New Lego Wall !!

Part of transforming spaces is all the rage in the library world these days.  So one thing that I found that I really thought could be interesting was a post that I saw about a LEGO wall.  I had been to the ISTE conference in Philadelphia two years ago and started following a blog of one of the award winners named Diana Rendina.  She had posted her ideas on making a lego wall.  I liked the idea and thought this was something that we could do at McGuire.
So the first thing I did was bring up the idea to our principal.  When he said sure see what happens I thought great! Here we go!!

 I know legos are expensive so the very first thing I did was put out a request for a donation of legos.  Only a few people donated but that's all I needed.  We did get a couple of big boxes of legos.
The next part was a little more tricky believe it or not it wasn't easy to get all of the lego boards at one time.  Several places would only sell 3 at a time.  Thankfully I have this wonderful secretary Deann Haugland who went to a few different places for me a few different times to purchase them.  Even Amazon and lego.com limited the amount in the cart.

Another amazing person in my building (John Swedin) our custodian was so helpful and purchased the board  and cut it to the right size so it could be mounted.

Now I had all my plates to glue down and my board but then someone mentioned maybe you should paint the edge like a frame.  So I purchased some yellow paint as close to lego yellow as I could and painted a border on the edge of the board.

I followed  the directions from the blog measuring where the plates would be put on the board, using liquid nails to adhere the boards and using lego pieces to keep the boards in place.

Finally the board was done and once again John helped me out by securing the board to the wall.  I put out just a few legos to see how it would go and it was great.  I will add more as time goes on but right now  I am trying to figure out what I would like to use to keep some containers of them close by.

So what will we do with the lego wall?  Well I am hoping we can make some ties into literature, maybe a math problem or even just some cool art.

It is so fun to watch students walk over and start creating some things on our wall.  Just with a few legos there was already a bird, a fan and a few kids names.

Bookfair at MMS!!

Exciting news our Scholastic bookfair at MMS was a huge success thanks to the endless efforts of Georgetta Olson and Kathy Nida our bookfair chairs.  The pirate theme was a fun one with all of the great decorations.
Our bookfair chairs held a contest on guessing items in a jar and there was even a special drawing for teachers who attended the bookfair. Mrs. Ratcliff was our big winner.

Congratulation Mrs. Rateliff

We actually exceeded our goal for books purchased!!  This allowed the media center to choose some popular titles for the kids and even a few extra for some of the teachers. 

Election Day

In our library we put up a display highlighting the election.  It was interesting to see all the issues that were part of this campaign.  We also displayed some books that had relevant topics.  There were a couple of students who were very interested in the display and commented on their choice for president.

Yesterday I was honored to be asked to be a voting judge by Mr. Gottfredson and Mr. Swenson for our 8th grade social studies classes.  They came into a polling place that was set up and had to initial their registration. Then they were given a ballot to choose their candidate for president.  It was very interesting to go through the process with them.  The signing in and the teaching of having to fill in the oval for the ballot.  Funny how you think that should be obvious.  The best part for the kids was getting the sticker that said "I Voted."  A great experience for students!

 

Election Day

In our library we put up a display highlighting the election.  It was interesting to see all the issues that were part of this campaign.  We also displayed some books that had relevant topics.  There were a couple of students who were very interested in the display and commented on their choice for president.

Yesterday I was honored to be a voting judge for our 8th graders.  They came into a polling place that was set up and had to initial their registration. Then they were given a ballot to choose their candidate for president.  It was very interesting to go through the process with them.  The signing in and the teaching of having to fill in the oval for the ballot.  Funny how you think that should be obvious.  The best part is getting the sticker that said "I Voted."  A great experience for students!  The 7th and 6th grades also did some voting with their classes.

 

Professional Development at the ITEM conference

Every year for the past 25 years minus a year or two for having my children.  I have attended the ITEM (Information and Technology Educators of Minnesota) conference which was formerly called MEMO ( Minnesota Educational Media Organization).  

  

This is one chance where I get to collaborate and meet other educators from around the state who do the same thing  I do.  This conference also gives me an opportunity to go to sessions about current library trends and technology practices.  

This year was a special year for me because I have been chosen to be one of the co-presidents of this organization along with my friend Dawn French pictured above.  Pictured below is my friend Cathy Knutson who was one of the conference chairs and a fellow Lakeville media colleague. During the conference we had a few responsibilities like announcing details of the conference and leading the membership meeting, but mostly it was just a time to connect with others, see what new products our vendors could show us and go to some sessions on relevant topics.

During this conference we were fortunate to listen to a well known author Jen Bryant who gave us and interesting speech on her background research for her books. We also heard Shannon McClintock Miller give a great presentation on student choice and voice.  Lastly we heard from Jen Hegna a local guru on technology who presented on diving deeper into our subject matter.  All were awesome keynotes!

The last part of the conference was an unconference where you brainstorm a list of topics that you want to spend some time discussing  and then put the topics into a schedule. The next 90 minutes is spent with a group in a couple of  discussions.  If the topic is not what you thought you can get up and move to another group.  A great way to reflect on your own personalized learning

Overall great learning, great ideas and great people

Timelines in Reading!!

One exciting part of my new job has been the opportunity to work with the middle school students.  Mrs. Anderson recently has had some classes in the media center working on the chromebooks. She and I collaborated on a project that had the students creating a timeline of reading.  What a great idea! She wanted the kids to come up with the ideas of what books kids have read that were important in their reading journey. So I suggested she use an application called piktochart and have the kids make an infographic/timeline.  They turned out great the kids came up with a list of books important to them.  We then found pictures of the books and used the pictures and text to create the timeline.

Homecoming week

Homecoming week is always an exciting time for students but boy was I surprised at the enthusiasm of our McGuire Staff!  It is so much fun to work with a staff that is willing to participate in the fun things that the kids do.  I'm still cleaning up all the glitter in the media center

Transformations in seating

In our district we are talking about transformations.  One of the things that I have had a vision for since I came to MMS is the transformation of the library to be more of an "inviting" and comfortable place for students to come and not only read but create, collaborate and just spend some time enjoying some individual time.   I started by adding some color around the media center and in the display cases.

Another way I would like to transform the media center into something more comfortable is moving the seating around.  We had some couch pieces around but I decided to move a few of them from behind the wall

 and make them more of an individual and  comfortable seating space for kids. Once I moved a few of the pieces I was surprised on the positive comments I received.  I would like to add some more comfortable seating in the future.  Maybe I will have to look into a donor's choose project.

1st week!!!!

So far so good working on getting a feel for the new building and wow is it busy! Learning all the new procedures and school needs has been really fun and makes me realize what it is like to be the new kid on the block again. New Clerks!!! Lucky me I have 2 just for the library!

And so it begins...

Well I can say I can't believe it ....but I can't believe it .   After 25 years of being an elementary school librarian or media specialist I have decided to take yet again another leap of faith and move the middle school.  I had been at my last school for 20 years and opened the building.  It was a great building with great people but when Mrs. Larson said she was retiring I just felt this was yet again another opportunity I couldn't miss. I needed a change, a shot in the arm so here begins my journey.  The building isn't new but I feel like it is a clean new slate for me and a whole bunch of new challenges that lie ahead.