Happy Lunar New Year

Here's one of the things I love about the school where I volunteer : the kids come from all over the world.   On Friday there was a celebration for the Lunar New Year-- with costumes and songs, with first graders from China singing in Mandarin,

with fourth graders from Indiana dancing a traditional dragon dance,

and with a group storytelling with the Japanese kamishibai theater.

Every one, no matter what their cultural background, was in a good mood all morning, ready to begin the year of the Horse.

"Yeah," says Scotty, "MY year!  Bring it on!"

Egg Drop - not just soup

On Friday morning I condensed my "Picture Books for Older Readers" lesson into 15 quick minutes and then took the 4th graders outside to watch the Egg Drop.


Sixth graders had designed devices to protect a raw egg and to keep it intact while being dropped from a four story height.


The fire truck was parked in the school bus turn-around when we came out. The younger kids weren't sure about what was going on but they were ready to be enthusiastic about it.

Two lucky sixth grade girls got to climb up to the controls for the aerial extension ladder and swing the boom over towards the crowd. Teachers collected the egg-holding devices in big bags

and passed them up to the firemen who carried them up to the bucket.

Excitement began to rise with the boom....

Up...up...up....higher....higher....

until we all wondered how the fire engine kept from falling over.

Then: the first drop!

One after another the eggs in their various cradles came down, some wrapped in teddy bears and pillows, some with parachutes...

only one was light enough to be caught by the wind and carried over the cheering crowd to land somewhere on the school roof.
As each one hit, greeted with applause or groans depending on the landing, its creator raced out to retrieve it and hurried back to open the packaging to see if the egg survived.
There were high-fives and squeals and victory dances from some whose eggs were whole...

and some eggs became egg drop soup.

The Case of the Missing Librarian

Last night Hoosier Kitty and I went to a Family Playwright Project play at a local elementary. The cast and their families had spent eight weeks writing and rehearsing a play that was their response to losing their school librarian.

They made the local news and more -they got national recognition for it from American Libraries and PBS.The kids came up with a happy ending...

but I doubt real life will in this case imitate art.

Support Our Schools

There was a rally to support our schools just after the farmer's market yesterday. If you went to Honey Creek you'll recognize the figure in purple behind the table way in the back.
I found myself in a crowd of familiar faces - librarians, teachers, parents - and was pleased to hear a speaker talking about Mimi and her contributions to the development of school libraries.

We had some good ideas and strong opinions about the problems facing our schools.

And here's the reason we were all there.

A Tale of Two Courtyards

I have been subbing last week and this in two similar school buildings - both schools built around a central courtyard, both libraries having a window out to the courtyard. Both courtyards are the same size and shape. I have been fascinated by the differences in these two situations. On the southwest side of town, the school serves a lower-income, blue-collar population. The school is kept very clean and tidy. Their courtyard, as you see, is easy-to-clean concrete, with four planters, each with some minimal shrubbery. I was there all last week, but I saw no indication that students ever were allowed in the courtyard.

The other school is on the near north-east of town and serves the children of most of the University's graduate students, the gifted-and-talented program kids from all over the county, and a mix of mostly middle-class kids. Their courtyard features a tiny pond, an arbor, benches to sit on, and lots of flowering plants. It's clear from the activity I spy out there that teachers use the courtyard for a variety of learning experiences.

I wonder about the striking contrast here.

Sure economics play into it, and school philosophy - but I suspect that somewhere along the line there was an energetic and enthusiastic teacher who made a difference in designing the garden one.

Round and round

This week I've been subbing at a smaller west-side school. In the morning I have hall duty - that is, I stand in the hall by the gym doors and reinforce good walking behavior. The first morning I was surprised at the crowd of kids rushing past me - more than I thought the school had. Then I began to recognize a shirt here, a backpack there, a pair of friends, a certain grin. I knew I'd seen those kids go by once already.
Turns out, this school is built in a giant square with a hallway going completely around it. Every kid comes in and has to walk all the way around twice - that is, they have to pass their classroom door once and the second time they can go in. So every morning the parade takes every kid past every duty teacher (you can almost tell who is starting off on the wrong foot, who is excited about something, who is on the outs with a friend, who is feeling under the weather)- and everyone has had some exercise before they sit down for morning announcements.

Author visit

Yesterday author Will Hobbs came to talk to all the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students. He peppered his talk with questions and with pauses for kids to fill in the appropriate word - keeping the whole crowd engaged for 45 minutes.
At one point a teacher turned to whisper "He's speaking their language." High praise indeed!

He talked about a slide of two Mexican school girls walking home from school in their uniforms. They were in their last year of school, he said - can you guess what year that is? The kids guessed - but had to keep going lower and lower until they came to 6th grade. (He was getting to the motivation behind his character in Crossing the Wire) When you come to school, he told them, you got to bring it! Because this is your opportunity. All over the room, heads were nodding.
His adventure stories are well-crafted and appealing - but especially to guys.
I have only read a few but after hearing him speak and seeing the slides of the real places in which his stories are set, I'm ready to read more.
The chance to meet and hear a real author talk about his books is so motivational for readers - and who brings the author to school? That would be the soon-to-be defunct school librarian.

Goodbye again

The return of the regular librarian - which we are all glad to see - still brings regret to me.
My farewells are more final this time.

I'm leaving with a head full of kid's faces and book's places that I probably won't need to use again.

This year will be the last year that our school system has professional librarians, so there's an end to my on-again off-again library work.

I'll still be subbing for a few days at other school libraries this Spring, and that will be it.

It's hard enough to leave after just months of being in this school, think how awful it will be for the librarians who have years invested in their schools and in their library programs. They'll leave knowing that the valuable services they provided for both students and teachers were never respected nor appreciated by boards or superintendents or governors.

Especially by governors. Especially Indiana's governor. But librarians are not alone in that. Any public school teacher at any level could say the same thing about Indiana's governor.

Thank you cards from First Grade

They may not be the most coherent of writers...

but they know how to touch my heart.

Whale watching

Another "bit-of-the ordinary-day" post, for those manatee-watching readers. This is my deep sea post- there are the mama and baby whales who swim gracefully above the 500's in the school library. They are cleverly hung just where the heating system will keep them slowly dipping and circling all day.
Sitting at the circulation desk, I often stare at them while pondering deep thoughts (also known as zoning out).

Warm enough...

...for outdoor recess! I pull up in the parking lot for an afternoon stint in the library and just watch, fascinated by the color and movement, the sheer exuberance of being outside again.

A little Winter green

Outside the weather is cold and the tree branches are bare. Bits of dead brown grass show between patches of snow. Spring seems a long way off.

But inside the school is a little patch of green and growing vegetation. Just down the steps outside the library door you can glimpse a tiny tropical jungle.

The hall goes around it.The skylight over it mirrors the curiously hexagonal architecture of the school.
There it is - our little bit of tropical green in the middle of winter - with a quiet jaguar crouched in the center.

Wednesday's Child is full of Woe

When the librarian has a bad day....

you bet they're sorry.

Bye, bye Book Fair!

All last week regular library activities were suspended.

The sales racks for the school book fair covered our regular shelves.

Classes were wildly excited about the transformation of the library into a store. I spent the week trying to persuade children to buy books instead of bendy pencils, pointer fingers and smelly highlighters. And don't get me started on the rubber duckie erasers!

I carefully tried to teach every class that .99 really means you need another dollar.

I spent the week trying to help children understand why their clutch of quarters wouldn't buy the expensive book they wanted. And I only put a couple of dollars in to cover the little ones who just couldn't get it. I tried to explain that even though the book company promised they would restock anything in the promotional brochure, apparently they would not.
Now, many children did end up buying some great books. Lots of parents came to support their school library and took home wonderful presents for their families.
I myself took home several full bags of books, which some of you may unwrap later on this month. I kept a huge pile of books for the library as our profit. I had some fabulous parent volunteers every hour the fair was open and they had lovely conversations with each other and all their friends.
So it was considered a successful event, all in all.
But how satisfying it will be to open up on Monday as a library again.

What we learned about fire safety

October is Fire Prevention Month, so we had a visit from a fireman. Check out what we learned.
This would most assuredly be my response.

Creek IS risin'

It must have rained all day.

In the windowless library I was unaware of the storms.

At dismissal time the Principal made an unusual announcement: "Staff, please move your cars from the parking lot as soon as all children are dismissed."

I wondered vaguely about it, but had a teacher in looking for our scarce Mesopotamia resources so didn't think about it long.

In another five minutes the Principal was back on the intercom: "Teachers, please move your cars as soon as possible."

Let's see, where was my car? Surely it could wait while I logged off the computers and straighted up the displays and ran the database backup.

In the third announcement the Principal's voice was no longer calm.

"Move all cars from the lot NOW!" she said.

I hastily closed the library, grabbed my coat and umbrella, and headed for the car wondering what on earth was up. The creek was up.

It was pouring over the parking lot.
It was rising really fast.

And the rain is still coming down.

Wonder where we'll all park tomorrow?