This Week in the Library

I am heading off to 6th grade camp next week Tuesday through Friday, so I spent some time preparing for our team building and orienteering courses that I'm helping to lead.  In addition to that, we had our old graphite iMacs in our computer lab replaced with the staff MacBooks that are three years old but still functioning.  Anything has to be better than the 13-14 year old iMacs!  Much of my week was spent preparing for that switchover and then putting signs up and teaching classes about the differences.  I look at this as a chance to reteach lab expectations and to instill new pride in our newer-looking lab.    The difference is amazing!

I decided to read fun books that didn't take a lot of thought this week to Kindergarten and 1st grade.  I just love "Cat Secrets" and "Oink-a-Doodle-Moo" by Jef Czekaj (pronounced "check-eye" - I had to look it up so I could tell the kids!).  The Kindergarteners loved pretending to be cats, no surprise there.  I started to explain the "Telephone" game to them for "Oink-a-Doodle-Moo", but believe it or not, most of them knew it already, though some looked confused when I asked them if they had a telephone at their house.

In 6th grade we continued some internet safety classes, talking about spam and phishing and a few other things related to email.  I had fun showing them some of the spam in my Gmail account originating from "Nigeria."

I like to read "Hooray for Diffendoofer Day" during the MSP state testing, so I pulled that one out for 3rd and 4th grade this week. 

I tried to order some caterpillars to show off in the library, since 2nd grade is studying butterflies and has their own caterpillars, but something happened to them on the way and they arrived motionless and covered in their own frass (look that one up if you dare!).  So they are sending new ones.  In the meantime we have been watching the Reading Rainbow called "Bugs" and reading "Insects Are My Life" by Megan McDonald.  One of my 2nd grade boys made the connection that she is also the author of the Judy Moody and Stink books, which you think I would have noticed years ago.  Luckily the students are paying more attention than I am.

Off to camp next week, bringing good scary story collections for the counselors to read to the kids, the iPad to help us identify leaves, and cameras to record the whole thing.

Lab before: