A Whirlwind of Great Learning

I'm really behind on posting some great things that have happened. It's been a whirlwind. I'll do my best to be brief but share some of the awesomeness and if you have questions or want to see more information, please let me know.

The week of Dec. 10-14 we had a lot of big/cool things happen. 

1. A committee came to watch me teach, interview me, and interview 3 of my peers and my admin to decide if I should be the Teacher of the Year for Brevard County Schools. At first I thought I needed to do something really big and amazing to show the committee that Media Specialists do more than just check out books but I decided to do what we do best...engineering stations tied to novels. It was an interesting day to say the least but our stations were awesome, the kids learned a ton, and we had a great day! The thing that sticks in my mind the most about that day (other than all the cool things our kids built tied to their books) is that my colleagues said the committee members asked them why I got picked instead of a "real" teacher since I'm just a librarian. I love that my awesome co-workers jumped right on it to make sure they knew that in this position, I get to teach everyone, including our teachers. It's a pretty incredible thing to work in a school where you are so supported. I wish everyone had what I have here. The committee spoke with my peers and my admin team, watched me teach, and then interviewed me last. They seemed to have really enjoyed the lesson that I heavily encouraged them to participate in and asked me all kinds of questions. My prayer is that I represented my profession and my school well. I know these kids did and I think it's pretty great that the committee got a glimpse into the great stuff that happens here on a regular basis. I think their view of what my role is and how it can impact a school has changed a lot. :) If you read the station cards you can see some of the challenges we issued to the kids.

2. Project Lit for December where we talked about Refugee by Alan Gratz. If you haven't read that book yet, you are making a terrible life choice that needs to be rectified immediately. Our book club kids are amazing! They had a Kahoot put together, tshirt designs ready to go, and completely ran the show. Our adult sponsors just had to show up. :)

3. We started the Jason Reynolds story contest with our GAPP students. It was in an issue of Scope magazine and it is an awesome contest! I can't wait to see what our kids come up with!

The next week (Dec. 17-21) I had:

1. Brevard Media Specialists Holiday Party which was super fun. It is so important to spend time with other people who do what you do and are passionate about it. It's also really important to cut loose and have fun sometimes. 
2. Maker space and book check out which are always some of my favorite days! Our maker space days involve design challenges for different stations. I usually set up 8 or so stations and the students have to complete at least 3 before they leave. They have a handout to document their work that walks them through the engineering process at each station. Sometimes these are general challenges and sometimes they are tailored to what is being covered in the content class they came with. Each teacher makes that choice for their kids and then I set everything up and walk them through it. 
3. The annual Ugly Sweater Contest and our faculty pot luck. Anything that involves costumes is my jam and I'm happy to report I am reigning champion. At our potluck, I used some of the games from our BPS Media Holiday Party and did it staff wide. We had a BLAST! We had a "snowball" (balled up paper) fight and we made some reindeer. We all laughed so hard. Everyone really needed that before the break. 

Over  the break I went to visit my mom and we went on a ski trip to Utah with my husband's side of our family. It was just what I needed to recharge for another big semester of activities. I also got to use all that travel time to read 12 really great books! 

Since returning to school we have:

1. Check out, announcements, and maker space with Ms. Ross's classes
2. A stupid cool vocabulary activity with Mrs. Watkins's classes. We had the kids take their vocab words, use Canva to create a graphic for it, and then posted it to a Padlet. I got the idea from my friend Andrea who is a high school Media Specialist in Alabama. It worked really well and the kids really liked it! Mrs. Watkins is going to print them and post them in the classroom as they continue their unit. 
3. I met with a furniture company to try and get all new furniture for our Media Center. I hope it all works out because this place will be AMAZING if it does. All of our tables are breaking or already broken and don't work for this space. We need flexible seating! 
4. I got to celebrate our ESE self-contained kiddos finishing two more books! They are at 8 books for the year. I could not be more proud of them! We built a motels from Home Sweet Motel and decorated rabbits to look like the main characters from Podkin One-Ear. 

1. Friday I got to work with our Art students. I got to teach them some Langston Hughes poetry and they are going to illustrate a poem that spoke to them. I had them choose a poem, jot down the title and then make a list of any images or objects in the poem. Then they made a list of any colors represented in the poem and then started sketching out ideas. This is an on-going project that will eventually be displayed in the Media Center. They had some incredible sketches and ideas. I'm really excited to see how their projects turn out. 

This week? All the crazy. 

The biggest thing is that we are participating in the Follett Challange and my school needs YOUR votes. You can vote for us here. Our submission focuses on our #swms20bookchallenge and I'm so proud of the video we submitted. These kids are awesome! 

FAME: I'm Gonna Learn Forever

I've been a little absent from the blog.

Thanksgiving week we only had school for two days. The kiddos that came to me disguised turkeys as their favorite book characters. They did a really incredible job and I love that they can be inventive and creative while tying it to literacy.

That same week I submitted two proposals for next year's AASL conference and I also submitted an article for our FAME Quarterly issue.

This week I had 7th grade classes doing maker space activities and I scored about 300 students's 20 Book Challenge submissions.

Wednesday through Friday I was at my state Media Specialist annual conference. It is my favorite thing I go to all year. I love being around so many other energetic Media Specialists to learn from them and grow.

Wednesday I did an 8 hour Makey Makey training and it was awesome! I learned how to complete a circuit, how to play a piano using a drawing and my Makey Makey kit, I drew a book review in four parts and used Scratch to code voice into it, and worked on an awesome group project. I also made several new friends and got to hang with one of my fellow Brevard County Media Specialists.

Right after my training we did Speed Dating with an Author which is one of my favorite parts of the conference. You sit at a table and an author comes by every two minutes to tell you a little bit of the back story of why they wrote their book(s) and to allow you to ask questions. These are always some pretty big name authors so it's always a thrill.

Wednesday evening I had the privilege of going  to  dinner with the other SSYRA committee members and some of the authors. It was so incredible! I sat and spoke with Peter Brown, author of The Wild Robot, and so many others.

Thursday I had breakfast with two of my favorite people and then got to watch a powerful Keynote by Elizabeth Acevedo, author of Poet X. I got some books signed by Elizabeth and Neal Shusterman, and then I got to present on diverse books with one of my fellow Media Specialists, Ana Woodbrey. We talked about the importance of diverse books, how to find them, how to promote them, and why all of this even matters.

I attended a session about the #readwoke movement and then I got to present another session on curating resources through Collections by Destiny with our amazing Follett rep and my fantastic District Media Resource person.  I also went to an SSYRA session, an SSYRA book meeting, and had a quick stop by a special leadership event for up-and-coming FAME leaders.

After that some of my Brevard peeps and I went and had dinner at Disney Springs and laughed and laughed so hard. We did the Christmas tree trail and made it back in time to watch Late Night Library Games.

Friday morning I had breakfast with someone I admire so much, Jennifer Underhill, and she taught me all the things I need to know for the upcoming year, and we had the pleasure of being joined by the hilarious James Ponti. I chatted with some people in the vendor hall, went to Jenn and James's awesome session on author visits, back to the vendor hall, and then lunch and our closing session with none other than Jennifer Lagarde, Library Girl herself. She armed us with how to fight the zombie librarians and be awesome for our kids and staff.

I always leave this conference full of great ideas and so inspired to go back and do great things to boost student learning and engagement.

It's been a pretty great week!