Breakthrough

I think (I'm hoping) that I had a breakthrough with this oppositional defiant kid who has been given everyone so much trouble -- I just found out yesterday that he is very passionate about....SWIMMING! We talked for a while about it and his homeroom teacher said he was really excited. Yay. Now I'm hoping this will transfer to enough respect for me that he will actually respond every now and then in library. Plus, the kid doesn't seem to have any good connections with adults, so maybe this is a start. Then again, I probably shouldn't get my hopes up!

I have my first pre-planned observation with my principal on the day we get back from break. It was supposed to already happen, but then snow days threw everything off, so now I've had way more time than is necessary to get nervous about it, even though I know it will be fine! I'm having her observe kindergarten because they are the grade I most often just stare at in confusion...what do you do with kids who are that wiggly? Sometimes it baffles me. Anyway, we are starting an author study on Kevin Henkes. Any need-to-know ideas about K or about Kevin Henkes?

Dewey Intro with Third Graders

While trying to introduce the Dewey System to third grade, I tried a new analogy on a whim and it was a big success. All of it sudden it clicked for them and they got really excited. This was the first day we'd talked about it so we began by noticing that the books were in number order and a brief reminder about decimals.

Then I told them that we were going to pretend PHA was a dewey category. We said PHA was 100. If we wanted to find information on 3rd grade, we would look in 130 (because 3rd grade = 3). If we wanted to find Ms. Curran's class (3B), we would look for 132 (because C is the third letter of the alphabet). If we wanted to find information on Ossy, we would look for 132.15 because she is the fifteenth student in the class. It helped that all the students know "their numbers" (it's actually really a great system, they line up by number, number their papers which makes grading easy, etc.). Anyway, they got really excited and all wanted to figure out what their Dewey number would be or what their brother or sister's would be.

I tried it a second time today and had the same success. We ended by reading The Shelf Elf Helps Out and taking turns pointing out the sections.

Cutest Thing Ever

...and a very impressive performance! Kindergarten students performing Today Is Monday by Eric Carle.

Respect

I'm having some respect issues with the third and fourth graders - worse than last year. Yesterday, I found myself getting overly frustrated and losing my calm with them. I'm so sick of the back talk and the attitudes when I call them on something.

I know humour can help, but it's hard to let it roll off you when they are pushing your buttons. Our kids all say "Oh, Wow" (sarcastically) whenever they get in trouble so I'm going to try to respond with something that diffuses the tension (at least for me) rather than lecturing them.

How do you handle respect from your kids, particularly when you only have them once a week?

Category Labels for Elementary

So my new obsession is these little category labels with pictures (you can get them from Highsmith or Demco and probably other places - Demco has a better selection of them). I started with labeling my holiday books so that it'd be easier to pull them, but I'm finding it makes it the library so much more user friendly for the elementary kids (and some of the teachers) so I've now labeled poetry, biographies, sports, dinosaurs, and space and am gradually working my way through other highly requested areas. It's kind of relaxing to just sit and do it for an hour, and I am able to weed a little as I go along. I decided to do fiction as well so I can quickly pull a dinosaur or space fiction book. One thing to note is that you do need to buy label protectors or they fall right off and/or get scratched.

Some of the categories I am ordering labels for next:
Animals
Art
Dogs/Cats/Horses
Cars
Crafts
Cooking
Fall/Spring/Summer/Winter
Fairytales/Fables/Mythology
Health
Horror
Technology
Weather

Ethiopia Reads

I just found out about a really cool library-related charity: Ethiopia Reads. I posted more on my professional blog, but definitely check out their website.

Karin Librarian

Ha...check out this blog: http://karinlibrarian.wordpress.com/

I was searching for info on the book Extras by Scott Westerfeld and somehow came up with this blog! Anyway, the book was awesome. More on that to come. Oh, and there is a librarian named KarIn in Central New York also!

Teacher Tube

How cool is this! All education based videos - some for professional development and some for classroom use.

www.teachertube.com

I had no idea this existed until today, but I'm really excited about it.


Check out The Bionic Librarian

Our RIF Program

We just had our first RIF distribution coupled with a Pajama Reading Night. The night event was a surprizing success - we had 271 people (kids and their family members) join us which is much more than we usually get for week night events. I think the success was due to the kid's excitement about wearing their pjs to school!

http://www.wickedlocal.com/somerville/news/education/x1846405954

Awesome Document for Administrators

Administrative Guide to School Libraries - DRAFT
By Christopher Harris on metamancy

This would be a great thing to bring to your goals meeting or just pass on to an administrator as a helpful way to understand your role. It also advocates for support staff which is helpful for those of us who don't have any.

http://digitalreshift.org/files/adminguide.pdf

My Educational Crush

Yesterday was the School Library Systems Conference for all librarians in the Syracuse area. It was AWESOME. The highlight was Will Richardson, my educational crush. Seriously.

He delivered the keynote and then ran three sessions on using technology in education -- one on blogs and wikis, one on RSS and social bookmarking, and one on podcast, vodcast, and digital storytelling. To be honest, the sessions were fairly "Web 2.0 for Dummies" when I had been hoping for more advanced information and/or some discussion about how people are making it work in actual districts around here, but it was still great.

If you don't already follow Will Richardson, I suggest you do the following ASAP:

• Buy his book: Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms...I loved it, but really everything is online anyway, so moving on...
  
• Read his blog;
• Check out his wikis: weblogged has a TON of useful Web 2.0 resources, sample projects, etc.; and willrichardson outlines most of what he talked about in his keynote, including tons of links.

And now that I'm motivated and gung ho, I thought I would share with you guys two of the resources I post to a lot:

• My personal blog;
• My Blackboard site -- most of the "good" content is blocked because of student privacy concerns, but I make as much of my own stuff available as possible;
• The librarians in my district are working on starting a wiki to collaborate and post projects, ideas, etc., so once we get it up and running, I will let you know.
  

Dictionary Skills

Hey, does anyone have a fun/easy way to intro dictionaries or encyclopedias with 2nd grade students? I know that in the classroom they have been practicing alphabetizing to the 3rd letter, but haven't gotten into dictionary skills yet. Our class set of dictionaries will be over their reading levels, so I wanted to start out with some worksheets to teach the skills or something, but I can't find anything good...

New resources from the Partnership

I came across this post on Joyce Valenza's blog and thought I'd share. It looks like it could become a great site to support librarians' goals for information/media literacy and technology skills.

New resources from the Partnership:

"Today, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, launched Route 21, a resource kit that: showcases how 21st century skills can be supported through standards, assessments, professional development, curriculum and instruction and learning environments. The site represents the first comprehensive, go-to online resource for high-quality content, best practices, relevant reports, articles and research to assist practitioners in implementing 21st century teaching practices and learning outcomes.
The Partnership's rainbow framework defines three areas of critical 21st century skills: life and career skills; learning and innovation skills; and information, media, and technology skills, around necessary core content knowledge. Underneath the rainbow's arches are support systems: standards and assessments, curriculum and instruction, professional development, learning environments."

Self Check-Out

Does anyone regularly have students check themselves out? I've had success with it in the past with older students (grades 4 and up, I think) and am trying to implement it with our new circ system. However, it's just not as kid-friendly as Follett and on top of that, my aide is really resisting. My issue is that I need her to be available to help with other things during class transitions -- we don't have a lab, so on Tuesdays when I have 8 back-to-back classes and only a few of those classes are using the laptops, we have to get them all set up and logged on in a few short minutes. It just takes too much of class time to have the kids do ti all themselves -- take off the cart, log on, work, log off, put back on the cart takes half of class! With 4th and 5th grades, it would be so much easier if they were more-or-less self-sufficient with check-out, and of course they love doing it! I am just sick of encountering resistance in so many different things with my aide -- she has been in the job for a while and is definitely against change! Ugh...

Collection Development

So, my biggest stress so far this year has been collection development. I actually have a lot of money to spend on books this year -- all the elementary schools got an extra $3000 to spend specifically to update the book collections, because they are kind of sad and suffering. And then we switched circ systems from Follett to something called Mandarin and got an extra $1500 towards books that we used to have to pay for Follett services. So, that's good. But the old librarian apparently spent all her money on videos and random books, so we are missing a lot of reallllly basic stuff (like she is missing tons of GOOD Newbery and Caldecotts!). So I have this huge list growing on Follett and I still haven't even considered what to do about a bunch of the non-fiction sections that are suffering, like pets, sports, transportation books, etc. So I am just worried about the budget process -- I want to spend a good half of my book budget NOW and get some stuff in the library. But a. will I be overwhelmed by that many books coming in at once? and b. will I regret spending so large a portion of my budget so early in the year? I'm also wondering if I can use the statistics of what I buy to push for another year with some extra book money, because this collection is honestly pathetic. You should just SEE my list of things that we don't even have!

Also, the woman spent her entire LIBRARY supply budget on random things that should have come out of SCHOOL supplies, like White Out and strange DVD cleaners and who knows what else! She had no book tape, book covers, etc. It is unbelievable. So here's my next question: do you all cover paperbacks? (Megan, what I wouldn't give to have a central office take care of processing!) I have covered them in the past, and I think it is probably worth it when you don't have a ton of money. Our paperbacks that are uncovered get so beat up that they probably only last a year. However, my aide has already hinted that she thinks covering paperbacks is going to be too much work (I like her a lot, but she is SLOW and needs a lot of direction), so that will take some poking and prodding. That's another issue. She is pretty close to retirement, is having a very tough year family-wise, and has been there for a long time, so I feel bad telling her to step it up, but she just doesn't get that much done. I end up doing a lot of clerical stuff whenever I get a chance, because otherwise it will never happen...like we got a couple boxes of GOOD donations from a parent and have to pull records, and she will never do it. It's driving me crazy!

The Library as a Meeting Space

So let me preface this with saying I do really want people in the library - I feel like I'm going to sound a little Linda Herward here.

As part of our new focus on literacy, we now have 6 people devoted to reading instruction and their job is to pull small groups of low reading students and give them phonics instruction. However, since we're a charter school who rents an old, tiny Catholic School building there isn't really any space for them to do this, besides a few tables set out in the hallways. So they've discovered the library and pretty much requested to use it for any period that I don't have a class scheduled. Meanwhile, the ESL teacher, facing the same problem is also using the library.

Here's the problem: my library is tiny - it was a classroom once. We make it work, but there's only two tables for meeting (which are also my work space other than the checkout desk. It's a little annoying listing to phonics instruction, but there's no where they can go within the library that isn't going to be right where I'm working so I guess I can deal with that. But the other problem, is a lot of our low readers are also our behavior problems and I feel like I'm constantly being pulled into their lesson to deal with the one kid who is either running through my stacks and throwing books or refusing to go back to their classroom and needs an escort.

On top of that, I've been working really hard to make the library a place my fourth graders and third graders like to be in on their own time, and they like to come to the library during their snack or SSR or morning work and look at books or magazines and hang out a bit. This is really important to library mission I think, but as soon as they come in (and they aren't quiet because they are nine and ten), I have a phonics teacher getting annoyed because they are disturbing her lesson. If I have to get on them to be silent or just pick a book and go, they won't see the library as a great place to be. Worse, this week, I had a few teachers who wanted to sendkids down to work on projects (which is the point of the library) and I had to ask them to do small groups because the phonics class take up so much space.

I realize most elementary libraries have way more classes so I have been spoiled in comparison (I only have 15). But at this point, I think I'll piss off the reading teachers if I tell them they can't come all the time when I'm "free" (which I don't want to do). I also don't think I'll get much back-up from administration since reading is our big focus this year and they don't see how letting kids make their own choices on their own time is as much a part of that as phonics. I just don't see a way to handle this tactfully and I'm considering being passive agressive and just letting the third and fourth graders be as loud as they want to convince the phonics crew it just isn't working. Any better ideas?

Hi everyone,
I keep meaning to post something good to share but I can't think of anything earth shattering. But I do have a question for you guys, especially those of you who have worked or student taught in high schools.....what do you think of being a high school librarian?

I've been thinking maybe I would be better off in a high school library here becuase there's less craziness (I think) or at least a diffferent kind of craziness. I love the little kids but I'm on a half fixed schedule that has me seeing them for 30 minutes at a time which barely leaves enough time to get them books and do a decent lesson. The reason I'm thinking high school is because I think I'd get a chance to go out and try to colloaborate with teachers rather than running a mill of in and out checkouts on a fixed schedule. I kind of feel like I'm getting swamped with bus duties, extra elementary events and not getting a chance to really teach the kids as much as I'd like.....maybe it's just the schedule but I haven't figured out a way to move to a completely flexible schedule or a longer library time here....

So basically what are your thoughts on being a high school librarian? (What are the best and worst parts of HS libraries?)

K-12 Online Conference

Hey everyone. Just thought I'd forward the info I sent to my faculty regarding K-12 Online, in case you didn't hear about it. David Warlick's keynote was today...I still haven't watched it yet, but I've heard it's very good.

Check out the below information on the K-12 Online Conference 2007:

"The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from all educators from around the world who are interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This is a FREE conference run by volunteers and open to everyone, no registration is required. The conference theme is “Playing with Boundaries”. The 2007 conference begins with a pre-conference keynote the week of October 8, 2007. The following two weeks, October 15-19 and October 22-26, forty presentations will be posted online to the conference blog (this website) for participants to download and view. Live Events in the form of three “Fireside Chats” and a culminating “When Night Falls” event will be announced. Everyone is encouraged to participate in both live events during the conference as well as asynchronous conversations."

More information can be found at http://k12onlineconference.org/ as well as a conference schedule at http://home.alltel.net/lanihall/k12online2007schedule.html .
Tons of exciting presentations and discussions are planned, including a keynote address by David Warlick and sessions in four main categories -- Classroom 2.0, New Tools, Professional Learning Networks, and Obstacles to Opportunities.

Flowers for Algernon

I had a 5th grader ask for Flowers for Algernon today. We don't have it, but I didn't know if it was even something I should offer to ILL for a 5th grader. I don't remember it all that well...all I remember is that Charlie gets smart, gets dumb again, and then dies...but are there any sex scenes or anything? I have no idea. I'm also assuming it's above her reading level, but at least it's short. I'm thinking I'll just casually forget about the whole thing for a while...that is so lame, but I just can't be involved in any more decision-making right now! Haha...

Chris Crutcher

I went to a Banned Book Week author talk by Chris Crutcher tonight -- it was awesome! I really like him. He was funny and smart and kind of cute in a 61-year-old man with a beard kind of way, and I recommend everyone listen to him speak if you ever get a chance. He has a really interesting past -- he has worked as a teacher, at a last-chance high school, as a counselor, and seems to have just picked writing up randomly...I don't know about that though. So that's my story.

Libraries Learning from Bookstores

An interesting article by a high school student for people who work in high school / middle school libraries. It reminded me of my high school library and why in high school I would never have considered working in a library.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-drusch_29edi.ART.State.Edition1.4229cbf.html

Grades in the Library

Does anyone have to issue grades in the library? We do, and at first I thought it was weird, but now I think it holds me and them (the students) accountable for the work we do, and it helps me get the older kids to take it more seriously and involve parents when I need to. We are planning to move to a standards based report card next year, and the specialists (library, gym, art, computer, music) are supposed to evaluate how we will fit into this. It turns out none of us really want to give up grading completely - it makes it to easy to dismiss us as non-academic subjects - but we can't have a 14 page report card for each kid either. We are exploring developing a set of standards that apply to all specials (participates in lessons, follows directions, etc.). What are your thoughts/advice?

Question

Do you guys create actual completed lesson plans each week? I do not have to turn in lesson plans, but I've been doing an ok job so far of doing the lesson plans and filling everything in for the curriculum map that I've been creating (because there isn't one to speak of). However, I'm getting awfully tired of this and am thinking about just doing a quick summary in my curriculum map and calling it a day. (Karin, it is similar to yours -- an Excel spreadsheet with a bunch of columns for skills, standards, content, resources, etc. so it's not like I'm not keeping track of things.) Unless I have a sub, I think the 3 or 4 lines of content "reminders" are usually enough to keep me going. Is this bad and unethical as a teacher/librarian? Ugh.

Squirrelly Little Kids

by the way, does anyone have any good recommendations for read-alouds for squirrely K/1 classes? i have a few that really struggle to listen to a story, so i've been trying to do a lot of participatory and/or rhythmic & rhyming books that they can get into the beat of, or whatever. my list so far is pretty short:

Yo! Yes?
Chicka Chicka books
I Saw an Ant on the Railroad Track
Dooby Dooby Moo, etc.

any other suggestions?

Thanks!
Liz
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Some of my other favorites for squirrelly K/1 classes are:

Sometimes I'm Bombaloo (one of my favorites to read aloud particularly since our kids have some anger issues)
The Recess Queen
Tikki Tikki Tembo
Charlie and Lola books (they aren't as participatory, but the kids really like them and they're fun to read a loud)
Alexander and the No Good Very Bad Day
Punk Farm
Any of the Pigeon books (Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, etc.)
The Stupids Step Out (they love the word "stupid" being repeated and the humour is right on a K level)
Miss Nelson is Missing
If... (if you can get a big book of this I think the kids would really get into it- we don't have one)
Don't Make Me Laugh! by James Stevenson (I just discovered this one and think the kids would love it, but I haven't tried it yet)

We tried Olivia this week and it went over okay, not as well as some of the other books on the list. The kids responded much better to Olivia and the Missing Toy.
Karin

First Post

Hi guys. I am putting off doing lesson plans for this week and thought I'd take myself up on the offer to create a blog. I am trying to be Web 2.0 but it's tough with so much else going on, i.e. daily survival. Regardless, I think it will be useful to have a shared space to post and save information -- every time I have to hunt back through past e-mails to find something, I want to pull out my hair. I just double checked and you can RSS this blog as long as I keep it public, I think. I just subscribed to it in my feeder.