Ugh Oh

How is that you look up one day and it's April and you are counting down the days until school is out?  Well that is what has happened here.  I thought I had blogged some stuff that is happening but I log in and low and behold The Elf on the Shelf is the last time.  So Ugh oh.  There goes my promise to myself to blog more often.  In my defense I have written new blogs at least once a week (in my head while trying to go to sleep) we all know that feeling.

I feel like a lot has changed in the library since December.  So let's see.  We started skill tubs for Kinder and 1st to use when they come to the library for "free time."  I hate to call it free time but each teacher does things differently so for some it is Daily 5 time and some it is Center time and some it might just be free time.  We noticed the little ones were kinda lost with too many choices when they came alone so we came up with that schedule that I talked about in a previous post about Flex Scheduling.

That has gone so well with the kids kinda of having a daily schedule and the skill tubs were a hit.  I still kinda of think of them as a "table tub" or "morning work tub" from the classroom.  We started with a few for Kinder and 1st and we dreamed them up based on what they were learning in the classroom.  They have now tripled and we keep adding more and taking some away.

The kids quickly figured out what they liked the best.  Cup stacking and Legos are always a hit.  We have cup stacking with sight words and contractions and Lego's with math problems that are well used.

Skill tubs go with the TEKS and have a K for Kinder or a 1st for First Grade or both

Cup Stacking and Duplos to add to the sum of 10 or 20

Sudoku and Cup stacking with contractions using NOT

building CVC words and counters

Since we all have favorites we wanted to find a way to have the kids use them all.  What better way that to use popsicle sticks and have them pull for the tub they will use that day.  We made them red and blue to match the box labels.  They just draw a stick and that is the skill tub they work on that entire time.  This seems to have solved our problem and I'm sorry we didn't do it sooner.  Live and learn right.  

Each tub has a stick and when we remove the tub we take the stick out.

Until next time.  I promise it won't be 4 months and instead of writing this in my head I might actually get it down here.

Happy Reading

Kathy

Lola the Elf on the Shelf

So my child is almost 21 and I never had the pleasure of having an Elf.  I have had some fun in the past with my nieces Elf and my best friends elf when I have been home at Christmas time.  Now for these 5-7 times I had a blast and was sad that my son didn't have that experience.

Well after 3-4 years of having a library Elf I GET it!!!!  I totally get why parents are all grumpy and nuts messing with this elf.  In the library it sure is fun to see 400+ kids search for her everyday but it is also hard to keep finding places high enough where she can't be touched.  My 2nd year with her she got touched a bunch and spent 10 days, yes I said 10 days in the Elf hospital.  I sure hope I taught those little "touchers" a lesson.  I want to leave and go home at 3:30 like everybody else, but NOOOOO I have to wait and make sure there are no teachers kids or after school club kids or tutoring kids around because sure enough I move him and bam there is a kid.  Ugh.  So she has been in some pretty lame places I must admit.  My favorite place to put her what I call the "Miley Cyrus" She is coming in on a wrecking ball.

Now don't get too excited I haven't done much of anything thrilling with her.  Here are just a few others.

Kindergarten was watching a Puppet show this week so Lola was watching them

Again Lola watching the Puppet Show

Lola peeking out from the Magic Tree House.  You can see Annie in there too.

I guess she didn't think we had enough decorations so she added some garland.

Playing Jenga with The Three Little Pigs, Gerald and Piggie, and Junie B.

Riding the horse from There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly

Trying to catch the Fairy coming out of the Fairy Door.  I wonder if Fairies and Elves know each other?

Lola in a snow globe, she also happens to be holding a clue to a breakout that a 2nd grade class was doing.

Hanging out with the breakout boxes.  Looks like she Broke Out!!!

Now what else will Lola get into?  Let's see I have 6 more days to have her ready.  Oh and did I mention I got up and got to school early this morning because I forgot to move her last night even when I was here late and NO children were here!!!

Challenge Tubs and Skill Tubs

In my last post I talked about the kids coming to the library during their center time from their classrooms.  We worked with their teachers to kinda set some rules about what they should be doing. We want them to always have the option of checking out a book.  However sometimes they don't need a new one yet and we want them to have the freedom of using the centers in the library.  We call them Cozy Corners but this year we added many things.  We wanted some specific skills that the students can work on that go along with what they are doing in class.  To start this I attend all the grade level planning meetings to find out how we can help and what we can do to extend their skills in the library.  That is how our Skills Tubs were born.

We started with the basic retelling of a story with First Grade and rhyming words with Kindergarten.   We have many props and felt board pieces that can be used for retelling a story.  My aide, Becca is also a genius at making things from nothing.  If I come up with a big idea she can make it happen.
For instance imagine making patterns in math.  She came up with making a tree out of pipe cleaners and using colored beads for the kids to make patterns on the branches.  We also include "Challenge Yourself" cards in as many of the boxes as we can.

Skill Tubs have "Challenge Yourself" cards in them

                                     

We put the items in a clear plastic size shoe box, which is what we use for all of our tubs in the library.  We found a perfect spot on the bottom of the Easy section.  That little wasted space is no longer wasted.  We marked the boxes with the grade and Skill tub and bam you have a perfect skill tub.  When we are ready to rotate them out we just take the skill tub tag off and reuse the parts for something else or let the teachers use them in their classrooms.

Using the bottom shelves to store these

Sensory tubs are also a big deal in our library and you would be shocked to know that the 5th graders love them just as much and the Kindergartners do.  If you want to learn more about them you can read the blog post from last year here.  http://donaldelemmediacenter.blogspot.com/2015/09/sensory-tubs.html 

These are just a few that are in the works.

Our Challenge Lab is new this year.  I have continued to struggle with running a good makerspace area where I felt the kids were really learning?  I've spent plenty of money on building things like Magnatiles, K'Nex and of course legos.  I always let the kids "play" with them but I thought maybe there needed to be some more structure or direction.  That is where the idea of a Challenge Lab came from.  Our gifted and talented teacher is doing challenges in here classroom for the entire school every week and I realized I could build off of this concept and really transform my makerspace area.

We still have a green screen wall that can be used but we also have one in another room in the building.  We have 4 different areas in there (as soon as our new bookshelves get here we will.) We will have the Challenge Tub area, the Build area, the Can you Make area, and the Electronic area.

The Challenge tubs will challenge the kids to build things with the materials provided. Each tub has a ring of pictures for them to look at and try to build.  This is where the challenge part comes in.  Everybody can build a tall tower,  but try building a 3-D object or a trap.  We have tubs with a deck or cards, unifix cubes, dixie cups, popsicle sticks and other things. There are also math challenge tubs included. 

Challenge tub cards

                                         

The Build tubs have building materials like lego's, K'NEX, Magnatiles, Straw Connectors and other building blocks. These can be used to build the same structures we have in the Challenge tubs or just free building.

The Can you Make tubs have things like sewing, bookmarks, greeting cards, weaving, rainbow loom and origami.

The electronic things are all of our robot and coding things.  

I hope you get some great ideas from this or just see what our kids are doing.

Welcome to Flex Scheduling........

Well not totally flex but almost.  I was thrilled to learn that because of the numbers at school I am only in rotation for 3rd and 5th grade.  It has open a world of possibilities for my school.  Before I came to Donald I had been in a flex schedule for 13 years. So I was ready for the challenge.

Stress always comes with something new.  I think teachers were sad to think their kids wouldn't be coming to library every week.  So it was my job to dispel that myth.  Let me tell you my circulation numbers are on the rise..

My Kindergarten and First grade teachers were all for sending a small group of students to the library during their Daily 5/Literacy station time but we realized we needed a little direction for them.  If you recall from a post last year we read Marley Goes to School by John Grogan to Kinder at the start of every year.  We talk about Marley causing mischief in the school.  We then use little brown dogs and tape them to all the Cozy Corners (this is our name for centers) that they can use.  This is their visual where they don't have to ask us if they can play or use something.  We had to come up with the way for the kids to know what they should be doing.  The teachers send them down in groups of 3-5 with a timer, usually an ipad and they have 30 minutes.  Well you know it doesn't take but about 2 minutes for the little ones to check out a book.  So after checking out they have some choices.  Our Kindergarteners can check out, read, do a skill tub and then a cozy corner and 30 minutes is plenty of time for them.

We made these little passes for them.  We have one hanging so we can remember what they are suppose to do as well. 

Each of our Kindergarten classes has a name like the bunnies or the puppies so their pass uses that picture so we can tell where they came from quickly. 

The First Grade teachers had a few different ideas.  They actually have two times during the day where the teacher pulls small groups and the other students have station time.  So what they want their kids in the library to do looks like this.  Even though they have "check out a new book" only on Monday the kids can check out any day they need to return their books.

Next weeks post will be about our Challenge Lab and Skill Tubs

Can't wait to share all the cool things that go on there.

Cozy Corners (Centers Part 2)

As promised this is part 2 of Cozy Corners, last week I said to start small and grow from there.  Some other centers we are using that cost very little.  While digging through old "stuff" in closets and workrooms we came across several of the clear overhead manipulatives that nobody uses anymore. Now if you still use an Overhead projector your kids might not find this very exciting but our younger kids have never seen an Overhead Projector.  We called our warehouse and asked if they had any sitting around, they did and sent us one the next day.  As I said last week we used the book drop cart and turned it into a puzzle table, so that leaves an open space where the cart was.  We put the overhead on a little scooter (it was in bad shape and the PE teacher gave it to us) and slid it in that space.  So the overhead cozy corner is now out of sight unless somebody is using it.  We put all the little manipulatives in a container and they kids project it on the wall and use it.  For fun sometimes we even put paper for them to trace the shapes on.  We have tangrams, counters, money and clocks for them to use.

Introducing the Overhead to Kindergarten

Playing with the Overhead

It projects perfectly onto the wall in front of it.

When not in use we just push it back and out of the way.  Pieces are stored in little drawers.

Felt Board Fun has been a huge hit.  Remember the days when we used it all the time to tell a story, well guess what the kids still love and they don't know much about it.  We found a set of felt characters from The Three Little Pigs and and thought we would use it during a read aloud.  The kids loved it so much off to Michaels and Hobby Lobby we went.  We bough cheap scraps of felt and cut out turkey feathers and turkey parts for our first Felt Board Fun.  Remember that easel we used last week for the big books, well we used the back side and put felt on it and bam we had a new Cozy Corner.

We used a plastic show box and bull clips to hold it on.  The clip on the lip of the box holds it there and they
can put the pieces of felt in the box.

Found these little kits at Michaels for under $5.00

Our Turkey - it was Grandparent luncheon and book fair so Grandpa was helping

I had a corner that wasn't really being used so I bought 6 yards of black felt - I don't sew so even trying to figure out felt was funny.  Stapled it up on the wall and we have a wall to do bigger things.  I even cut and painted all the tiles for Scrabble and the older kids like to play Scrabble.

Winter snowman and our year round tree that shows the seasons

In October we used the Skeleton with the book Bones by Steve Jenkins as a connection

"Do you wanna build a Snowman"  Of course they do.

Scrabble Wall.  

Doodle and Draw was also easy to get started and maintain.  We found a small white board in a closet and pulled it out with some dry erase markers and the kids love to write and draw on it.  If a color sheet can be found that goes with a read aloud story we will copy it and put it out for the younger kids.  I also found some Doodle and Draw books and plain white scratch paper, included some buckets or markers and crayons and there you go.  We put clip boards there so they can move around with their papers.  

White board

Doodle and Draw Cozy Corner

Some kids drawing, you can see the Big Book and Felt easel in the back

Color pages from Teddy Bear Picnic

The last Cozy Corner I want to share with you today is a Bigger than Life Shelving game.  We asked the kids to bring in cracker boxes and cereal boxes and we covered them with paper and made them look like a book.  We have them sort them into the Dewey Classification and then self them in the proper order.  I ended up some empty shelves after weeding so they actually do it on a real shelf.  We are going to have the older kids put them on the real shelf where they go mixed in with the real library books.   No cost at all for this Cozy Corner.

Shelf Me

Now I should tell you that we are a full iPad campus so all of my students have an iPad that they have at home and school everyday.  You will notice none of these Centers have anything to do with technology and we did that on purpose.  We use plenty of technology in projects and lessons.  

Cozy Corners (Centers) Part 1

If  you have a student at Donald then chances are you have heard of Cozy Corners, but what are they?    Basically they are Centers in the Library.  We started with just a few that seemed like the most natural thing.  Reading with Snuggles (stuffed animals,)  Reading books alone to each other and spelling words with letters.

We call our stuffed animals "Snuggles" and the kids love to read to them.

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Here you can see she is just reading to herself using a whisper phone.  Behind her you can see the laundry basket where we keep Big Books and the easel that is used to read them on.

If you shop at craft stores chances are you will find wooden letters  of all sizes and color.  We started collecting them and put them in a basket with ABC books and the kids would spell words from the book.  Now the boys built towers with them, but I'm sure they learned something:-)

The students of course loved this and so did we.  We have the kids for 50 minutes and checking out books and read aloud doesn't take that long so we added Cozy Corners.  As the months went on and we added more and more.  Things like Re-telling a story, Word Work,  Felt Board Fun and Sensory Tubs.  I'll talk about Sensory Tubs in another blog because they have taken on a life of their own.

You will notice in this retelling a story center that the pieces are made out of felt and paper.  We didn't have all the right characters so we just made them.

Several of my teachers use Daily Five so we made some rice bottles and put season words in them for the kids to find and write.  Coloring rice is super easy.  Put rice in a zip lock bag, squirt in some water color pain and mash it around.  When the rice is covered lay it on newspaper to dry.  Super easy

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You can start small then add to it as you get more funds, find bargains at garage sales or just rummage through closets and cabinets at school.

Library friends if you are looking to start centers then I would suggest start with what you have.  We discovered we had a ton of Big Books that teachers didn't use anymore and they were too big for kids to check out.  We set up an easel with a pointer and bam Center #1.  The kids love to act like the teacher and read to other students in the audience.  

Now how many of you have subscriptions to magazines that don't get used much?  Well make it into a center and maybe give the kids "Whisper Phones" and you have a center that was no work at all.   We even through in some special carpet squares to make it special.  

Do you still use the book drop?  I don't anymore so I had the book drop cart that was just taking up space so we turned it into a puzzle table.  It cost nothing and we had no trouble finding puzzles for the kids to put together.  The pieces don't even fall off because of the lip of the cart.  We did put some clear tape around the edge inside so the table wouldn't drop down.  

Start small and watch it grow.  I will talk more next week about more of our Cozy Corners.

Alan November

So I don't like to toot my own horn or say "Hey Hey look at me, look what I'm doing."
I also worry........
-Are the kids learning
-Am I doing enough
-Do the teachers think  the kids are just playing
-Do people think I'm just a babysitter for 50 minutes
-I saw another librarian doing that, I'm not doing that

The list can go on and on.  I was comfortable with the job I was doing when I was at the same school for 15 years and I knew the teachers respected and appreciated me.  Then I made the move to another school and had to start all over.  It was scary and it was a bad time for me in my personal life.  My father's health went down and I spent a lot of time in Mississippi taking care of him and then had to move him to an Assisted living place here.  So to say the least I don't think I was at the top of my game my first year at my new school.  I turned the library program upside down and things seemed to be going well.  The kids liked me, they liked coming to the library so I guess things are ok.

Fast Forward to October 2014 and Alan November came to our district to do some presentation for parents.  Parent U was a big hit and we heard lots of positive things.  He had 2 hours before his presentation and he chose to come to Donald.  Wow what a big deal.  As soon as he got in the building you see the library.  Well it just happened to be the start of our Story book Pumpkins on Parade.  That got his attention right away and he got out his phone and started taking pictures.  Before you know it he is in the library talking to me, taking pictures, and talking to the kids.  Now you would think he would be impressed with the fact that we were talking about Digital Citizenship and maybe he was but he was more impressed with the library, all the stuff we have, the creative play the kids can do and the fact that they were so engaged.

On top of that one of our Associate Superintendent was with Mr. November that day.  After stopping in the library with him she got so involved with what was going on in the library that she didn't even go visit any of the classrooms, she stayed with us.  She then told me that our library might be her new happy place and how impressed with what we were doing, how the library looked, and our Cozy Corners.  

After this day I felt very proud of what I have created at Donald, so for this month I'm not second guessing everything I am doing.  I'm still not going to toot my horn but I'm going to take the compliments and be proud of myself!!