It only took 11 years! Cart Makeover!

I have been the librarian at Tibbott School for 11 years and the week before Winter Break I finally had an ah-ha moment about my library carts. I have seen many carts labeled in my years as a librarian but I couldn't figure out how to adapt them to work for me.... until the week before Winter Break! 

I have three carts in the library where the students place their books after they check in. Up until last week, they placed them wherever they wanted, and it has worked fine until the week before Winter Break. Now as they check in their books they need to pay attention to the spine stickers to place their book on the appropriate cart and shelf. This is a process that is going to take some time to master. However, in the two weeks since I changed how my carts work, it is working wonderfully! As I'm scanning the books, I talk to the child and we discuss where the books are going to go on the carts. Some of the students have caught on really fast and they tell me as I'm scanning, and some students need a bit more practice, so I send them to the cart with one book at a time. Are the students going to place their books on the cart perfectly every time? Nope, and that is ok because a majority of the books will be on the cart in the right place and it will still cut down on the time it takes to shelve the books drastically. 

Why change now? 
It is simple, I finally found a method of placing the books on the carts that makes sense for my library. This year I have my mom helping me in the library. For the first time in many years I don't feel like I'm drowning. There were days before my mom came to volunteer when I just couldn't keep up with the shelving and books would "spill" on to tables or my desk. My priority is ALWAYS working with students. Somedays I had so many extra activities planned with classes that I didn't leave time to shelve, and that "worked" for me. Now that I have her helping me in the library twice a week, there is actually time to take on special projects like genrefying the fiction section and making over the Spanish section. In order to free up even more of our time, I've changed the way the carts work to make shelving EASIER & FASTER! Since changing the way the carts work, the amount of book we can shelve in a short amount of time has DRASTICALLY grown. Instead of looking  through 3 full carts to sort out one type of book, we just grab books from the cart and walk to the correct shelf because they are already sorted on the cart and are ready to be put away. In addition, this makes it easier for a child searching for a book that the computer says is in the library but isn't on the shelf. Again, instead of trying to look through 3 full carts of books, we just need to look at one shelf on the cart to see if it is there. 



This is the fiction cart. It is a "browsing" cart and each bin is labeled with a genre. This cart also includes a bin for easier chapter books and one for favorite characters. The colored stickers on the signs correlate with the colored stickers on the spines of the books.    






 This is the non-fiction cart. There are 6 shelves on the cart. This is how I split up the 6 shelves:
B, 000-100-200
300 -400
500
600
700
800-900

This picture was taken on a Friday before I left for the weekend. I have NEVER had such a clean cart at the end of the week!! 

The third cart is for picture books and Spanish books. One side is for picture books and one side is for Spanish books.  There are signs with arrows to help the students place their books appropriately. I will take a picture of it and add it soon!  

The two carts that are "traditional" library carts have a bookend on each shelf to help keep the books from falling over. 

Veterans Day Assemblies

Students need to connect with Veterans. They need to know WHY they don't have school on Veterans Day.

I am the daughter of an Air Force Veteran. My dad served in Vietnam as an Air Force Mechanic. He loved to say he carried a wrench when the kiddos asked if he carried a gun. He loved telling stories about his time in the service, and  I enjoyed listening to his stories. He was also very interested in helping Veterans, and was a Commander of the Bloomingdale VFW Post. Needless to say, I grew up very patriotic. I always wanted to do something to honor Veterans at school, but I wasn't sure where to start or what to do.

When my son was in second grade, his elementary school had a Veterans Day Assembly. Students were encouraged to invite their relatives that served in the military, and send in pictures that would be used in a slideshow.  My son wanted my dad to be there, and since my dad was retired, he gladly accepted. I wanted to know more about their assembly, so I used a personal day to go with my dad. The Veterans Day Assembly at was awesome! The choir sang patriotic songs, each child had a flag to wave, there were guest speakers that inspired the students (and adults), and they created a slideshow with all of the pictures that were sent in by students and staff at the school. However, the best part was when my son's teacher asked my dad to come talk to the class following the assembly. The students had prepared some questions and my dad talked with them. I knew THIS was what I wanted to bring to my school.

The First Veterans Day Assembly 

I started planning for the following year. I began by writing a Valley View Educational Enrichment Foundation Grant called "Wave Your Flag High for Veterans Day" to purchase the flags, and pave the way for our first assembly. I really loved the idea of each child having a flag to wave during the assembly. I also wanted them to leave the assembly with a flag to remember what they learned and who they met. My Principals loved the idea, and I lead the committee that would do the planning for the event, and every event following. In the fall of 2012 I met with my committee and we planned the first Veterans Day Assembly at Tibbott School. The format followed what I had seen at my son's school. Teachers/Librarians are well known professional borrowers, why start from scratch if you know of a tried and true method. Students and staff invited their family members who were Veterans to be guests of honor at the assembly. The choir sang, the Veterans were introduced, I told my dad's story of being a Veteran and why the flag was so important to him, and we had a slideshow of pictures sent in by students and staff. Then the Veterans were invited to classrooms for about 15 minutes to talk with students in an informal setting.

For the most part all classroom Veteran visits are voluntary. All Veterans visit the classroom of the child or teacher that invited them as a guest of honor, so it is possible that a teacher had not signed up for a visit might end up with one. Nobody has ever complained about a surprise visit. I have always received positive feedback about the visits, even if they aren’t planned.  I learned that it is VERY  important to have the teacher brainstorm questions with the class ahead of time to to weed out any inappropriate questions prior to the Veteran entering the classroom.

Each year we have a different theme that is decided by the committee, and we add a little more to the experience. Themes we have used include: how to fold the flag and the meaning behind each fold, the history and evolution of the flag, the history and meaning of poppies, and military dogs. One of my favorite additions to the assemblies has been a readers theater performed by one of the  5th grade classes. Each year the teacher and I discuss the new theme and we work with the students to create a script. In addition to Veterans visiting classrooms following the school wide assembly, we have Skyped with a family member of one of our teachers who was actively serving in the Marines. One of the members of the Bloomingdale VFW, my dad’s former post, is highly active with a group called Military Outreach USA which helps Veterans leaving homelessness. For the past two years we have incorporated a collection for this group around Veterans Day. Over the past two years we have collected enough to provide 7 beds along with other various items they need when leaving homelessness.  

I use SmileBox to create the slideshow each year. This link will take you to the slideshow I played during our 2016 Veterans Day Assembly.

http://play.smilebox.com/SpreadMoreHappy/4e4451324e6a55304e544e384e6a497a4f5445354d44633d0d0a

I take many pictures during the Assembly and of the Veterans in the classrooms. This link is for the Animoto I created with my pictures from 2016. https://animoto.com/play/Y4rHFWBe1PxvSUmSxrkD6g

This is a link to Military Outreach USA, maybe you will consider a donation to this worthy cause. http://militaryoutreachusa.org

 

My dad passed away in the spring of 2015. He would be proud that I have continued the tradition of connecting students with Veterans.