Quick Friday Notes

First off, thank you for all the feedback from you Christmas movie "experts" out there. It's great to get a dialogue going. 

Maggie has been rehearsing for the "Home for the Holidays" show at Columbia College for the last several weeks. Shows started last night and we have five more through Sunday. It's fun and all, but really cutting into my movie time.

Couple of notes...

Listening devices
We have ordered a set of headphones to go with a laptop lab. Thank you, Angie! When those are in, I'll get them prepped and organized so using them will be as easy as possible. Also, I do have earbuds in the media center. I would prefer to give them out to 1:1 classrooms so they can be used for as long a period of time as possible. But if you are in a pinch, let me know. 

Bookroom materials
I got a huge influx of new book sets over my book fair holiday. I'm starting to get those catalogued and into circulation. 

AIMS Web on iPads
I have received word that students can do AIMS Web on the iPads. It was supposed to have been pushed automatically to all students but if it's not on there now, it can be downloaded from Self Service. They said it can be done on all large iPads. 

Have a great weekend! 

Early Holiday Special

I'm keeping this short and totally unrelated to school. Because you've earned it! In case you didn't know, I'm a fairly big fan of Christmas movies. And if you didn't know, you have to start watching early to get them all in before New Year's Day. So I'm sharing my two most important documents with you today...

Matt's Fairly Comprehensive List of Christmas Movies - a spreadsheet of movies with descriptions and a cocoa rating (1 cocoa = awful, 5 cocoas = spectacular). I'm still adding 2018 movies. Please tweet at me with your own assessments, but be prepared to be served with a "Matt was right, and I was wrong" button if your take is flawed or misguided. 

Matt's Christmas Bingo 2.0 - 8 unique cards to play with your family and friends. New improved from the 2016 version. 

Have an awesome Thanksgiving break!!

Book Fair Special!

I can't believe it's this time of year already! After a series of phone calls and emails, I spent this week trying to get caught up on my first book fair. So I wanted to make sure everyone is in the loop. Here are the known details in an exciting calendar format...

November 7-9 classes - Students will be viewing the riveting promo video and then checking out like normal. 

November 9th - Book fair arrives. I'll keep it closed up and "out of the way" until after school. No changes to the regular library routine. 

November 12th - Set up the book fair in the library. I'll have some helpers here to get everything in place during the day. No changes to regular library time.

November 12th after school - Come to the Teacher Preview Extravaganza! Look around and pick out books you would like for your Teacher Buckets! Woo hoo!

November 12-15 classes - Students will be filling out wishlists. We'll be keeping these wishlists organized and at school to help parents and grandparents shop for their kids. I realize there will be conferences before some kids have the opportunity to make a wishlist, but that's just how life goes sometimes.

November 13 - Book Fair open from 3:30 to 7:00

November 14 - Book Fair open from 3:30 to 5:00

November 15 - Book Fair open from 3:30 to 8:00

November 19 - I am looking at this day for any straggling students to come in and make purchases. I figure they've had a week for their parents to come to conferences and make purchases, so there shouldn't be a high demand. I'll give you details on how I want kids sent to the media center when I figure it out! 

November 20 - Grandparent's Day Sale. This should be fun. The book fair will be open starting at 12:30 for grandparents. I believe the programming starts at 1:40 so they'll have some time to shop. They can also come back in after the program. We'll have all wishlists here so they can grab the list and spend lots of money that otherwise would have been spend on Bingo. We'll stay open until 4:00.

In other news:

• The wonderful Kendra should be sending out a volunteer form via Parentlink tonight calling for help. 
• Because we're so awesome, everyone will be getting a $5 gift card to use.
• I'm doing the math now so I don't have specifics, but you will be getting some amount of credit to spend. If you were used to getting a huge payout at the old school, you might be disappointed. More mouths to feed this year!

I hope that's about as clear as can be. If you have awesome ideas to share, I'd be glad to hear them. But I can't promise that I'll use them this time around! 

Have a great weekend!

Spooktacular Updates

What a week! I know many of you were disappointed that there wasn't a post last week. But don't worry because I'm back and at nearly 95%! Here are your updates:

Halloween buttons and Writing contest
I think I've gotten to nearly every class this month to make Halloween buttons. First grade was holding out on me, but we'll take care of them on Monday! Don't worry, I just purchased another 1000 buttons. So we're good for awhile. You may have seen some student writing displayed in the library. These are submissions for the "Harris Burdick" writing contest for grades 3-5. Winners get a free book from Amazon! We'll do something similar for K-2 next month. 

3D printing bonanza
I got our new 3D printer fired up and working overtime to make some cool samples. This machine is available for anyone to use. We can make nearly anything using some design software. Letters, numbers, words, shapes, etc. A small print does take around 30-45 minutes, so it's not a good setup for each kid in a class printing something. But if you are interested, let me know so we can work something out. In the meantime, stop by to see some of our creations. 

DBRL Connections
There are several programs that are free from Daniel Boone Libraries that we can take advantage of. If you are interested in either or both, let me know.

• Library card drive - DBRL will come out to help sign up students for library cards. Cards are mailed to their homes
• Library field trips - these are free and open to any grade level. 

MACH Menu

A little later than advertised, but check out the link below for a list of really cool equipment we have available to use. How might we use these, you ask? Lots of ways! I have met with kindergarten to come up with a monthly plan for maker activities. I'd be happy to meet with you as well. There's always a way to integrate new ideas into your existing curriculum or we could do stand alone projects. I'm also weighing a few larger challenges to launch in the coming weeks. Here's the list of really great stuff we have to use.

Pineapple drought?

Although I know a lot of cool stuff is happening in your classrooms, it seems that most of you are too shy to add it to the board. Well, enough of that! It's the easiest way for teachers to learn from what you are doing. I will be pulling a pineapple card on Tuesday next week and the teacher who gets pulled will get a book from Amazon!

Hope you have a great weekend!

Finding Joy

I apologize in advance for this Dr. Phil moment...

I had a media specialist meeting (no, they don't call them library teacher guy meetings yet) on Tuesday. My coordinator mentioned that people seem more stressed than usual this early in the year. She pointed us to an article about finding moments of joy in your day. So I've been thinking of that point this week and have found it's not hard at all to find joyous moments throughout the day. There are so many awesome kids here, but it's hard not to let moments of stress and frustration dominate the "how was your day" answer. Here are some of my moments from this week. 

Kindergarten bookmarks

4th Grade Halloween buttons

He was so proud to write his name!

3rd Grade Halloween buttons

Reading club with Mrs. Kunkel's class

3rd Grade Halloween button

On your checkout day....
Please, please, please send your books down in the morning to be checked in. This serves two purposes for us. First, it makes checkout time much less hectic. Second, it ensures we get all the books checked in so we can cut down on the "Oh, I gave that to you earlier" debate that's so much fun to have. Students may bring books to renew at their checkout time, but only for renewal. Thank you!

MACH Integration Ideas
By next Friday, I will have created and shared a list of activities and materials that we have available to use with students. I'd love to talk with your teams about how to get things rolling with your class. Here's a look at some of the new equipment we have available to us. I recently purchased another 3D printer, 3Doodler pens, LEGO WeDo Robotics kits (for primary, yea!), Little Bits circuits, and two Little Bits R2D2 sets. 

Another call for books!
Boy, you'd think if you asked a bunch of teachers what books they would like purchased you'd get over run with responses. All I heard were crickets last week. So I'll try again. Email me titles that are popular with your students, ones you want to use for instruction, or sets of chapter books for book groups. I have my next list about ready to submit and my voucher money won't last forever! 

New Books!
Ray just arrived with boxes of books! Looking forward to digging through the boxes and sharing them with you and the students.

Have a great weekend!

Flowchart and Button Madness

Happy October! What a fun time of year. The classes seemed to enjoy The Widow's Broom in the library this week and we have more good ones to follow. The Halloween books are flying off the shelves! 

Book Requests
Send me any titles that you would like to see in the library. I always have a shopping list up on my computer to add requests from students. I'll probably submit this month's order in a couple of weeks. Now's not the time to be shy because I have money to spend! 

Bookroom Reminder
As more of you are accessing bookroom resources, I wanted to remind you about that process. Feel free to take any set from either room 343 (old) or 312 (new). Items in 312 with a green dot are in circulation so bring them to the media center for checkout. If you take a set from 343, please take all the copies and put them in a plastic bag (on the black cart). When finished, bring the bags to me in the media center so I can enter them into Destiny for circulation. Here's another copy of the wonderful flowchart if you happened to leave your last one on your fridge. 

Green Screen
The MACH now features a green screen (wall really) that can be used for student projects. We have access to an app that can be scoped to teacher or student devices. I'd be happy to assist with ideas on how you can use it or with the implementation. It's something that can be done Kindergarten through Fifth grade. Check out my cheezy example below:

Button Craze!
You may have seen some buttons floating around the school this week. I purchased a button maker to create awesome buttons for all kinds of things. We're using it as swag for 4th and 5th graders who read Mark Twain Award nominee books. I've been passing out "Hello, I'm Awesome" and "Hall Superstar" buttons to students I catch being great. I'd like to extend the button-making fun to your classrooms. Let's schedule a time to make their own creations! The button maker travels on the Purple Cart of Fun, so we can have students draw their own button and we can stamp them out in your room. I have templates made up so it's easy for students to create their designs. Contact me to schedule a time! 

Library Assistant Program
We launched our newest program this week. We have 70 (no, that's not a mistake) students in the program from 4th and 5th grade. Class captains create a schedule and we have 6 students come in each day from 3:00 to 3:15 to help straighten and shelve books. Maybe you've notice how empty our carts have been? All them! They've done a great job especially after news got out about a shelving test at the end of the month. 

Have a great weekend!

Dip Day Extravaganza

Dip day was a great way to end the week! Thanks to Kendra and Julie for putting that together. I hope everyone had a chance to sample both Kendra's buffalo chicken dip and the "Better than Kendra's buffalo chicken dip". We should do that more often. Here are some updates from the media center...

Team Planning
The data team meetings have completely thrown off my schedule after I was doing so well with getting to your meetings. I'd like to get back on track next week. You don't need to change anything you are doing when I'm there because sometimes it's just best for me to listen. I'd like to get more focused with our checkout read alouds and have books available to support your units of study. And I'm always up for sharing something new. Please let me know if your meeting times have changed from the beginning of the year. Thanks!

MACH
I am bummed that nobody took me up on the offer to make bookmarks with your class. And then Stephanie caved and made more copies. But I don't give up that easy! I have Abbey's class on Tuesday and would be happy to host anyone else if it fits your schedule. Let me know! I will be working on a menu of maker activities that I can do with your students. Look for that next week.

Library Assistants

Next week we're starting the new Library Assistant Program. These boys and girls applied for the position a few weeks ago and are ready to assist with shelving books, making displays, pulling books, helping our kindergarten friends, and straightening shelves. Here's a look at our classroom captains who are responsible for setting their class schedule and communicating shift assignments. Should be a good time!

Early Bird
We are moving on to fourth grade next week. I'm still weighing what this opportunity will look like for the lower grades. I'm leaning towards an incentive program. If you have suggestions, please let me know. Here's the upcoming Early Bird schedule:

• Geha - next week
• Kunkel - week of 10-8
• Wall - week of 10-15

Finally, if you happen to have an IEP or other meeting in the library conference room, please don't let attending students hang out unsupervised in the media center. I try to keep it locked up because of the iPads, equipment, and books (of course) that we use each day. Thanks!

Have a great weekend!

The MACH is open!

It's been a busy week with #CREmedia. Here are the highlights!

3rd Grade iPads
We got all third graders enrolled with their 1:1 iPads. Thanks to Regina, Julie, and Trisha for their help and patience to get those rolled out. It's exciting to have 1:1 devices in all our 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classes. 

Attention 3rd, 4th, 5th grade teachers
Or anyone else interested. Starting on Thursday, I'll be hosting an iPad vertical team collaboration group, otherwise known as the IVTCG. We'll meet at 3:30 in the computer lab. The session will be no more than 30 minutes (unless you want to stay longer) and will consist of two parts: sharing what you're loving and learning a new tool. There won't be inservice credit but there will be more intrinsic value than you can handle. We'll figure out how often we want to meet at the first IVTCG session on the 27th. Heck, we might even make some cute t-shirts that are exclusive to IVTCG members. Because I don't have a fancy t-shirt and I'm feeling left out.

The MACH is open!
The MACH is open for business. It's the hub for Makers, Artists, and Coders. We hosted two breakouts in the room this week for Ms. Wall and Ms. Kunkel. The room is open for you to use as well. I will get a calendar created and posted to the media center webpage next week. Starting next week (I have to get something going or I'll keep finding other things to do) we'll start with some creating. If you are interested in having your students come to the MACH to make bookmarks, let me know. It will be super fun and enable me to stop running off bookmarks to give away in the library. 


Early Bird
Ms. Hickcox's students enjoyed Early Bird time this week. We saw lots of duct tape creations, checkers played with chess pieces, and quite a bit of Angry Birds. I'm impressed with how many students can work a Rubik's cube. I need to get some practice in. Next week we'll be hosting Mr. Higgins' students. 

New Books!
We've started to get more of the new materials out for checkout. Our replacement bookcase arrived last week and we were able to keep the old one. So now we have more space to showcase new materials, award books, and popular series. I'm most excited about the addition of about a dozen "choose your own adventure" books. Creating their own versions would be pretty cool. If you are interested in trying it out, I have quite a few tools we could use to create, publish, and share "choose your own adventure" stories. As I've been told many times, I'm smarter than I look. 

Poster Printer
Now I have Amber's attention. In order to curb the inadvertent printing of giant tacos, the poster printer has been taken offline. But there's good news! We found a cable that you can use to connect your laptop to the printer when you actually need to print giant tacos. It's not quite as easy as just plugging it in and printing, but nothing good comes easy. Let me know if you are interested. Bring snickerdoodles.

Have a great weekend!

Alec Baldwin gets the early bird...

If you have an Amazon Echo, you might understand the title of this post. If not, I apologize. Thanks to everyone who is adding activities to the Pineapple board. You could have popped in to see Team Geha students dominate a breakout. We were focusing on collaboration and persistence. They were impressive! 

Coming Soon: The MACH 
I'm transforming room 212 to our dedicated MakerSpace, the MACH (Makers, Artists, and Coders Hub). At some point, we'll start working up activities for each grade level. I will talk to you at your grade level meetings about scheduling.

Computer Labs
I changed up locations on the mobile labs. R2D2 is now housed at the end of the 3/4/5 hallway. C3PO is at the end of the 1/2 hallway. Hopefully the new locations make it easier for you to access. Leanna has been lobbying to get teacher access to add events to the lab calendar. I have trust issues, but I'm considering it...

A Book A Day
Keep tweeting out pictures of books you are reading to #CREreads. I'll continue to add those titles to the bulletin board outside the media center. 

Early Bird Time
We started Early Bird this week in the media center and mini-MACH. Starting at 8:00 on Wednesday, Thursday, and Fridays, students in a chosen class can come to the media center. There are games, crafts, electronics, puzzles, coloring, etc to work on. At the 8:15 bell, we clean up and head to class. Fifth grade is piloting it and we'll move to lower grades throughout the year. Here's the current schedule:

• Upton - this past week
• Hickcox - week of September 17
• Higgins - week of September 24
• Geha - week of October 1
• Kunkel - week of October 8
• Wall - week of October 15

New Books!

We got a shipment of nearly 500 titles on Thursday. Some were from the original order but a lot were special orders for students and teachers. Keep adding requests to the clipboard on the back counter and you might end up with a surprise book coming your way. 

#CREteach

Congrats to Lori Huhman for taking the #CREteach award of the week! That title will earn her an unsweetened ice tea. Because in her words, "I'm already sweet enough".

Have a great weekend!

If you want to keep your teacher iPad...

Time to renew your iPad!
If you have been issued an iPad from school (your previous school or Cedar Ridge), I need to get it renewed. Please bring it in to the media center so I can make sure it's in one piece and check out to you for the year. If you don't come in next week to get in renewed, I'll have to come repossess it from you while you are in the middle of teaching.

Pineapple Chart
The chart was looking pretty bare this week. Hopefully pineapple will be more in season next week. I see fun things happening in your classes all the time. Add those to the chart so others can see what you're up to. Teachers who post events will be added to the book drawing at the end of September. Join in! 

Computer lab checkouts
See the entertaining video below for a refresher on how to see what labs are available for checkout. 

Minecraft Education
You probably know that many of your students are obsessed with Minecraft. But did you know that we have access to Minecraft Education on our computers and now iPads? You're probably thinking "Minecraft and school doesn't mix". Well, you're wrong! I'd be happy to share ways we could use Minecraft in different content areas. I facilitated a pretty cool Egyptian project last year where students recreated Ancient Egyptian culture and landmarks using Minecraft and then created "travel" videos about their worlds. Ask me about it at your next team meeting or stop me in the halls! 

BreakoutEDU
We had a fun week in kindergarten completing a Breakout scavenger hunt. Maybe you saw us in the halls finding different locations around the school. I'd be happy to create a custom Breakout for your class or find one that fits the content you are teaching. 

#CREteach
Congratulations to Nikki Kunkel for winning the #CREteach award for the week! Awesome job sharing your class's story Let me know what drink I can bring you next week!

Have a great weekend!

No more tears...

We were doing so well until yesterday afternoon when we had no fewer than four students in tears for various reasons. All very important reasons, of course.

Change in structure
If you checked out Wednesday or later, you already know this change. For those of you who didn't, we are instituting some changes to alleviate current challenges. And it will look different for each class. After checking out books, students will be sent to the wooden tables to read. For those students who are following directions, an adult will give the opportunity to pick a buddy and a comfy seat around the room. Some of your classes have been very good about their reading time and may not need these extra steps. We'd like to make sure that all students have the opportunity to enjoy the space so the adults can assist with finding good books, not playing whack-a-mole.

Plans for checkout next week
Fourth and Fifth - we will learn to access OverDrive on the iPad. Have the students download the app from Self Service. We will launch it and get them set up during your time in the media center. 

Third - how to create a hold for a book

First and Second - how to use the new shelf markers to find topics (coming soon!), reminders on how to use space savers to keep the shelves neat.

Kindergarten - basic survival

Pineapple Charting
Shoutouts to Taryn, Joe, and Abbey for adding some activities to the Pineapple Chart this week. Everyone who submits an activity will have their name thrown in a hat to win books at the end of each month. No limit to the number of entries! 

Congrats to Abbey Upton for winning the #CREteach award for this week! Keep those tweets coming! It's really nice to be able to see all the cool stuff you are doing in the classroom. We need to write our own story!

You made it to the end. Stop by the media center on Tuesday and yell out "I love reading" to get a treat!

Have a great long weekend! You deserve it!

The Origin

Welcome to the "Library Teacher Guy" blog. In case you're wondering where the name came from, I was struggling to come up with a title until Deb's kindergarten came for checkout yesterday. A little guy says "thank for helping me find my book, library teacher guy". Perfect. 

My goal is to write a post every Friday with updates, upcoming events, and super-handy tips. I feel this is preferable to flooding your inbox with emails throughout the week. This blog will be linked to the media center site so you can come back to it when necessary. 

I'll make the headings very obvious so you can focus on topics that are relevant to you. 

#CREreads
It's been fun seeing your signs posted and the books you are reading. Feel free to tweet out pictures of your students with the hashtag #CREreads. Be sure to add stickers when you get kids talking to you. I've been shut out all week...

Pineapple Charts
My goal for Monday is to get the Pineapple Chart set up in the lounge. All you have to do is post what's happening in your classes that others might want to check out. If you want to visit another room but need coverage, talk to Angie, Jacquie, or myself. Visits can be as short as 10 minutes to see what's happening. There's a lot of great stuff happening, so let's open our doors!

I put a pineapple sign in your box this afternoon. Post those on your classroom doors as an invite for others to pop in for a visit. Add something you're working on if you'd like some feedback. Could be anything: wait time, formative assessment, student engagement, etc. I think my first goal will be giving clear directions to classes. 

To clarify, you don't need a sign posted to participate in the Pineapple Visits. Two separate but equally awesome things. 

Computer Labs
We are fortunate to have four computer lab options: one hardwired main lab and three laptop labs. The calendar for each is located on our media center webpage. Check those calendars before you contact me so it'll save us some back and forth. Send me an email if you would like to reserve any of them. Remember the main lab is only available on D days or after 2:35 the rest of the week.

BrainPOP Teacher Access
We have access to BrainPOP video content. I forwarded you an email earlier today with information on how to set up your teacher account. 

Grade Level Meetings
I've enjoyed coming to your meetings this week. I think it's really important for me to know how I can support you. A few grade levels have given me direction on what they would like to see the following week. Shoot me questions ahead of time and I'll come with some answers.

iPads for classrooms
If you haven't received iPads yet the wait is almost over. I hope to have them out by the end of the day Monday. Sorry it's taken awhile. It's been pretty hectic getting everything up and running. 

#CREteach
Our #CREteach Superstar last week was Ms. Wall. Congratulations! Her classroom tweets earned her a iced skinny vanilla latte! 

Ms. Gonzalez took home the prize this week. She's still deciding on a school appropriate drink...

That's it for the week. Congratulations if you read all the way through this first post! I'm assuming this post will be the longest of the year...