Blessed to Teach and Read

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...

This is how all of the student work from our Georgia Book Award Centers came out.  Again, some was digitally created, some was paper pencil, and some was crafted from their own imaginations.  Next year's goal:  Centers could be less teacher-directed, and more open-ended.              Reflection:  So, as you can see, I did put up all the hearts that students created for why they love the library.  Obviously, next year, I need to make better paper color choices, like yellow or light blue.  But, I also need to figure out what else I can do for that day or entire week.  Within my all-day, fixed, 6-day rotation, I did do lessons that involved Dr. Seuss' books, but for his actual birthday, it was back to regular library lessons.  I had read collaborative ideas from other media specialists within our county, and even created a page on our county's ItsLearning platform for sharing past ideas, but I didn't ...

I got creative this month by moving loads of dictionaries to the teacher resource closet, and by turfing some paperback dictionaries that should have gone home with third graders in years past.  By clearing out an extra set of shelves, I was able to make the nook below for more display space.  I put the Valentine books there, so that I didn't have to move or take down our Black History Month book display.  (I got to put out "Love Letters" by Adoff Arnold - My absolute favorite!   Someone already checked it out.) (Only a third of the books we have on display) I added this "I love our library because..." interactive display to encourage students to fill in hearts with their reasons for loving our library.  The small print tells students that I will use their paper hearts for our "Read Across America" display.  I've already received lots of great responses!   While working at our Forsyth County Technology Fair on Saturday, Ja...

Found out last night around 10 p.m. that school was cancelled for today.  One of those, "better safe, than sorry" situations, where we probably could have attended school, but stayed home and used our ItsLearning platform to learn instead.  I got time to work on a new book order list for this spring, and time to update my much-neglected blog.  (And time to catch up on some household chores!)  So, without much further ado, here's what I've been up to instructionally since my last post in September 2015... In October, I found this cute jack-o-lantern in the storage closet, and used it for our "Carve Out Time to Read" Halloween/Fall book display.   I also tried to incorporate spiders in kindergarten's lesson on "Verbs" and in first grade's lessons on taking notes from nonfiction books and identifying nonfiction book text features.  We also worked on our nonfiction writing in conjunction with our school's adoption of Lucy Cal...

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....