Week of September 3

Week two was a short week, since we had Labor Day off and then kids had Tuesday off for teacher professional learning. Our library team is lucky enough to be able to attend a series of workshops at Grant Wood AEA led by my friend Lynn Kleinmeyer related to Future Ready Librarianship. We had our first meeting on Tuesday and got to learn from Lynn and her teammates, as well as guest speaker Tamiko Brown. Tamiko had a lot of great ideas regarding makerspaces and take home maker kits. I'm excited to start thinking about ways to make more makerspace magic happen at Prairie Hill!

Our AK students listened to the book A Perfectly Messed Up Story this week. One of our AK teachers, Mrs. Younger, is who first introduced me to the book, so I always like to read it with these students. They also checked out one more book this week. Almost all of them brought their books back, so we will likely move up to checking out 2 books either next week or the following week. I love watching the kids wander around finding books that they're interested in for the first time!

Kindergartners listened to a story called Do Not Bring Your Dragon to the Library by Julia Gassman. It is about some kids who want to bring their dragons in, but dragons obviously cause quite a few problems in the library. They end up making a compromise with the librarian so that they can take home a stack of books for the dragons so that they don't have to miss out. 

First graders listened to The Magician's Hat and I showed them lots of books of different careers, since that's what the book is about. 

Second graders listened to Dewey, There's a Cat in the Library which is a true story from Spencer, Iowa. This book is about all my favorite things -- orange cats, libraries, and Iowa! I told kids a story from a public librarian I know about having pickles put in her book drop! Ha! We had a great time laughing about this story.

Third and fourth graders competed in a GooseChase scavenger hunt, just like last week. This week the focus was on finding books in our library. The extra practice really helped out and they all felt more confident about searching for and finding books at Prairie Hill. I love seeing our kids work together as a team and having fun in the library!

Next week I've got meetings on Monday to collaborate with each grade level, and we'll get started on some new projects! I can't wait to really dig in to the learning this school year!