Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Day 18 - New Book

Today I should be talking about professional development but I have already recommended some webinars and Pinterest.

Instead I thought I would talk about a post I saw on a blog I follow called "A Cupcake for the Teacher". Here is the direct link to her post. (I guess you can call that a professional development tidbit because I do like blogs).

I bought a copy to use with my boys but you can find ideas for the classroom on the book's website.  

http://www.thenaughtyleprechaunstory.com/ My order comes on Thursday so I am excited to see it myself.

I bought it from Amazon and saved just a few dollars.

Day 17 - Supplies and Materials

What supplies and materials do you provide? How do you fund these items?

I provide students with the basic supplies they need for class
-       Pencils, crayons, markers
-       Scissors
-       Glue
-       Blank and lined paper
-       Construction paper

Typically if I do a project with the kids I supply the materials. I get money from the board and book fair money so I will use one of those to pay for any more materials that I need. At the beginning of the year we usually get free supplies from local businesses, churches, or office supply stores.

Teachers send out supply letters at the beginning of the year so sometimes if they have an abundance of supplies I can ask if they would give me some. The art teacher actually sends home a supply list and wish list. I feel like I’ve been good with what I have so I typically don’t ask the parents.

Friday, February 21, 2014

Day 16 - Book Fair


Let me start off by being honest.  The Book Fair is not what today’s topic is supposed to be about. I am supposed to be giving you another tech tip. Looking back at my blogging challenge I have already given you 3 so I’m a little burnt out. I do however have book fair on the brain.

Our book fair is the week of March 3-7 so here are some things I’ve learned over the years and during my +15 book fairs I’ve run
-       Order decorations from Oriental Trading. It never fails. They always have supplies to match the theme.
-       Though I run the fair from my small library for most of the week I do move the fair down to the gym and set it back up for Family Night. It is a lot of work but definitely helps with crowd control and just makes the event seem more special.
-       Try something new. I typically sell pizza from Dominos and food and drinks that teachers have donated. I have an area set up for eating in the gym. This time I am getting a food truck. My school system did have them sign a contract and they will be donating 10% of food sales back to the school.
-       I give a small freebie to students for coming to Family Night. Just an extra little incentive to come. I’ve given out an Egyptian headband to color, a mini maraca, US flag, erasers – just something inexpensive and cute.
-       Two years ago I heard about a coin contest at a workshop. I decided to give it a try and the results almost made me fall over! I did a boys vs. girls contest. Each day student’s brought in a different kind of coin. I added up all of the change that was brought and divided it by the number of classroom teachers I have. That’s how much money the teachers got to spend on books for their room. I ran it the week before the book fair so teachers could pick out what they wanted and I wouldn’t get the coin contest money confused with the shopping money. It counted as a “One for Books” transaction. The group that won got a banner designed for them and hung up in the library. In 2012 the girls one and in the Fall of 2013 the boys won. The banner will remain hanging until the next Fall fair.
-       Something else I started about 4 years ago was “Donuts with Dad”. On the last day of book fair, right before school starts the dads come with their child and get a free donut and drink (bottled water, donated juice, coffee). Once again you could have knocked me over with a feather for that first one. 1/3 of my students brought their dads…easily.
-       If you plan an event where you need food or drink make them RSVP. I don’t know what divine intervention came down upon me the first time I did Donuts with Dad but thank goodness I asked them to RSVP. I NEVER expected to get the turnout we did and would have ran out of food VERY FAST had it not been for the RSVP. You would have seen me in the corner crying because I would have been so sad to not have enough food. We have at least 250 people for this event between the dad and the student.

I am very excited about the Book Fair Fiesta. What a fun theme for the Spring!

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Day 15 - Wish List


What would be one item for you library wishlist? How might you get this item?

I fairly happy with what I have though what librarian wouldn’t want more books!

I do think we are in need of a new storytime rug and luckily the book fair is just a few weeks away. Our current rug has been here since 2002 when I first started at this school. I will try to get a rug from them using Scholastic Dollars. I was once told at a book fair workshop that it is important to tell the parents what you are raising money for. A story was told about how a parent at one school thought the librarian bought new clothes with the money. Seriously?!? Since that time I have started to include my plans for the funds in the newsletter I send home. Sometimes I have put pictures of what I purchased on my library website.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Day 14 - Share a lesson topic/idea

Share a topic/idea from a lesson.


I got a SMART Board at the beginning of the year and I have been trying to use it in all of my lessons. It makes me wonder what I did without it before. Some of the technology I have incorporated recently are
-       * Presentations or lessons for my Writers Workshop students. Just yesterday we moved sentences around to sequence how a book is made.

-       * Weather forecast for second grade. I show the 7-day forecast and ask questions. Students “read” the forecast and answer my questions.

-      *  I have told my first grade students about the AV2 books by Weigl. We read a fiction and non-fiction book about Moose that day and then I showed them how to access the digital content online and we watched some short videos.

-       * During a first grade lesson a couple of week’s ago I logged into our Time for Kids account and we read an article about polar bears. It was neat to show the features and functions of the magazine article and to be able to write on it!

A few months ago our principal asked us to go and observe a colleague. I ended up having 5 teachers come to the library and a few of them wanted to see how I incorporated the SMART Board into my lessons. This goes back to a previous post about how you should establish yourself as the tech savvy person for your building. I must say it was quite the honor to have my co-workers come and I’m glad that my lesson showed that I don’t “sit and read books all day”!

Day 13 - Professional Social Media


Professional Social Media Contact Information

Just when I thought I had been doing good I forgot my post on Friday. Teachers had a work day and the kids had the day off so it all just kinda threw me.

I am just starting to get into Twitter so I really don’t have any professional recommendations for that. I am noticing a lot of book publishers have accounts so all you have to do is search and I’m sure you can find plenty to follow.

Pinterest is another great place to go for ideas. I do have a large amount of personal pins and not as many professional but this is definately one of the first places I go to look for an idea.

One thing I discovered this year is archives of free webinars. I have found some great library topics and have enjoyed playing them while I’m doing open check-out. I have learned quite a bit on topics including using non-fiction, some of the newest releases by publishers, eBooks. Check out these websites to find out more.




Thursday, February 13, 2014

Day 12 - Meeting patron needs


What is 1 thing you have changed in your library to meet your patrons needs? What spurred the change?

Though I don’t think this decision was specifically influenced by needs of my patrons I have incorporated eBooks much more in the last year.  My reasons for doing this are
-       * I feel that students and teachers need to be exposed to another format of books.
-       * We live in a digital age.
-       * State testing will now take place on the computer. Students need to be exposed to books on the computer because they are being required to read from a screen during the test. Reading from a physical book is much different than reading a book on a computer screen. Students need that experience!