Week 11

 This was a busy week of check outs and book shelving.  This week while I was checking in books, I found this:

When the student came to check out later in the day, my Media Specialist had a conversation with him about not eating near library books and being careful about storing food in desks with library books.  She did not charge the student this time even though the book is most likely ruined and we will have to delete it out of the catalog.  

I have been trying to read more of our media center books so that I can give honest recommendations to students.  This week I finished Front Desk by Kelly Yang.  

I'd heard from my son that the book was great, but it exceeded my expectations.  The book is about a family of Chinese immigrants who run a motel for little money and support from their landlord.  The landlord takes advantage of the fact that they are immigrants and do not have many options.  It is full of diverse characters, hardships, and standing up for what is right.  Front Desk has become one of my favorite elementary chapter books of all time now.  The author has written a sequel to it called Three Keys that is on my list to read soon.

In my opinion, an important part of being a Media Specialist, (or even a Media Clerk) is to try to read as much of the material in your media center as possible.  I want to be able to discuss books and honestly recommend them to students.  You can't do that if you don't know your collection well by reading it too.

Our students have been challenged to read 3,000 minutes by the end of the school year.  They earn small prizes along the way.  However, if they complete 3,000 minutes they earn a t-shirt and are entered into a larger drawing for a tablet, a Sphero robot, and some other great prizes!  I have a Cricut and a heat press for shirts at home so I have been working on making the shirts for our students.  Here is this year's design:

We have nine students so far who have already reached 3,000 minutes.  Hopefully we will have more by the end of the year!  With a little over 1,000 students, our goal is for at least 100 students to read for 3,000 minutes total.