Blessed to Teach and Read

I took a full school year off from this blog, because it finally happened - I was taken out of the full-day, fixed specials schedule last year and scaled back to just 5th grade specials, every other day, every other 6 weeks!  My media specialist dreams came true! 😍  The joy of actually collaborating with teachers to provide lessons that were authentic, engaging, and timely for our students was phenomenal!  I was able to implement ideas as I discovered them, like How to Catch STEAM Week  for 1st and 4th grade classes and Very Hungry Caterpillar Day for kindergarten!   I had time to start reorganizing our picture book section to make it more user-friendly for students and to promote different series.  I was able to see all of our K-2 students  every week   for a read aloud, book checkout and activities!  Our library could accommodate teachers who wanted to use the space to read to their students or have class in a room that wasn't the...

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...