My bosses at work think I’m leadership material. Seems obvious to me. 😏
I spent the past few days at an intensive library leadership workshop held at a retreat center. It was a beautiful place with quaint accommodations. They fed us three squares a day and filled our brains with information.
Now we wait to see if I get a leadership job. Actually, as they clarified, we are all leaders, so now we wait to see if I get a management job. :)
I am now the proud founder of two successful book clubs! Both inspired and supported by cool people around me.
My personal book club met last night. I leave these “meetings” in such high spirits. So much laughter and fun. We now have seven members and I love all of them.
Tonight was the first night of my work-related sci-fi book club. I was worried no one would come and, simultaneously, worried too many people would come! I ended up with five people in the room and one on Zoom. (Many of our programs at the library are hybrid like that.) Everyone was excited and engaged. Everyone has great things to say about the book, and everyone took a book for next month’s meeting. Yay!
I’m feeling pretty good tonight, and wondering why it’s not Friday night. 😄
… even if it’s just for two days. I’m at a conference today and tomorrow. I stopped by the front office at school on Wednesday afternoon to let the secretary know that I left the sub plan on my desk. She said, “I don’t have any note of you being out. I have no sub for you!” Ack! I got approval from the boss and did all required paperwork! Apparently he forgot to tell her. She scrambled and found me a sub, and I felt bad, even though I did everything right.
I told Alan last night that he’d have to bring both kids to school because I was leaving early. He asked why I was leaving early, so I reminded him of the conference. I told both kids about it at night when I was putting them to bed, both seemed surprised. Holy moly, I’ve been talking about this for weeks! So much for my prepping.
This morning Eve work up late and in a total funk. She was crying and sad about everything. I felt bad both leaving her and leaving her for Alan to deal with. This evening she called to tell me the dog chewed up her shoe. She only has one pair of shoes. :/
Sigh. The conference is going well at least.
Fun with paper circuits… or in this case, ribbon circuits!
The view’s not bad, if you like all that white stuff!! :)
Guess what?! I got a Little Free Library for DBS! :) I’m super excited. I’ve wanted one for awhile and last spring I asked the boss if we could put one in front of school. He loved the idea. I was hoping to find a boy scout or someone to do it for free, but ended up asking a neighbor who has a crafty family and a good mid-western work ethic! :) They are a pretty awesome family and like to do family activities. They had a few kids go through DBS and were excited to make a lasting project. I was thrilled! I gave them free range on design and they ran with it. The week before school started they were ready to install.
I love these people. They are amazing. As is the Little Free Library they created.
They even brought some books to get it started!
It has solar powered lights running along the inside of the roof. A very classy touch.
There is a website called LittleFreeLibrary.org that started the movement (as best I know) and maintains a map of locations. I went to registered our new addition and discovered that it’s a trademarked name! Of course! In order to use the name (which we obviously and clearly did!) and be listed on the map you have to pay a small fee and get a plaque. Guess what I did ASAP?! :) The plaque should be arriving in the mail any day now.
During the first week of school I was talking to each of the classes about it and I was thrilled that so many kids had already found it and started getting books. I love the expressions when I tell them that although it’s called a “library” they can actually KEEP the books if they want to! And add some of their own that they are done with. The kids love it! I’ll check on it regularly and keep it stocked with books as well, just in case kiddos take books faster than they leave them.
We have a lot of mirrors in the master bath vanity!
We were here for awhile, making faces in the mirrors. :)
I”m sure she’ll be super helpful!
The brackets are up!
Growth chart ruler
Alan says, “Flu shots for a happy family and healthy community.”
There is this organization called the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Book Award Committee that does an annual book award (hence the name!). They select 30 new young adult novels and kids around the state read and vote for their favorites. We have been doing that in the library and voting was just this week. This is their 60th year and the committee had an art contest asking students in grades 4-8 (the grades that can participate in the book voting) to design a poster celebrating reading and 60 years of this Dorothy Canfield Fisher book award. Guess what?! One of my students won! She did all the work, I just promoted the contest and submitted her entry, but I kinda feel like I won a little too! :) She gets two signed copies of the winning book (still being voted on) and she gets an award and recognition at the award ceremony! I was hoping to take a few students there, but now I’m totally going to do it!! I’m just waiting for them to announce the date! I’m so excited for her. :)
Hey all, in case this blog isn’t fascinating enough, check out my new school library blog. (You know you want to, Mom!) It’s filled with exciting things like library schedules and book awards! Of course I got a picture of Eve up there already! (Truthfully, I’m not sure yet on the media release situation, so I thought it best to stick to pictures of kids I know for now.) Enjoy!
Also, did you see I just did three blog posts in one evening? That’s my quota for the week! See ya next week! :)
This post is a few days delayed, but better late than never. Thursday was open house at school. Each grade does a 10-15 minute presentation of their curriculum, but I wasn’t sure if I could get out of the library that long, so Eve and I went for a sneak peek at her classroom. She showed me around, we did the scavenger hunt, and got full access to the teachers (ha!) until 6pm when Open House officially started and I scooted back to the library. I wasn’t sure what to expect for library attendance, but I was pleased that it was packed for the entire time! Kids stopped by to introduce me to their parents (while I desperately tried to recall the kid’s name in my head!) and parents that I’m friends with stopped by and it was very nice all around. The hour flew by!
I love seeing Eve’s work. Her poetry is amazing to me, and not just because it’s often about how much she loves me. :) Lately she has been sitting in her bed at night writing poetry. She has a great one about the holidays, and the “mom” poem she wrote me a few weeks ago. At Open House she showed me her, “I am from” poem that they did in class. I love it!
Eve is an excellent writer… you just have to decode her spelling! :)
Today began a new chapter in this house. Lex headed off to 6th grade at the middle school, Eve started 4th grade, I had my first day at the Media Specialist in the school library, and Arlo got to spend seven hours in his crate! No big changes for Alan though, sorry. Alan brought Lex in and said drop-off went well. Eve and I walked to school. I start later than she does, so I was able to walk her (and Arlo) to school in the morning, then come home, shower, and get myself ready. It’s a plan that kind of works, but needs some refinement. It worked well today though!
Back to school.
Miss Eve heading off to 4th grade.
My middle schooler!
Flowers for the teachers.
This girl is too much!
I only had one class to teach today, but I also had lunch duty, meetings, and an assembly. Tomorrow it’s just recess duty and meetings, then Thursday and Friday I get classes back to back to back! I’ll be ready for the long weekend!
Flowers for the librarian! Thanks family!!!
At the end of the day Eve came to meet me in the library and she was clearly excited about something. She said she wasn’t working on a project and I COULDNT NOT PEEK! She then asked me when my birthday is (precisely) and then decide maybe not to wait that long to share her project. After awhile she asked if she could take my picture and she set up the scene she wanted.
The new school librarian standing by the “NEW” books shelf!
Then she asked to borrow my computer. The final output was an awesome poem called, “My Mom Poem.” She said she started working on it in study hall at the end of the day, not as an assignment or anything, but just because she wanted to. Sadly, she asked me not to share it because it was special for us. I’ll respect those wishes, though maybe I’m breaking them a wee bit by mentioning it here! I can’t help it though. She is amazing and I’m so proud to be her momma AND her librarian!
Lex took the bus to me after school and got off with a smile. There are a handful of middle schoolers that have parents in my building, so he wasn’t the only big kid getting off at the elementary school. He said the day went well and when I asked if he was planning to go back tomorrow he said, “I guess so.” Raves reviews from the boy! I haven’t heard much else from him.
I had a good day. I’m so happy to be part of a school community that I love. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!
Arlo did not like his day and was VERY eager to get outside when we got home. He has been all teeth and claws ever since. He doubled one of the holes in the yard, scratched up Eve’s arm, and is chewing everything he can find. Apparently one 3-mile walk in the morning does not sufficiently counter seven hours in the crate! That’s a problem I’m definitely going to have to work on. Maybe Alan should take him to work each day! :)
I had in-service week last week and on Friday when I was chatting with other teachers they kept saying the were pretty ready for school to start and the more people who said that the more panicked I got that I was not feeling at all ready for school to start!!
Last weekend Alan helped clean up the robotics lab a bit and this weekend we went back for another marathon work session. It was great! I left this evening feeling a thousand times more ready for Tuesday. There’s still work to do, of course, and always will be, but I feel like I can do this!
Let me show you my library…
My new school. Not really new exactly, because the kids have been going here for years and I subbed here and did my student teaching here, but now it’s officially MY school too! 😄
New books are always exciting! (Those are not all the new books, just the ones that were on the shelf when I took the picture! There are lots more!!)
My first library bulletin board.
The Vermont corner. The three maps of the area came from Grandpa’s house. 💜
This year’s Dorothy Canfield Fisher nominated books.
The reading corner needs to be a little cozier. Maybe I can find a nice cozy carpet or bean bag chairs or something.
Group activity area. Elizabeth made the green cushion and the rocking chair was Grandpa’s. He was a library kind of guy!
The computer/robotics lab has been underutilized the past few years since all the classrooms have laptops now. Alan got it all tidied and organized and I hope to put it to better use this year!
Arlo is a great library dog!! Next year I’m going to get him certified to come to school with me each day. The counseling team has a dog in school and I think the library needs one too!