Welcome Back

I can't believe another year has gone by and it is already FALL!  That's what the calendar says but mother nature is playing a very cruel trick on us in Texas.  I'm have to admit that I am hot and grumpy all.the.time!  I can't wait for a break in this weather.

We are into year 2 of being an STEM Academy and we added another 4th grade class this year, so we are up to 620 something kids.  I feel like I am starting over every year with teaching the rules and procedures and this year seems to be taking a little longer.  I'm ready for all the hard work to pay off and I know it will just like it does every year.

I wrote about the 5 different things that each 1st grade class can do in the library and they are moving right along and doing great.  I wanted to give a shout to Lyndsey Kuster and her morning tubs that I bought on TPT.  I was trying to get inspired and when I ran across her complete set for the entire year, I made the easy choice to just buy them and save myself a lot of work.  Best money I have spent.

These activities, I call them Skill Tubs, renforce what they have learned or are learning in 1st grade.  Each tub has a number and the kids draw a stick and that stick has a matching number, so if they draw 13 that day then they do Skill tub 13.  Makes life easy for us all.

The kids do a great job of figuring out what to do without any directions.  They are allowed to ask each other before they come talk to me. 

I have added a ton of new Investigation Stations that I got from Scholastic bookfair money.  That catalog is full of great stuff, if you catch it at the right time.

I'm not in the specials rotation for 2nd grade this year so I wanted something for them to do when they come to library as a station.  I set up the Question of the Week station for them.  We are using Pebblego to answer the questions for the first semester, after that I will make the questions a little harder and we will use Worldbook and Britannica.  By doing this I pretty much only have to have one or two lessons on the data bases and then they use them every week.  The 2nd grade teachers are also able to take a grade on their answers.  It's a win win for everybody.

Last but not least I got a pet for the library.  Some of you may know that I personally own a pet pig, her name is Tallulah and when she was little I could bring her to school.  Now is she is 5 and full grown and she does NOT like riding in the car.  I thought why not get a Bearded Dragon.  So I did my research (not well enough of I would have used the Pets for the Classroom grant) and bought a Bearded Dragon and named him/her Dewey.  Shocking, right!?

He is the coolest little thing and the kids LOVE him.  He is being read to 90% of the day.  Kids I have never seen now come to the library.  It was really a great decision and I'm so happy I made it.  Now I did fork out more money than I thought I would because I didn't think about the weekends or breaks.  So basically I have a tank at home with everything and one at school so he can go home with me on the weekends.  I honestly think he was bored the first weekend at home after being at school.  Nobody was reading to him:-)

Of course you all have to see my number one girl, Tallulah.  You can follow her on social media as well.  @Totally_Tallulah

She is my Heart!!!

Happy Reading,

Kathy

I'm now a STEM Academy Librarian

So what does that mean - well it means a lot actually.  We applied in our district to be the first STEM Academy. We got it and things started moving.  First about 35 of us started the process to get our STEM certification from the National Institute for STEM Education.  It took months and months for us to do our observations and then do each module.  There were 38 in all.  I'm proud to say I'm the first librarian in the STATE of Texas to have this certification.  They weren't 100% sure but I may have been the first in the US.  Whoot Whoot!!!!  I'll take that.

So I thought I needed to step up my game in the library.  I'm still only in Specials rotation for Kindergarten and 2nd grade which are both in the afternoon.  My morning are total flex.  Most of it is spent with 1st grade coming to stations during their Daily 5 time from their classroom.

So I decided to revamp Cozy Corners, which you can go back and read about here.  I changed them from Cozy Corners to Investigation Stations.  I tried to incorporate more engineering things into them.  I have spent a lot of my Scholastic Book fair money/points buying things for these stations.  I also made a bunch of them myself and some I bought on TPT.  Yes I took the easy way out.  There are some great lego STEM mats and Play dough mats I found.

I included some pictures of the the titles of all the stations and some of them and how I store them.  Some aren't appropriate for Kindergarten so to make it easier for them I put a big Orange K on the ones they can use.

If you have read my post in the past you know I have sensory tubs, skill tubs and the challenge lab.  I still have all of those things as well.  You can go back and read about them as well. Contact me with any questions.

hoffmank@lisd.net

Kathy