Friday, may 12 9:00am-3:00pm

Today's Hours: 6    Total Hours: 87.5    
​Hours remaining: 12.5
​​I came in and introduced myself to the two parent volunteers in the library this morning. Heather was working on submitting the book trailers for 5th graders that we asked to revise before resubmitting. I began printing the certificates that INFOhio created for each student, which are lovely. Vicki was cleaning, relabeling, and/or repairing books and showed me a book on tooth fairies that had low circulation. She was adding a fairy sticker to the spine. Students ask about fairy books often so she hopes this will increase its circulation. She and the high school senior, whose last day was yesterday, were working together on analyzing and weeding the picture book collection.
 
I deleted the books I pulled for weeding yesterday in SirsiDynix Workflows and read The Little Engine That Could and Freight Train to another ECP class, helping them find and check out books and giving them their train stamps before the left the library. I had time with this group to also read Kevin Lewis’ book Chugga Chugga Choo Choo, and I was impressed with their ability to recognize the implied and exaggerated elements of the story, although later in discussing it with a friend, I learned their critical thinking in noticing that it is a pretend train ride may have come from a similar plot point (spoilers!) in the Lego movie. The story ends with bedtime and they all did a great job of showing me their best yawns before beginning to find and check out books; this was my experience with a “difficult” group of students and I did have to manage behavior, but overall they listened and participated wonderfully! I also helped Vicki teach Kindergarteners how to behave in the library, helping them learn social skills such as lining up to check out and introducing themselves when they get to the desk. This explicit support and direction is important to introduce early, but I believe it is important to model, teach, and reinforce behavior like this to any age student.
 
After this, I emailed Will Hillenbrand about the Ask 10 with 1st graders, as I would like to share his video with the students’ parents and extend the video accessibility for a week. I drafted an email to parents and sent it to Heather, and we talked about the best way to send it to parents. A volunteer suggested to Heather that we ask the room parent to forward my email to the parents, since they have all of the email addresses saved. Later in the afternoon, we had confirmation from Will Hillenbrand, who graciously extended access to the video, and from the room parent, who will send out the email. At lunch, Newspaper Club reviewed their last edition and planned an end of year party (and debated whether Matilda the book versus movie was better and/or scary, and their favorite parts!).
 
In the afternoon, I continued weeding, finding, analyzing, and deleting books and records.  Heather and I also took two project worksheets from previous years to the 8th grade teacher who facilitates the lessons and got updates on their plans and what we should do for related collection development. In addition to finishing my weeding project, my final practicum project will be finding resources through Titlewave for the 8th grade students on a project on Rebels and Redcoats of the American Revolution. This afternoon, Vicki and I also talked about how to implement student mentoring programs and best practices and ideas for partnering high school students with middle school students, middle school students with elementary students, etc, which is a goal of mine.
 
My coursework covered various skills and tasks such as collaboration, collection development, technology integration, teaching, passive programming, and setting up and monitoring library procedures. I love the ways in which they blend together and how much mastery and passion is evident in Heather and Vicki’s work. A wide range of students use the library all day long and they are able to have such positive experiences! Again, I feel thankful for my experiences preparing for the practicum and the field at Kent State and for my experiences at Old Trail School. 

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