Movie Day

There's a cold-wave racing through our state this week, and that, coupled with our district's lowering the heat as a cost-saving measure, has made it pretty chilly at school recently. Our boilers apparently also conked out, and some of our classrooms were in the 50's today! The art, music, and PE rooms were all in the mid-50's, but the library was a comfy 64 degrees. So with about four minutes to go until our first class of the day, we decided to bring all the students into the library and show a movie. I just grabbed something off the shelf and we showed "The Mouse and the Motorcycle" by Judy Blume. It was originally made in 1986 and it was just perfect. Every grade enjoyed it--from kindergarten through fifth graders. Even I didn't mind watching it six times today. I even found a favorite quote: the mom says to Keith, "Mice are not my favorite animals." The way she says it is just too cute. Then we had a little happy hour after school and now it's time to enjoy a four day weekend.

Advocacy

Today, another librarian and I had a meeting with our library supervisor to discuss advocacy. In this time of budget shortfalls and cuts, we want to do everything we can do increase our visibility and indispensibility in our district. She was all for it!! We brainstormed lots of ideas about how to do this, and I am very excited about getting started with it all. Advocacy intimidates me a lot; I equate it with being a salesperson. But I suppose I have to get over that feeling, since I am selling myself and my program. I'll keep you posted!

new stuff

So I found a new blog to visit, and it has totally inspired me to be a better librarian and a better blogger! The Orange Room is my new favorite place on the web, and one of the reasons I like it so much is that it is updated often. I started my new class tonight, Technical Services, and it went pretty well. The students were very excited about the syllabus, mostly because it contains virtually no out-of-class assignments (besides reading). We'll be doing a lot of stuff in class and this will make all of us happy. Over Thanksgiving, I went into the craft room, and the calendar was still set to August. I realized at that moment that my entire fall was consumed by the Reference class I taught. I'm going to try not to let that happen this time around! The fourth and fifth graders are working with almanacs this week, and the class I had today actually groaned when I told them it was time to put their almanacs away. What a nice moment. I love the almanac, too.