Kindergarten Scavenger Hunt

Kindergarten Scavenger Hunt
in the
Library Media Center

Students: Show your parents around the Library.
Draw a smiley face (or put an X) when you find each item.


__________ Story rug

__________ Holiday books (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Halloween…)

__________ Mrs. Carlson, the Library teacher

__________ Paperback books on the black spinning racks

__________ Magazines (by the Reference books)

__________ Books about animals

__________ Checkout counter

__________ Big screen TV

__________ Puppet Show Theater

__________ Pictures books you like to read

__________ Magic Tree House

__________ Hallway where we line up after Library class

__________ Tell your parents the 2 Library rules (ask Mrs. Carlson if you forget)

__________ Tell your parents your favorite book we’ve read this year.

Long Day

I'm trying to wrap up the days' events. If I don't get a few thoughts down, I might just let them get all mixed up in my memory. Today I started at Regranite, teaching four classes, and since our snow day yesterday meant that my materials were left at Riverview, I "punted." The classes went fine, but were not exactly what I had planned. So far, so good. Then I had some paperwork to do before leaving to travel to Wautoma for the afternoon. I barely had a half hour to cram in my lunch before my afternoon classes began. They come one on top of the other; six in a row. By the time the final bell rang, I normally would feel like just collapsing, but the day was just beginning! I had to make copies of my Scavenger Hunt for the Kindergarten Math/Reading night that started at 5:00 and went until 7:00. I also make copies of a DPI brochure for parents that talks about the LMC program (those had to be tri-folded). THEN I had to be over at the high school by 3:30 to our first 3-year Long Range Planning Committee meeting this year. It felt like a pretty big waste of time, or at least, I should say, I don't think we got anything accomplished other than setting another meeting date (in spite of our curriculumm coordinator trying her best to get us focused and actually DOING something). I left at eight minutes til 5:00...just barely enough time to get back to Riverview for the parent night with kindergarteners.

The plan is to have a light supper, let the Kinders & parents go to their classrooms where they will have math and reading activities (for as long as the parents would like). They finish the evening by coming to the Library and doing an easy Scavenger Hunt I created. Since we were "last," it was slow at first, but there soon was a steady stream of families coming & going. What fun! I loved watching the kids show their parents around their Library! The kids got a special (moveable mouth) dinosaur bookmarker (which has to be read to every day or he might start nibbling on their noses or toes!) and a fish tatoo. [Those were items I inherited from the previous LMS.] About 7:10 I was able to shut off the library lights and think about calling it a night, or can I? Nope, now I have to go home and work (after I stop and buy some last minute groceries for the ski trip)! My husband and teenage sons are leaving tomorrow to go skiing in Colorado for a week. They never seem to miss me much UNLESS the snow or weather is bad! A-packing we will go...

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!!!

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...
Here it is Tuesday night, still snowing, with only 4 degrees and gusty winds making it well below zero wind chill. Brrrr... Our district dismissed the students a whole 15 minutes early today! I'm glad to be indoors and warm, even though I'll have to go outside to stoke the wood burner.

Yesterday afternoon I had two classes at the Wautoma Early Learning Center (our 4K program through our district & Headstart). I did the book The First Day of Winter, which can be sung to the tune of The 12 Days of Christmas. We used the pictures that one of my third grade classes drew, and had us a great time of "singing" our book! One of the kids asked me to bring that one back every month! From the response, even the 4K staff, I think it was a hit. Since they have different morning and afternoon classes, I'll be going back there in the morning to do two A.M. classes (unless we have a late start or snow day).

Our district Long Range Tech Planning committee meeting was postponed from tonight to Thursday after school. So ... Tonight I'm working at home designing a Library Scavenger Hunt for our Kindergarten Math/Reading night for this Thursday evening (5:00-7:00P.M.) at Riverview. We will have a seperate Math/Reading night for each of the other three grade levels (1st, 2nd, & 3rd) next month, so I'll do a different set of Scavenger Hunt questions for them.

To Update or Not to Update?...That is the question...

We use Sagebrush InfoCentre for our circulation system (which was purchased by Follett a while back). This fall, we were sent the link to update the system, but our district tech personnel must do it. I've requested it done, and once, about a month ago when I actually spoke to our tech coordinator IN PERSON, he at first told me that they'd probably wait, because there was no sense in updating the system if we were going to switch to Destiny (Follett's system) in the fall. BUT then he added, "but you are the library media specialists, and I'll do whatever you tell me...you're the media specialists." (I did ask him if I could quote him on that!)

Friday I emailed him again and said, "Please update our library InfoCentre with the newest version that we got this fall." His response?? "Not sure if I mentioned this before or not. If you are not having issues with it, I don't want to upgrade it to the latest version as I believe there is no benefits to it. I spoke with Mr. Reese about it and I think the best time for this is summer time." [Mr. Reese is our high school media specialist who told me last fall that he has only about 10 students who regularly come in to check out books. (hopefully that has changed)]

Any advice??? Ideas???

Due to Technical Difficulties...

This is going to be short tonight. Thursdays are always a very hectic day for me with having 10 library classes at two different buildings. I start my day in Redgranite at 7:45 and have four classes there. Then I travel to Wautoma (Riverview) and teach 6 more classes. I come home each Thursday pretty wiped out!

To top it all off, tonight when I got home and ready to blog, I couldn't log in! There was a message that my blog was flagged for questionable content! Go figure! If THIS is "questionable content," I'd hate to see the real thing. Hmmmm....

One frustration at Redgr. was that 3 of my Follett orders (which I've done monthly) all just arrived! My Christmas order coming now means that most of those books will be in fairly good shape for next year! The kids are always SO excited to see the new books, and so am I. It's almost like having Christmas myself!

If any of you find anything "questionable" about my daily content, PLEASE let me know! You are/were invited to this blog to help me learn "the ropes" (so to speak). Please keep me accountable. Thanks! Snoozing off for now...

Curriculum & Tech Integration

This afternoon I went to the CESA5 website and printed up some copies of several technology checklists and grade level tech standards that we need to incorporate into our library program. Since we had our library curriculum meeting tonight after school, I printed up a copy for each of us. (We will actually start on our 3-year tech plan on Jan. 29th after school.) The three of us met with our curriculum coordinator, Sandi Jarvis. For more than an hour we discussed a wide variety of curriculum issues, especially in light of our upcoming tech plan.

I found out that the district library curriculum that I found this fall hidden on the shelf, was actually from the 90's! (This was at the end of our meeting as the others were ready to leave, so there wasn't any discussion.) The previous LMS had left me a small binder with her basic lesson plans for the year...but no actual curriculum. Sounds like we DO have a big task ahead of us! I stayed and talked with the curriculum coordinator until 5:30 before I headed back over to my building to get my materials for Redgranite, where I begin my day tomorrow.

Two items of extreme interest to me were to learn Moodle, which our high school LMS works with, and "voice threads." (Transforming media into collaborative spaces with video, voice and text commenting.) I think there are a lot of possibilities with these in our program.

As Sandi and I were leaving the Middle School, a former student said, "there's our library teacher!" Yea! I'm STILL a "teacher!"

Flexibility...

That seems to be the name of the game. Ann (my principal) called me about 6:15 A.M. and asked if I could go ahead and work in the Library until the sub gets there. (If you remember, I already had a sub scheduled for today as I had planned on being in Madison) The sub had to teach in a 2nd grade classroom until the teacher could arrive...who had to wait until her kids got off to school...since their district had a 2-hour delay! Sound confusing? Well, it all worked out okay. After explaining procedures to the sub, I finally got over to Parkside in time to have lunch with Sally. We had a chance to visit a bit, but after lunch she let me look through her library resources & teacher resource books to see what ones I might be able to use! That is appreciated! I worked on cataloging (while she was involved with the Spelling Bee contest (held in the library). We talked about some budget & curriculum issues, as well as the possiblity of her position being cut after she retires at the end of next year. (that would NOT be a good thing at all!)

After school I went back over to Riverview and worked on cataloging until 8:15! I was able to get 70 books and 3 DVD's finished and the labels run. Now, if I can get my assistant to put them on & tape them Wed. it would be great! So...my day turned out differently than planned, but it ended up just fine. It keeps me on my toes.