Life Comes at You Fast
LIFE COMES AT YOU FAST-Wasn’t it just yesterday that school was GETING OUT! I have spent this past week attending inservices and trying to get in my mind what I need to focus on this year in the library. I guess my first goal is to collaborate even more with my teachers and become even more visible- Advocacy - the new buzz word.
After meeting with all my grade levels except kindergarten (ran out of time) I have a good idea of what they need based on a lot of things like…. benchmarks, curriculum standards, new reading series and information from the end of the year data chats.
I went to my 5th grade teachers first, because I feel those students haven’t been using the library as much as I wanted them to, and I wanted to get the teachers “take” on this. They agreed! They felt the problem was getting the students motivated to read - I was surprised to hear this - but we came up with some things that they felt the kids would get excited over - One was blogging and using that as a literacy center. We are going to be working with our literacy coach to help us set up a rigorous center and I will show them how to set up a blog- well as much as I know about one - which isn’t much. It will be based on “stuff” that they are reading. Also we are going to do live book reviews on the TV news that we broadcast throughout the school. The teachers wanted to do some blogging using the Volunteers Book - so we are going to think on that and see what we can do. I have met with our computer teacher and we are going to have a podcasting club after school and it will be on book reviews also.
With the 4th grade teachers, they requested I spend some time with the students on author’s purpose. So this is a start - 3rd grade teachers really wanted some help with the standards that dealt with the parts of the book and reference materials.
My second grade teachers are really into AR and all the book clubs that we have at the school - Newbery Book Club, Caldecott Book Club, Century Book Club, Volunteer Book Club, and our AR WALL OF FAME. So they want me to continue to encourage the students to become members of all the clubs.
First grade teachers took a look at the new reading series and came up with a list of enrichment materials - book that they never get enough time to do - so I will be reading those and working it in with first grade accomplishments.
So I have an idea about what I need to do to get started and I really feel good about meeting with all the teachers formally. Usually it has been on an informal basis- in the hall, parking lot or bathroom. This year my schedule is fixed, but I will be able to meet with each grade level when they have their collaboration planning and when they have their data chats. Yes, it will really cut into my processing time, but something has to give you know -
One great thing about meeting with all the teachers, is that I hear some great ideas - Jessica, my 4th rubrics queen - helped me put together this great rubrics for checking out books - She suggested that after I go over it with the older students, give them a copy and a highlighter and have them check out books using the rubrics and grade themselves using the highlighter - highlighting the squares on the rubric. She said she does this in her class and the kids do a good job “self assessing” - what a great everyday skill. So I am going to try that -
Well I have to go fix roast and get ready for the work week - LIFE COMES AT YOU FAST!
