiny poster we had hanging, I thought maybe Lego could fit into a grander scheme of things.

Like I wrote before, I attended a workshop about Makerspaces that left me with the impression that it was truly the way to go. Lego is part of it, but its such a broader scope of activities that I think it would be great. The other library staff have suggested having monthly themes. For this first month, however, I think I might have them just "explore" and see what happens.

It could be a disaster.

But it will not be.

In order to have room to store all of the supplies, most of which I snagged from my mom's craft cabinets, we are doing some major shifting. Our library was so discombobulated when we got here and we have fixed most of it. There were some sections that we were still clinging on to that needed to change. Here's the (kind of) before picture of our reference/random/audio book shelf in the Learning Commons area:

 

Tah-Dah!

Here it is. The pile o' junk on the left is all remnants of my formative years. Its kind of special for me to let these kids use the stuff that used to make me oh-so-happy. If you look at our bookshelf, you'll see on the left a bunch of country and state books. We're going to put them out in the main collection so kids can actually get to them. 

The middle section contains audio books, which a lovely parent volunteer is helping me shelve as I write this out. The Everybody audio books are on top of the Everybody bookshelves, since most of them are in slim cases that will only cause more chaos than necessary. We talked about getting a basket to put them in, too.  The JF audio books will be shelved with the JF titles as well. I think its great that we are keeping them still. People say CDs and DVDs are "dead media", but you would be surprised at how many people still use these and feel more comfortable with them--even kids! Now that they can see the audio books out, I think it will give them an even greater variety to choose from.

The right used to be our reference section. Yes, you read that correctly--USED TO BE. I interfiled what I thought kids would actually read and weeded the rest. That means we have a dog (or maybe cat?) encyclopedia that I kept, along with a dino pop up book. 

Since this portion is more about logistics (AKA where the heck are we going to fit all this stuff), I can now get started focusing on our activities. The one thing I really want to get is a potholder loom. Its lame, probably, but these kids may not even know that's a thing! They also have all kinds of other looms like for scarves and whatnot. 

This is only the beginning. After e-mailing the Head of LS my plans, he said we can do the first one this month. Time to get my rear into gear! I will be finishing out reorganizing and taking tally of what we have and don't tomorrow. Perhaps I'll even get the chance to go to Michael's or something. 

And so...

The Mayhem begins.

Tis the Season to Give!

With the holidays comes a need to give to others, whether giving "back" or simply out of the goodness of your heart. Either way, Carrie and I had a great opportunity to do so last week.

Two weeks ago, a parent of a Pre-K kid and a 1st grader came to introduce herself. She works for Uplift, a local charter school initiative to provide quality, college-prepatory education to students around DFW. The Uplift program is expanding greatly and they are just now creating library spaces for some of the high schools. Mrs. B asked if she could bring some folks from Uplift to see what a library should look like, get ideas from our program, databases, etc.

We were more than happy to help. Last week, Mrs. B, plus a librarian who volunteers with Uplift, a Learning Specialist, and High School teacher all came to visit with Carrie and me. We were able to show them our space and how certain areas are designated for specific grades. Later, we had them sit on the story steps and showed them our catalog, eBook collection, and databases. I even showed the Learning Specialist how to cover books with a CoLibri machine!

 It was great to hear their questions and be able to provide some help and support. I could not imagine starting a library from scratch, as fun and daunting as it sounds. the librarian volunteer told us that many of the schools do not even have a certified librarian. They are simply trying to get the space ready for the kids to utilize. How exciting is that new adventure for them? I'm glad we could help them, even if it was only a smidge.

There's been a lot going on in our library. We've had Grandparents and Special Friends Day before Thanksgiving, and the Christmas break and winter holidays have creeped upon us yet again. Thankfully people have been wonderful to give to us and we are able to give back through many ways. We help kids create memories, friends, and learn more about themselves through books we order and recommend. Carrie and I volunteer to help out other teachers whenever it is possible. We helped several libraries outside of our network in order to help even more kids in our community.

Wow!

Every day is a chance to give. In the library setting such as ours, we give through our interactions and attitudes with others. I am working on my own and am aiming for a very positive 2015.