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...

I'm well into my second year as a media specialist!  These first two months have held many long-hour days, some tears, and plenty of hard work!  I've adjusted to the 35 minutes it takes me each week to type in all of my plans, AASL and Common Core ELA standards to our media center planner on ItsLearning.  I've changed out lots of ink cartridges, printed loads of posters for teachers, and set up some resource lists in the media catalog.  I've already accomplished some teacher trainings on using the media catalog and new resources that are available this year.  Like last year, I've helped one of our gifted teachers, Mrs. Wing, with the daily morning news production, and started our second year of Battle of the Books with the help of Miss Grimes and Mrs. Tate. The kids, all 1,000+ of them, and our teachers, are what make work worthwhile.  :)  I'm still in a fixed, all day teaching schedule, completing six to seven, back-to-back, 45-minute lessons a day....