Observe Me!

My principal emailed me today. (He had to work 1/2 day; teachers didn't.) He wants to observe me in the next two weeks. It will be my first official principal observation in 9 years. Seriously, nine years. I think I was observed once back in 2003, or maybe it was 2004. The assistant principal did it; it was fine. I am a little excited and a little nervous all at the same time. Of course, he wants to do it in the next two weeks, and next week is bookfair. That would be interesting, indeed! I think I'll suggest the following week. I will recommend any day except day 4. Day 4 is a difficult day for me. Day 5 is no picnic, either, but I can manage them. It's just unfortunate when management takes up more time than the rest of the lesson. I'd hate for him to have to see that, even though classroom management is part of the observation. I have three days of no school to get ready for the thrill of December. School children + christmas = controlled chaos.

Still Sleeping

Oh, my. I am seriously wiped out! I have done nothing more than sleep and read since I returned from the conference yesterday afternoon. I've slept most of the afternoon away, and it feels divine!

I don't know if I've ever written about my friend Lynne Farrell Stover before, but I was hoping that she'd be at our state conference again, and she was! In fact, I was in the lobby talking with our organization's president, and she hit me on the back and said, "Remember me!?" REMEMBER her?!!? Seriously, I think about her all the time and have told many colleagues about her fabulous books. I was flattered that she remembered ME!

This is the first of her books of Magical Library Lessons. It has tons of great ideas in it, and the following books (available at www.upstart.com) are great, too! I bought a set of them and asked her to sign them for me; I already have a set at my library, but I decided that I needed my own personal copies. One of the books I won at the silent auction at the conference, and that makes it extra special.

We sat together at the author dinner (we did last year, too, and are both traditional girls!) and just picked up where we left off. The other people were very curious about her writing, and I felt like the prop girl, pulling out her books as she talked about them. Too funny!

If you're a librarian and you're reading this, check out her books. In particular, I like how practical her ideas are--not pie in the sky theoretical concepts that are impossible to implement in the real-life classroom. One of the best sessions I attended was one of hers for using the book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. She had so many great ideas for incorporating economic concepts into lessons after reading the book. I'm going to find out when the movie is released and maybe do a One School/One Book/One Movie event. Hmmm....that means I'd have to read it 36 times. Sigh...now that's real-life librarianship!

State Conference Exhaustion

I am so excited that I get to sleep in until 7 am tomorrow. How sad is that?!?! Our state librarians' conference has been fabulous, but I am on overload. The past three days have been 16+ hours days of networking, sessions, tweeting, facebooking, eating, walking, and listening. Whew! I will look forward to a quiet 4-hour drive home tomorrow just to digest everything I've learned and decompress a little. Tonight's author dinner was with T.A. Barron. What a delightful man. So kind and sensitive and endearing. He had me teary a couple of times during his talk. Here's a great picture of him signing books before he spoke. His wife made his sweater, and it took her 20 years to finish it! Another author on a pedestal...

Lesson Planning Overload

It has been a busy few weeks! Along with my friend Jenny, I've been busy creating lessons to go along with our state's Readers' Choice book list. We are sharing them at a session of our state's School Librarians' conference this week. I am not sure if creating lessons is the right phrase, exactly. I've been developing extension activities to go with the books on the list. It's been fun--I love connecting with my crafty self every so often. I found a bunch of great ideas online from publishers, authors, and librarians. When I wrote and asked for permission to include their idea in our CD of handouts, I heard from everyone except two big publishers. Sad and typical, I have to say. Everyone who I asked was thrilled to be asked and included. This reminds me of an article I read recently in the NY Times about teachers charging for lesson plans and unit plans. I don't know how I feel about this. As I was searching for ideas to go with the book list, I certainly appreciated those people who put stuff on their sites and blogs for free. As someone who has spent tons of hours compiling ideas and working on my own lessons, I can see the need for seeking compensation for my time. Hmmm...I will keep thinking about this. In the meantime, I am going back to burning CDs of the ideas we've collected. There are over 90 pages of activities, so I am very glad that we're not handing out paper packets to the attendees. I feel green. I hope we have a lot of people at our session.