Off To a Crummy Start

We just finished our first three days with the students.  I’ll fill you in shortly, but let’s just say I’m very pleased we have a long weekend coming up.  I wrote in a previous post about the issues that were occurring with our library software.  All hopes were that it would be up and running [...]

Categories: elementary, library  |  No comments

Can’t We All Just Get Along

Students arrive tomorrow.  They’ll be coming to the library for classes.  I’m not sure the library circulation system will be ready.  Today, for the first time this school year (we’ve had 4 teacher days already), the system actually booted up.  However, the student data isn’t updated.  It seems that our student information system, Infinite Campus, [...]

Categories: elementary, library  |  Tags: alexandria, infinite campus  |  No comments

It’s That Time Again

Our school year begins with 4 days of inservice/teacher work time.  This began last week and ends tomorrow.  The students show up on September 1st.  Tonight, we had our “Meet the Teacher” event.  Our doors were open for an hour and students and families could come in, drop off their school supplies, and meet their [...]

Categories: elementary  |  Tags: back to school  |  No comments

Pepsi Refresh Project

I have to give huge props to one of the kindergarten teachers in my school.  We have quite a few new teachers at our school who seem to be pretty tech savvy.  I’d love to get them more connected and sharing what they are doing in their classrooms.  Perhaps that should be one of my [...]

Categories: elementary, technology  |  Tags: facebook, grant, iwb, pepsi  |  No comments

Just Once I’d Like….

Perhaps it’s the time of the year. Perhaps there’s been a constant full moon. Regardless, the last few weeks/months have been quite an adventure at school.
Just once, even for a few days (or even one day), I’d like to NOT see at school:

Kids leaving the classroom because they don’t feel like being there.
Kids [...]

Categories: elementary  |  Tags: behavior, wish  |  2 comments

Will Someone Figure It Out?

It’s sad and frustrating to read so many stories about libraries losing their funding or school librarians losing their jobs. The map at the botton of this post even shows many of the schools and districts who have cut their library programs.  This is certainly a scary time.  A district that borders my district has decided to cut [...]

Categories: elementary, library  |  Tags: funding  |  No comments

Is This Much Change Good?

My school is again going to see several staffing changes for next year.  There are going to be some grade level changes as well as a few people leaving our building.  Last year, we had quite a few teachers transfer to other schools in our district for a variety of reasons.  Almost half of our [...]

Categories: elementary  |  Tags: change  |  No comments

This Makes My Day

I have to share a story with you about one of the kindergarten students in my school. Let’s call him “Austin.” This little guy is autistic and one of the neatest little guys around. I’m sure he has his moments that frustrate others, but I usually see him when he’s doing well. [...]

Categories: elementary  |  1 comment

The Excitement of It

Thursdays are usually days I dread. It’s the day I travel to my other school to teach two classes, both 4th/5th grade splits.  The first class contains too many students who are disrespectful, rude, mean, careless, and unmotivated.  I believe these students also negatively impact many of the other students in the class, who are [...]

Categories: elementary, library, technology  |  Tags: Google Earth, Google Forms  |  3 comments

Kids are Flexible

Today, I was introducing a project one of our classes will be working on involving National Parks across the United States.  We are in the early planning stages of the project, but today, students (grades 4/5) were given a map containing all of the National Parks.  They were to look around and find three that [...]

Categories: elementary  |  Tags: googledocs, national parks  |  No comments