Author Visit with PJ Hoover

Award winning author, PJ Hoover visited my district this week.  She came to my school today and presented to 5th grade. 

The 5th graders LOVED her!  She held their attention during her 45 minute presentation.  She talked about her childhood, her family, her 1st career as an engineer making computer chips for phones and such, and her love for science fiction and fantasy.

She talked about how her books have been rejected 300 times!  But she never gave up.  My favorite quote from her presentation was "Feel the fear and do it anyway."  I. LOVE. THAT. QUOTE!  It's going in my bullet journal!

At lunch time she ate with my book club members in 2nd-5th grade.  She gave them each an autographed copy of two of her books.  On a side note, she asked them if they loved to read.  A couple of them said no.  I'm over here like "um... why are you in book club then?" Then when she tells them she's giving them free books one of the students who proclaimed to not like reading  pumped his fist in the air and said "Yes!" and smiled real big at his buddy.  Crazy kids!  lol

After lunch was over two of my students stuck around.  She showed them how to get on her website and print an alphabet activity.  Both are students who need a little extra attention and she gave it to them willingly.

PJ was friendly, down to earth and a joy to be around.  She was easy to work with and easy to talk to.  I highly recommend her for an author visit!

Bluebonnet Voting Gone Wrong

I was very excited this year to create a Google Form and have my 3rd-5th graders vote for their favorite Bluebonnet book electronically instead of paper voting.

With the paper voting I had to tally the votes, count them up, and hope I didn't make a mistake.  I LOVE how Google is able to do all that for me.

It took me 10 minutes at most to create the form.  I hadn't used Google Forms in awhile so I had to remember how to delete the sections I didn't want and how add more options.  If I hadn't had to do all that I probably could of knocked it out quicker.

I told our tech department a few months back what I was wanting to do to make sure I could do this.  They sent me an Excel sheet organized by grade level with each students' email address so all I had to do was copy and paste the email addressess into the shared box and hit send.

Then this morning during library time... I reminded students how to log into their gmail accounts.  Students could get logged into their Google accounts but could not access their email. 

After lots of hair pulling, lots of "Hang on.  I know there's a problem.  Put your hand down.  I know.  I'm working on it," a phone call to the Help Desk, a text to the District Technical Support Coordinator (we go way back), and finally a phone call with her, I find out that we were breaking HIPAA because children under 13 aren't suppose to have email accounts.  So they were disabled.  The district is working on getting the setting to where our students can only email within our domain which will fix the HIPPA issue.

This afternoon our campus digital learning teacher and I will be sitting down to brainstorm how I can still do voting digitally.  Without having talked to her yet I'm thinking Google Classroom but I'm going to wait to see what ideas she has.

Although this activity crashed and it's not my fault, I still feel the sting of failure in this lesson.  I keep reminding myself that I am only failing forward and that we will get this figured out.

Wordless Wednesday

Three generations at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Currently

Currently, I am…

listening to… the faux virtual fire on my tv.

drinking…water.  

eating…nothing right now, but thinking about cooking black bean soup

needing to… cook said black bean soup

thinking about… cooking the soup. Lol

wanting to... stay warm and cozy on this snow day

feeling like… I’m a little chilly.

Currently, I should be…

listening to… students check out books in the library. 

watching… students check out books and go to stations. 

drinking…a sip of water

eating…nothing

needing to… shelve books & help students find books

thinking about… my to do list

wanting to…make sure that I help every student the way they need help

feeling like… a rock star librarian 

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

For School:

I read January by Mari Kesselring to PK-2nd.  It's a simple book with facts about January like it has 31 days and we celebrate Martin Luther King on the third Monday.  With PK I do simple things like sing the months of the year.  With 1st and 2nd I ask what number goes with January and why the number 1 goes with January.

For Pleasure:

I'm listening to The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan.  A young librarian loses her job because they are closing all the libraries in her city.   She loves her job.  Loves pairing people with the right books.  She has to make some life changes.  She buys a van, moves countries, and starts selling books out of the van.  It's not the life she imaged.  It's much better.

I'm reading All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater.  I have a hard getting into some of Maggie's books at first.  Her style of writing can be so whimsical.  It's hard for my brain to adjust.  But once it does I can speed right through her books.  This books is like that.  It's about saints and miracles and pilgrims and a family of saints.

Five For Friday-Back to Work After a Break

1.  Monday I jumped out of bed ready to get back to work.  Ready to see my students.  Ready to get back into my routine.  Ready to see my teacher friends.  Ready to share books with my students and teachers.

2.  I woke up Tuesday and thought "Good grief.  It's only Tuesday!"  I used all my energy Monday.  Ha!

3.  Our students have been out of their minds.  Us teachers looked to see if it was a full moon.  It's not.  Maybe it's the cold weather?  Someone suggested there's something in the water.

4.  It's hard to come back to school after a two week break.  I'm glad we have Monday off.  That gives me a day to recover.  Ha!

5.  It's cold today!  I'm making white chili for dinner today.  I haven't made it in a long time.  I'm excited.

Blogging

I haven't been blogging as much as I use to.  I use to blog every week day.  But since about March 2017 that hasn't happened.

So I started thinking about why.

I think a big reason, maybe even the reason is because there was a big change in March in my work life.  Everything, every single thing about this change made me mad.  And being a professional I didn't think it was appropriate for me to put it all out on the world wide web for everybody and their country cousin to see.

With that whole situation filling up my brain there wasn't much else for me to write about.  Or maybe that's not true.  Maybe there was but I just couldn't focus on it.  I am bad about focusing on the bad and forgetting there are positives in my life.

Now that whole situation has been taken care of and I'm able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I'm trying to get back in the habit of writing every week day.  I do miss it. 

Here's to starting out 2018 on a new page!

Wordless Wednesday-Harry Potter

Frozen Butterbeer is my favorite!

2017 One Little Word-Choose

My OLW (One Little Word) for 2017 was 'choose'.  I loved this word!  It gave me options.  I could chose my mood, my reaction, my activities, etc.  I made conscious choices.  I thought about those choices, weighted the pros and cons then made my choice.

I started out the year with a page in my bullet journal where I wrote down choices I made.  But as the year went on and life got busy that fell to the wayside.  I'm still going to make a page in this year's bullet journal but I'm not going to worry if I don't do much with it.

I bought a bracelet from Etsy that had I had the word choose put on it.  I wore it everyday.  It was a physical reminder of my OLW.  I bought another one for my 2018 OLW (it's "moment").

I can't tell you how much I love having a OLW.  I was never good at resolutions but I rock OLW!

Did you have a OLW in 2017?  What was it?  How did you do with it?

Wordless Wednesday

Christmas Vacation 2017

The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter

One Little Word 2018-Moment

Some time this summer or early fall maybe a co-worker told me about hygge.  Have you heard of it?  It's a Danish word that doesn't really have a good English translation.  Its most simple definition is enjoying life's simple pleasures.

Multiple words kept popping up during my readings on hygge like atmosphere, presence/mindfullness, pleasure, equality, gratitude, harmony comfort, truce, togetherness, shelter, etc.

The one word that kept grabbing my attention was "moment."  Sometimes I have a hard time staying in the moment, finding joy in the moment I'm in.  I'm a planner and sometimes as I'm in one moment I'm already planning for the next moment.  Or I'm waiting for the next moment to start instead of staying in the one I'm in.  Or remembering old moments and wanting to go back to those moments.

I thought about making hygge my word for 2018 but decided instead to pick one aspect of hygge to focus on in 2018.

So for 2018 my OLW will be moment.

Here's to staying in the moment.

What's your OLW for 2018?  How did you do with your 2017 OLW?