Blessed to Teach and Read

We enjoyed a rather summery October this year with highs in the mid-80s.  Whew!  Hot! However, I went ahead and pulled all the fall books and eventually sipped on a pumpkin spiced latte.  :)   Our "Fall" display of books, made its way into the window, since we'd been running out of space on top of our book shelves.  I had to turn down 5th grade for displaying their Civil War projects, because PTA's Reflections (student art) were already going to be using the space. I made some new shelf labels to replace old ones and to help students locate books on their own.  These also assist me when I shelve books during my classes.  After 3 years, I've almost memorized where everything is located, but these visual clues are quite helpful. (On my "to-do" list are visual clues for the "E" and Non-fiction sections.) I did do a fiction lesson with first grade on different series found within the "E" fo...

Look at that shelf. Such disarray.  That's kind of how I felt around mid-August.  Pulled in too many directions.  On overload.  In need of a bookend to hold me up and set me straight.  (or, in need of more time in my day)  One week, I tried staying no later than 4 PM, and leaving undone what I couldn't accomplish, but that was stressful, too! I currently spend around 30 minutes everyday, either during classes, during planning, or after, afternoon car duty, to keep all of the books shelved.  I'm doing a better job of preventing the shelves from looking like the one pictured above.  (We've had 3 different moms come a collective six times to volunteer to help with shelving. Yay for Mrs. Stratton, who has come back multiple times!)  I implemented a new change this year, to allow 4th and 5th graders to re-shelve their own fiction or everybody/picture books.  That has helped! I also started a 5th grade program called "Castle Apprent...

As always, I'm very far behind on posting, but I've finally combed through all of the photos and put them into Layout to share with you. Created a "Reading Helps Your Mind Bloom" book display, to leave up as state testing started.  I pulled lots of gardening, bees, and butterfly books. Plus, lots of potential parents came through at the end of the year for tours, so it was good to have this out to keep it from being too sterile as all the library books started coming back.     I did a "Hop Into a Great Book" display here to put an emphasis on some seldom-circulated books as well as to highlight nonfiction, though I also put out some fiction books too! Kept on teaching kindergarten and first graders about different authors.  I did create some very fun centers for Mo Willems.  As one paraprofessional said to me, "You're brave to do Play-Doh on carpet."  However, we didn't really have any issues when I gave the kids clear expec...