Summer Reading Success!

We had a great time in the library today with our summer reading celebration. Over 100 1st-5th grade students did their summer reading and qualified for our celebration.  Students enjoyed four centers: Pawsites (dog gone good websites), Canine Collars (making a letter bead necklace), Puppy Chow (making snack mix with chocolate, powdered sugar and chex mix) and Pawcakes (decorating a cupcake).  Students also got to go to the coliseum to watch Rick Martin and his dogs in the Tricky Dog Show.

I was so excited I forgot my camera for that part.  He was great and the students loved the dogs.

Here are some highlights from our celebration.

RSS Feeds

I have been spending time reading on twitter and checking out many blogs and websites of the people I follow.  I am still old school in my browsing and was bookmarking my sites.  Atleast I am using Chrome and syncing so my bookmarks follow me from home to school.  But since some blog sites are still blocked at school I went back to all the sites I found and added them to my Google Reader.  Now I should be able to read post in Google Reader even if the blog site itself is blocked at school.

I’m hoping too that using Google Reader will make my online time more effective.  There is so much to read and take in.  I want to develop my PLN but not feel overwhelmed.  Google Reader should help.

Don’t ask if you don’t want to know…

I put out my teacher survey today and have already gotten some interesting results.  It is online and anonymous so I told teachers to honest.  Yikes!  I need to work on some of the perceptions they have.  Some did not agree that I  “help my building meet our instructional objectives”, ouch!  A few did not agree that I “aid them in finding materials for class projects”.  Maybe I should have have stated: “If asked, the media specialists aids me on finding materials for class projects.”

Hopefully, as more results come in those disagrees will be a very small percentage, but I know I need to work on promoting my services and program more because I know I do make a difference in the lives of our students…and hopefully teachers.

Thanks Isaac

Thanks to Isaac I didn’t have to go to school today.  Since my school is in Tampa we were lucky that Isaac decided to travel more to the west.  All we got were some heavy rains.

I got more time today to read some of my favorite blogs and decide to start one for myself!  I titled it One School Librarian because, well that’s what I am!  Like many school librarians, or media specialists, I am alone at my school.  I’m lucky that I teach in a very large district.  We have a wonderful supervisor who is  just for elementary media and great inservices offered in district.  We also communicate daily with school email and get together once a month with our area PLC.

Even with all these wonderful resources I have started branching out to read what others are doing in the U.S. and all over the world.  I have gotten more active reading twitter accounts of educators and librarians and joining some different online PLN’s to be more connected.  I’m looking forward to exploring more this year and recording my thoughts and observations here.

Here’s to a connected year!