Small thoughts

It's cold and rainy here and I miss summer already. I am taking another class which I thought would be easy to fit in but there is more to it and the homework takes a lot of deep thinking. Just like my summer classes though it will push me to be a better teacher.

It is taking me forever to finish Stephen King's 11/23/62 time-alternating look at Lee Harvey Oswald and the Kennedy assassination. I feel like I've been reading it for months now, really just August and September.  Luckily I found a DVD at the public library of the series which helped me when it came time to discuss at book club but I was committed to still finishing the book.  The series with James Franco was very good and I highly recommend it as I do the book-if you don't want to read an 849-page book though feel free to check out the series. It does stream on Hulu as well.

I have a lot of elementary fiction I need to get back to though as my students are serious readers and are constantly recommending books to me. I have stacks of new books from Follett that I want to bring home and read so I need to finish and move on.

I'm in shock that tomorrow the calendar turns to October, that it is already cold here, and that I have a pumpkin decorating my table. My mindset is still back in the hot days of August. At least we have baseball for a few more weeks. And we have the Cubs!

I've watched bits and pieces of the Kavanaugh hearings and am disgusted that he is still very much considered to be a great candidate for our most important court of the land. What a joke. Although when we consider that Trump is not too far from Kavanaugh's privileged and ridiculous behavior than it all makes some sort of reverse universe sense. If women have any pull in the universe this man will be done and we won't hear any more from him. Watching the hearings should give us all pause in that we are being led by many old white men set in their chauvinistic ways. We need more women, more young people, more people of varying shades of color.  Pasty old men need to go.  Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley-be gone.
And what if in time we can time-travel back to change all of this ala Stephen King-what and how would we change it?

That's my rant for the weekend. Drink more tea, take care of yourself as the weather changes.

School is in full swing and I'm spinning just a bit...

We have a new schedule this year and it makes my head spin just a little. We went from a 6-day cycle to a 4-day cycle. This means classes of students rotate into the library (or art, P.E. & music) every 4 days.  Because they are rotating quicker my days are filled with 7 classes almost every day, leaving very little prep time or time to work on library projects like processing new books.  The elementary school where I work has the most students in the district and to create balance I have two other librarians with smaller populations who come to my school for equity purposes; one teaches a solo class of kindergartners, the other teaches two afternoons of k, 1st, and 2nd grades, which does give me time to work independently sometimes.

Seeing students more frequently gives me the opportunity to explore new avenues with them. I've gone back to reading chapter books aloud. I'm reading The Map Trap by Andrew Clements to 3rd grade, Wish by Barbara O'Connor to 4th grade, Liberty by Kirby Larson to 5th grade, and Horizon by Scott Westerfeld to 6th grade.  We have book discussions and still have time to do a short lesson on a skill plus check out books. I'm enjoying my time with students and implementing some of the ideas from my summer classes- a lot of which involves bringing more JOY to their day.

The great downfall is that we've built a fantastic set of readers at my school.  They use the library when they finish a book, not waiting until their next library time, to find their next great read. I love that kids are pumped about reading. My first few days of school were filled with writing down recommendations from students of books they'd read over the summer and want to have here.  You say "what's the downfall in all that?" Well, it has two sides; I spend a good portion of my day helping students find books and checking them out in our system because I've raised readers! - usually, this is during times when I'm supposed to be planning or eating lunch so my day gets all mixed up and I miss those days when I'd only have 3-4 classes with breaks in between to get work done. I feel a little more rushed at certain parts of the day and more laid back while students in our library space. It's an adjustment and I'm adjusting.

Summer Reading List 2018

I managed to do quite a bit of reading this summer and as we just turned the calendar page from August to September I'd love to share what I read.

June:

1. A spool of blue thread by Anne Tyler - okay
2. Tangerine by Christine Mangan -interesting locale, predictable story
3. Real Friends by Shannon Hale - beautiful and brilliant graphic novel
4. The self-driven child: the science and sense of giving your kids more control by William Stixrud - excellent advice, easy to read
5. Secrets of Bearhaven by K.E. Rocha - odd, kids may like it
6. Heart Talk by Cleo Wade - loved it and I'm going to her workshop
7. The adventures of a girl called Bicycle by Christina Uss - cool adventure
8. Awkward by Svetlana Chmakova - loved it!

July:

9. The honest truth by Dan Gemeinhart - loved it as much as I loved Some kind of courage by Gemeinhart
10. The tea girl of hummingbird lane by Lisa See - really interesting story
11. The Formative Five by Thomas Hoerr -school work yet interesting
12. The mysterious moonstone by Eric Luper -surprisingly good for a beginning chapter book, plus a shout out to libraries!
13. Everything, everything by Nicola Yoon - Interesting story, a major surprise, and a strong female character
14. Creative Schools by Ken Robinson -school work and I learned a lot
15. Sunny Side Up by Jennifer L. Holm - great, emotional story

August:

16. All Rise for the honorable Perry T. Cook by Leslie Conner -loved it
17. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng - excellent story
18. Escape from Aleppo by N.H. Senzai - wonderful story to help anyone understand the conflict in Syria
19. The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson - quirky mystery with a look at the past
20. Horizon by Scott Westerfield - twisted sci-fi and I'm now reading it to 6th-grade students

20 books in one summer is great even with all the homework I did. Hopefully, you might find something here that will appeal to your own reading tastes.