Closing Time

Closing Time,

Every new beginning comes from 

some other beginning's end...

And the boxing up/cleaning out/throwing away has begun.  Farewell dear giant popcorn display, you served me well!

It is the end of the school year.

We are in the very.last.month.of.school.

I've been through many YOEs, as this is my 23rd year to be an educator. 

For the past few years I've had it easy.  

Not this year.

Sure, I'll have inventory, writing reports, hounding the kids for missing books, assisting teachers in the Blitz (what we call the small window of time to prep the kids who did not pass the STAAR on the first go-round to pass it on the second) by teaching 2 sections of 8th grade Advanced ELA classes (novel study: Red Badge of Courage); basically, all the usual stuff.  

What makes this year different is that I am leaving.  In the words of Semisonic, I am gathering up my jackets, and moving it to the exits.

I'm leaving my middle school campus.  Oh, what adventures I've had there!  For 12 years Mike Moses Middle School has been my second home.  "A middle school librarian" is how I've defined myself.  I've met so many folks, had so many experiences, had some truly wonderful administrators and grown tremendously as a professional, and as a person in general.  I was blessed to have folks believe in me, and allow me to do some really awesome things like One Book, One School, Read-it-Forward, and author visits (over the years we've had Neal Shusterman, Roland Smith, Greg Neri, Jill Alexander, for example).  It is because I was at middle school that I have had the opportunity to be on the Lone Star committee and the Spirit of Texas MS committee.  

I loved the trips taking students to NYC with my dear friend and colleague Teresa Ragland, a force of nature; a whirling dervish of talent and the single best theatre teacher I've ever had the pleasure to know.  She left our campus a few years back, and while I've loved all who have come after her, Teresa has a sparkle that very few on this earth can claim.

long story. NYC joke from the time we got STUCK there for 4 extra days due to a freak snowstorm.  Good times.  

Most of my friends are folks I work with.  We've seen each other through tears of joy, and tears of sadness. We've baked for one another, sent kind notes to one another--and OH, have we ever laughed together! Both my children were born while I have worked at this campus. These are my people.  I will miss them. 

My students are in shock.  I'm happy to say the 8th graders seem thrilled.  It tickled me today when my library assistants were quietly arguing among themselves as to which one of them inspired me to move on up to HS with them.  My 7th and 6th graders are not.so.happy.  I've been there so long, and taught so many of their older siblings---well, I think they pretty much thought I was a given, you know?

My Girl Scout troop has met at my campus for the past 4 years.  All the glitter, chocolate fountains, GS cookies, and rounds of Make New Friends that have taken place in my library!  My library.   

Mine for only about a month longer.  And then I will truly turn in my keys for the first time ever (I am always going up over the summer working on something or other or gathering books to read) and I will be on my way up the road.  

And my life will be filled with new adventures and new friends (hey--I AM a Girl Scout, so I will definitely make new friends, but keep the old---one is silver and the other gold!) and new opportunities for fabulous growing experiences that will happen because I am at a high school.  

And I will laugh and sing and sprinkle glitter and the love of books where ever I am, because that's just how I roll, folks.  

Poetry in the library display

It's time to celebrate poetry in the library with a few special displays!  The bulletin board area is now completed---I'll post some of the other fun things we've added once we've finished them!

We added the Rainbow Dash My Little Pony (my daughter's newest Build-a-Bear) when the students saw it in my office and commented on how cute it was---seriously, these middle school kiddos are loving this retro plush on my display!

Student aides created some spine label poetry for the display area, as well.  I thought they did an amazing job on them.

A Day in the Life

     image from http://rebloggy.com/post/vintage-illustrations-libraries-librarians-tumblarians/67767519118

Earlier this weekend I read a blog post that the amazing Teri Lesesne posted on her FB page. Although Professor Nana, as she is also known, writes an incredible blog, this post was from another great blog called More Books than Time, and it was about the day in the life of the librarian writer of the blog.
Read the post HERE.

In her FB post, Dr. Lesesne mentioned that she thought more of us ought to talk about what it is we actually do---our job is, in fact, very like an iceburg---there is a LOT you don't see just looking at it from the outside.

Well, I couldn't agree more.  I loved reading Chris Margocs' post about her day and thought I'd share what a typical day (if there is such a thing) looks like for me.  This is my 12th year in my library, and my 15th year as a teacher-librarian.  In the course of those 12 years, the look of my day has certainly shifted, but the joy of spreading book love never dies!

• I get to work every morning between 6:45 and 7:00.  The first order of business is to get in my office and get the coffee brewing! I get my office computer and the two circ computers up and running and unlock all the library doors.  I no longer have an assistant, as when my former assistant retired a few years back, massive budget cuts were rolling through the state at the same time and we lost para positions on my campus.  Thus, all these jobs now fall to me. I make sure to get the circ computers up and running because I have a couple of kiddos that love to slip in and check books in for me or just sit and breathe in the library air for a couple of minutes instead of going to breakfast.  
• At 7:05 I'm throwing on my lovely safety-orange plastic vest and I'm off to breakfast duty.  This is new to me this year, as formerly students were allowed in the library before school and the library was my morning (and afternoon) duty station.  Now,I stand at the doorway to the food line greeting students and making sure the breakfast line moves along smoothly.  Nearly everyday during this time students dig books out of their backpacks that need to be returned and hand them to me---it often reminds me of a clown car--how DO they fit all those books in there???   ;)
• By 7:25 I'm closing up the moveable partition in the hallway with my breakfast duty colleague and entering the library, ready for my day.  Generally a teacher or two, on their way rushing to class stop long enough to see if we can schedule a time to collaborate on a lesson or ask if there is still any room in the week to bring their class down to get books.
• Usually after announcements I have about 15 to 20 minutes to check my emails and phone messages, and deal with any other "office business" I may have.  Up until the end of January, this included getting my lists together for ordering books and supplies.  All our monies had to be encumbered by January 31st, so the past few weeks have been especially busy with this!
• My library schedule is completely flexible, with teachers signing up for the time slots they need.   With that being said, I typically start seeing classes at 8:00.  Generally I have classes for 45 minutes at a time, and this leaves room for me to start off with a few book talks before the students find their reading materials to check out. Sometimes, I am able to teach lessons with the students--pre-planned, teacher requested collaborative lessons.  I LOVE these days, but they are fewer now than they used to be.  More often than ever before teachers just want their students to come quickly and check out books and get back to class. They give them about 15 minutes. The ever-increasing pressures of standardized testing at work.  The teachers regret it, and I certainly do, but they are really hard-pressed to fit all their requirements in without losing classtime--even for wonderful things like going to the library.  Anyway, I generally see between 4 and 9 whole class groups every day for a variety of things and I choose to focus on the positives (of which there are many!)
• Throughout the day students are coming to the library individually or in small groups to use the computers for this or that research project.  
• Every moment that students aren't in the library ---- or when they ARE, but are handling their library business I can be found at a table in the corner processing new books.  I used to buy all my books already processed, but those budget cuts I mentioned before hit the library rather hard and in order to get the most bang for my buck, I often process my own books.   Other than the never-ending facet of processing, I really enjoy this part; I find it to be almost Zen-like.  
• The final two periods of the day I have wonderful 8th grade student assistants.  They help in shelving, circulation, and creating displays.  Since the office no longer has student assistants they are also called on frequently to assist the office in making deliveries across the school.  Did I mention that these are some of the most hilarious, fantastic, genius and unique kids I know?  I would be lost without them.  
• One Act Play is now done, but for the majority of the school year every Tuesday and Friday after school  until 5:30  I assisted in directing our OAP students.  What fun!  

The remaining time in my job consists of all the "regular" stuff---book circulation, shelving, running reports, weeding old materials, assisting students and teachers as they need it.  I also spend  a bit of time on testing our students who have been referred to the GT program, and keeping those files organized. 

I honestly have the best gig in the world.  Are there changes I'd like to see made?  Of course--and as I work toward those goals I am continually grateful for all the wonderful parts of my daily work life.  I am a teacher-librarian.  Really, what could be better than that?

I'd love to hear about YOUR day-to-day work life!  

Read on, Gentle Readers; Read on!

Mrs. S

Blind Date with a Book

Not a novel idea anymore (sorry, hard to resist a bookish pun) as one can find pics of blind dating books all over the Internet (Pinterest, anyone? yes, please!), but one I haven't found time to do in my library...until now.

My student assistants had SUCH a great time choosing and wrapping these books for our Valentine display. True, they probably would have felt that way about anything that got them out of shelving for a couple of days, but they really did seem to enjoy working together to make this display.

I want to thank ALL librarians who joyfully share their fabulous ideas whether it be on your own blog, Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, or whatnot.  Seriously guys, sharing IS caring...and makes us ALL better.

You rock!
Mrs. S

the larger view

up close and personal with a few good books...

Ah, young book love.

Puppy love is overrated.  Give me books any day!

A new year filled with excitement!

2014 has been a year (okay, a month....um...partial month) filled with excitement already. Since returning to school on the 6th it has been relatively non-stop action in my library world---and I'm sure it has in yours, as well.  The spring semester always seems to move at a pace resembling what you'd experience on the Autobahn and my To Do list just keeps getting longer. 

I'm super excited about much of what is coming up, though, and that makes the pace more bearable.  (well, that, and I really did take a much needed timeout over the holidays).  I've been working on my Spirit of Texas middle school committee work with Jeri,  a wonderful library colleague, for one thing.  I could NOT POSSIBLY be more thrilled to work on developing programming focusing on fabulous Kelly Milner Halls' work. I've been a fan since reading her Cryptids book and hearing her speak at the Texas Library Association conference (TLA) a couple of years back.  And of course, if you scroll back in my blog you'll see the Thinglink I developed for Teen Read Week this year using her In Search of Sasquatch book! 

If you aren't familiar with the Spirit of Texas reading list (SPOT), please check it out---trust me, you'll love it and use it and thank me for introducing it to you!  There is a middle school level AND a high school level reading list---and the brjilliant part is that we have the programming all done and ready to roll for you (active, passive, and academic with the TEKS listed!)  

Seriously, go now and check out the lists and if you plan to attend the TLA conference in April come on out to the SPOT session to learn more. 

Along those lines, I've also been hard at work on my portion of the presentation that will be given by the #TXLchat moderators at both TCEA and TLA.  My portion deals with building your PLN, which just  happens to be a passion of mine, thus making it a total blast to work on the presentation.  By the way, be sure to join us for our next twitterchat on January 28th, 8:00pm CST!

Add to all this a dash of helping my students prepare for various academic competitions (One Act Play, Model United Nations and Future City for example),collaborating with 8th grade ELA teachers to create some innovative learning stations, and helping my own kiddos (daughter the eldest with her Girl Scout bronze award and cookie sales, daughter the youngest with learning to read)---well, you get the idea.  

I'll take another entire post to write about our upcoming author visit---I am SO STINKIN' EXCITED for author Greg Neri ( author of Ghetto Cowboy, Chess Rumble, Yummy)to visit our schools at the end of the month!

Believe me, I DO realize I'm not alone in all the business and busy-ness of the inquiry and book-filled existence that is being a school librarian.  I'd love to hear whats going on in your neck of the woods, too---nothing beats sharing ideas and learning from one another. 

Man, what a ride!  I can't wait to see what lies ahead in such a wonderful field and  in such exciting times.  

Read on gentle readers; Read on--

Mrs. S

image found at morguefile: http://mrg.bz/eo2VnI

Spring has Sprung

It is the Friday morning before Spring Break begins...ah, the joy of spring!






I have a quiet, quiet class of lovely 8th graders in here working on their literature project.  I have 2 boys working on GT products.  I hear the steady comforting hum of the computers in the background---white noise that I miss when they are turned off. 

This morning my coffee brewed to perfection.  With the addition of a goodly amount of French vanilla creamer and a touch of Splenda my work day began. 

I greeted over 75 kiddos in the library before school started.  Some come to play checkers, some to work or play games on the computers.  Others actually love to sit in one of our comfy couches or  ice cream scoop chairs and read.  We, of course, as a middle school do have the occasional kiddo or two who comes in to swagger & flirt & joke (sort of quietly), too.  I enjoy them all.  Even as I remind them to pull their pants up, tuck their shirts in, and keep their volume to a dull roar...I enjoy them.

I do so love my job.  Even the day before spring break.  Most especially today. 

Read on, Gentle Readers, Read on...

Mrs. S

photo from:http://www.nacogdochesazaleas.com/photos.php

Friday morning--a quick note

It is 7:04 on Friday morning.  My duty doesn't officially begin for 6 more minutes and  I am fortunate enough to have administrators that realize my morning duty station needs to be in the library.  This is the calm before the storm.  I'm standing here at my circulation desk looking out over the library, and already we have 2 kids playing checkers, with 3 students watching. Two little girls are discussing a research project at on table, and 8 students are on the computers.  I have 3 that have turned in books and are busy looking for new ones.  Within about 6 more minutes I will have upwards of 30 students in my little middle school library. 

I love that my students love to be in the library. 

Life is good, my friends.  Life is good. 

Must run...off to assist the students...