Blessed to Teach and Read

It's not abnormal for me to only post twice a year, but this school year, I purposefully took a hiatus from this blog.  I took a step back from trying to maintain this piece of my library program along with my monthly, library newsletter, because I wasn't going to keep putting work before my family.  I took self-care seriously as we rolled into the 2021-2022 school year, and set some boundaries that I hope to maintain, should we ever get out of this pandemic.   First semester, I do have to share that I had the students make the most beautiful Dot Day display that we have ever made!  I bought and gave each student a small, round, paper plate.  The only instructions I gave were to choose a color family and be creative.  Thanks to the help of a couple of substitutes and several 5th grade helpers (Castle Apprentices), I was able to get the whole thing taped to the walls.  Several teachers begged me to leave the display up for after fall break, so I di...

Oh my goodness!  I found a draft of a blog post from back when I got my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.  I was so excited and relieved to receive it!  I was proudly, fully vaccinated as of mid-March.  In the original draft, started a summary run-down of all the lessons I had been doing with students, but only managed to get through kindergarten and first grade.  To the draft, I added on what I did with students for the rest of spring 2021.   I do have to say, I am so proud of all of teachers everywhere for our efforts, our love, our devotion, and our perseverance in the face of truly difficult times this school year.  We made it to the end of a year to be proud of, building relationships, teaching students, and growing as professionals! Without further ado, here are my lessons: Kindergarten:   We made puppets of Kevin Henkes' characters from Egg,  after reading the book together and learning about how he uses his typewriter, his S...

No need to have watched or read Marie Kondo's "Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up".  I have a hoarder for a husband, and I LOVE to purge stuff.  I've begun weeding our "E" for everybody picture book section. It's astonishing how many of our books from 2002-2003 are still on the shelves, having never been checked out, even once, or less than once a year over the past 16 years our school has been open. Our County Head of Media Specialists, Kristen Deuschle, shared about a local charity, Reaping Nature , which will donate our weeded materials to needy schools in our county.  Perfect! As I've been consulting the Historical Report and looking through each story to decide its fate, I've had more ideas churn up.  Definitely planning on beginning to genrify the fiction section next year, but WHAT IF I also made an "Upper Elementary" picture book section???  I already started the "ECH" Early Chapter books section and "Easy Reader...