Wrap-Up and Moving On: A Photo Essay

What happened at the end of the second term:

In English, my Grade 7s excitedly read Roald Dahl's excellent Lamb to the Slaughter. Afterwards, we ran a mock trial to determine whether Mary was actually guilty of murder. My girls got to test out their acting chops and even brought in costumes. Our characters, prosecutors, defense and jury all put their heart and soul into trying to sell their case to me, the judge.

The defense team lawyer, in costume, questioning a character.

I also got to meet my nephew for the first time in person when I flew down to Cape Town and attended his christening.

My nephew and his mum.

What happened in the third term:

Production! Our school play devoured the term. While I was originally just involved in the writing of the script, this morphed into directing along with other dedicated teachers. It ended up being a heck of a lot of fun. All 400 girls participated in one way or another, with about 30 of them in acting roles. The 30 speaking parts and I became very close due to the many afternoons we spent together, running lines and endlessly going over scenes. In the end, we did 5 full performances, including a swanky gala evening where the teachers let off some steam afterwards at a wrap party.

Me in my awesome Crew shirt, reserved for us hard-working backstage crew only!

In terms of the IT side, I oversaw the development of the computer lab. This turned out to be a project that continued all year as we sourced a digital projector setup, printers, and so on. We were also lucky enough to get four computer stations up in the library. Unfortunately, that meant that we had to, again, clear whole shelves to make way for the wiring. Here's a shot of the lab in use by a Grade 4 class.

Practicing our typing basics with an internet flash game.

What happened in the fourth term:

I was lucky enough to go on camp with the Grade 7s! We traveled all the way from Grahamstown to Hartenbos in the Western Cape. It was such a great trip. My phone's battery was acting up so I don't have any pics from that time. We visited an ostrich farm, the Cango Caves, a waterpark, and, best of all (according to my students), a mall! We stopped at a ten-pin bowling place with a few arcade machines and I happily got to trounce the best Tekken player in Grade 7. The girls were very well behaved and our accommodation was lovely. It was a worthwhile week.

We weeded a large amount out of the library, and accessioned a pleasing amount of new books - particularly fiction. I couldn't have completed these massive tasks without the help of some very eager library monitors.

A page from one of the outdated books that we removed.

On a personal note, my amazing fellow teachers and staff surprised me with a bachelorette lunch, tea and night out on the town! I had thought that I was going on a camping trip with my two teacher friends but, actually, we showed up to a long table crammed with staff happy to be in on the joke! I have never felt more loved and had a blast.

Having a wee dance in my themed bachelorette outfit.

It's been a busy year! My time at this wonderful school has sadly come to an end. My new husband and I have relocated to the Western Cape, and I have been fortunate enough to find another post. I will always miss my Grahamstown family, but have moved to be closer to my actual family here in Cape Town. This month I'll be starting at a co-ed private school in Franschoek called Bridge House School. It'll be a different environment but one in which I hope that I can be fulfilled.

New Year, New Displays

Here's what our bulletin boards are looking like at the minute:

• Junior Primary: Sharpen Your Mind (inspired by this)

I will admit, the odd pencil falls off occasionally. But still worth it for the effect.

Close-up of a corner with my flavourful post-it notes.

• Senior Primary: Hot Summer, Cool Reads (inspired by this)

I'm proud of this display because, aside from printing and laminating, my new library monitor trainees (Grade 7s) organised and put it all up themselves. We have ten new trainees this year: two have been given their full monitor status (plus BADGES) due to the work they put in last year, and eight are brand new. If they impress us by Easter, they'll get promoted too.

In the holidays, I also picked up this tiny plastic fishtank to decorate the front desk. It has four cute little magnetic fish inside and a wand to move them around with. What they don't tell you on the packaging is that it is also magnetic to children- kids are attracted like magnets to this thing. On the upside, it encourages them to hover at that spot. Perhaps I can put it in a more advantageous place?

"Miss M, what does it do?"

Don't Worry

Fear not, internet readers! I'm still here and willing to blog.

As the school term here goes Jan - Dec, with a big June winter break, I've just finished my long summer holiday. I dived into full on holiday mode, visiting my family and catching up on some well-deserved leisure time. I'm already missing it!

School has started again, this time I'm a full-time teacher librarian. The doubling of my workload has been a bit of an adjustment, I haven't really gotten the hang of it yet but hopefully that will improve in time.

So far, this year:

• New display in the Senior side of the library, "Hot Summer, Cool Reads"
• New display in the Junior side of the library, "Sharpen Your Mind" (Back to School)
• Started teaching poetry to my new Grade 7 English class
• Start of entering our new library books into the system
• Drama circle game ran for Grade 4 - 6 drama classes
• Began teaching for Grades 1 - 4 IT without access to a computer lab!
• Attempting to manage my admin/planning side, with varying levels of success

I'd love to do a post on each of these, perhaps I will be able to as I get more used to the routine. Thanks for being patient while I figure it out.

Batty About Books

 Reporting in to show off our first ever Halloween display!

Halloween is not really a big holiday here in South Africa. The kids hear of it mostly through US television channels, like Disney. The younger kids I chatted to had been trick-or-treating to each other's houses and knew all about dressing up and costumes. The older ones were less clear on the holiday. Regardless, all ages were very happy to colour in 30+ bats to help me decorate the library.

Batty About Books!

The black fabric is felt, it was considerably expensive but will last forever. The Library Elves and I had to cut it to get to fit to the board- normally, if a piece of fabric is too long we just fold it up behind, but the felt was too thick. Due to this, we also have some back-up felt for future projects. Up close, the felt is very pitch dark and has a great texture. 

I saved up a bunch of our spooky/mystery books and displayed them below the display. I've also kept some books in reserve, to stock the display up when it runs low. I'm pleased to say that the first day that I had students come into the library, about 6 books have already been taken out: books that otherwise would have probably never gone off the shelves. In this way, I'd already consider the display a success.

Some of our happy bats hanging from the rafters.

In terms of Halloween activities, the colouring in of bats has absorbed much of their time. I also found a themed word-search online that was hugely popular, I must find more brainteasers for them to do. This term is jam-packed, prizegiving and exams are looming! If there is time, though, I'd like to run a spooky stories afternoon in the library. 

The refurbishing of the displays has brought in some great, often hilarious, comments from the students on how much they like the library 'now'. Many girls instantly notice and remark on the decor, while others walk on past and take a bit of time to actually 'discover' what has changed.

Spring Has Sprung!

For some of my readers, this post title might confuse you. Surely it's autumn, you cry? Not here in the Southern Hemisphere, it isn't! Having our seasons opposite to the majority of the teaching-blogging world makes it somewhat interesting to search for appropriate themes and resources: Christmas is slap-bang in the middle of our summer, for example, so snowmen and winter scarf templates aren't that useful! In any case, it's currently spring here and I got myself in gear to put up a new display in the junior section.

Step 0: Wrestle pretty new green fabric onto full brown/grey display board. There is no picture for this, my Library Elves and I were far too busy wresting with the fabric.

Step 1: Locate willing Grade R class (Kindergarten). Get them to give you hand-prints on A4 paper in some bright colours. Attempt not to get covered in paint while helping them do this.

As you can see, I partially achieved Step 1.

Step 2: Locate willing Library Elves to cut strips of coloured paper for the stems and to arrange the hand-prints into beautiful spring flowers. Persuade Library Elves to cut out lettering for the display, also from coloured paper.

Working away in the library this afternoon.

 Step 3: Take photos of the students' hard work. Marvel at their creativity and drive.

Junior Display: Let Your Imagination BLOOM

I'm really so proud of them, they really took on this task with massive enthusiasm and seemed to enjoy it. The majority of the students were working on it were Grade 6s, so I'm eyeing them up for Library Monitor duty next year! This will brighten up the junior side an incredible amount. While this display was being constructed, we were also working on our snazzy new Halloween display for the other side of the library. At the same time, we were also making lists of the books that we are planning on withdrawing. Things are certainly busy at this time of the year!

Weeding the Collection

After some discussion with my administration, we have agreed that our collection (+/- 5000 books) needs to be weeded. Our shelves are mostly full but, honestly, that isn't always the best idea. It will make my life a lot easier during the upcoming stock-taking if the obsolete books are already withdrawn. Library Girl recently posted a great flyer which has been my inspiration during the weeding process, take a look at it on her blog.

Just some of the books that we are planning on withdrawing!

I must admit that it's a difficult process. The outgoing librarian told me that she didn't like to remove many books, because then the shelves would look empty. Now that we've spent a few days making piles of books to remove, I can see those empty spaces. They are daunting. Some of the books we are withdrawing are hardback books, and are in better condition than the newer books in the library, so it sometimes feels like a shame to remove them. If I am honest, they are in such 'good' condition because they have been checked out so rarely. A few of the books are classic tales, but unfortunately the language or content is generally far beyond what our students want to read. At the same time, though, I have new books waiting in my office, eager to be covered in plastic (a battle, and blog post, for another day...) and get onto those shelves. 

That first sentence is part of the reason this collection is badly in need of weeding!

I hope that we are able to find a place to donate or sell these books to. Despite this being a university town, many of the local schools are not well resourced. Maybe some of the high schools will receive these books better than our students have.

Besides the weeding, I have two big projects on the go: moving the collection from manual cataloging to digital (!) and sorting the fiction by genre. The latter is not really worth doing unless the former is also going to happen. I've been deep into parts of the internet I knew nothing about, namely, integrated library systems. It seems that all of the free options are based on Linux (I have zero experience with Linux), while the Windows solutions cost an arm and a leg. Trying to find a compromise between these two extremes is proving difficult. I would be fine with advising purchase of a software as long as the cost was reasonable, but I've yet to find something suitable. The software that can automate the cataloging is very important to me, because up until now our whole collection has been on a manual card system. My ideal software will let me scan the book's ISBN and pull all the data that is required, without me having to type out 5000+ entries by hand. It will also cater for a school system, such as grouping patrons by grade/class and student/staff. This software would be clear and modern, without the Windows 95/98 look I see plaguing the Windows options (I love the look of Koha's layout). 

If anyone has any suggestions on library software, please feel free to comment and let me know!

Senior Primary Display: A Blast from the Past

Now that I've taken this display down in preparation for our next one, I've finally found time to put the pictures up here! This theme was Blast from the Past, a broad sweep through history and a good chance for me to see what find of historical fiction (and non-fiction) we have. As always, click on the pictures for a big version.

As you can see, we have dinosaurs, pyramids, music records and a variety of people from the ages. The music records are a very old part of our collection, I guess that we have about 20 of them. I have no idea of they still work, as there is no access to a record player to test them out. For now, they are decor. 

A closer view of the plastic toy dinosaurs, kindly loaned to me by a friendly grade 1 teacher. 

A close-up of my amazing hand-drawn dinosaurs. The design was taken from a fabulous teacher online somewhere, but I'm impressed that I was managed to reproduce it to such cute effect. These have been laminated and kept for another day. 

I have a feeling that this display, theme-wise, wasn't as big a hit as the animal theme. The students just seemed less interested in the variety of historical fiction (what do you mean, you don't want to read about the London Blitz?!). I've heard that historical fiction can be a hard sell to students of this age group, so I'm not too worried.

My next display will probably be one for Halloween, I've been working on the components. It isn't a big holiday here in South Africa, so my students are amused by the novelty of it and have been helping me out by creating art for decorating purposes.

Prizegiving is coming up at our school, wrapping up the year before final exams start. I've been given the job of arranging the printing of all the certificates, for both junior and senior primary (400+ students). Hopefully I can do it in good time and without it becoming a big stress. 

Prettying Up the Place with Pom-Poms!

I'm writing today to bring you another update to the library decor. Unlike most of my ideas, this one was conceptualised, planned and carried out within the space of a week! In the library, there are a lot of support beams high up on the ceiling, not to mention an awful lot of plain ceiling space. I've been brainstorming how to jazz up this space to make the library more jolly and attractive. When I came across this idea this week, I felt that I had found something that might work.

Using Cicelie's excellent tutorial that I found on Chintzy Couture (via Pinterest), I decided that it couldn't be too difficult, even for a non-crafty person like me. I cut up a small cardboard box into two circular templates and set about wrapping up my tulle, similar to how you would make traditional woolen pom-poms. I have a very faint memory of attempting a woolen pom-pom when I was about 5 or 6 years old in a Rainbow group, which was only brought back when I started this craft!

This is a shot of about half of the tulle pom-poms finished. I was absent minded and didn't think to take photos of my creation process. If you want a guide, though, the tutorial I linked above has really great information (and additional discussion in the comments). I read through it in the morning and spent the day making pom-poms.

The finished result:

I got enough material for 15 tulle pom-poms in total: 5 blue, 5 white and 5 pink. I spent most of my Friday balancing on library tables and stringing them up. I'm quite pleased with the result.

The Suggestion Monster

This post is to show off one of the new additions to the library this year: a suggestion box! I wanted it to be something the students wanted to use, that was eye-catching and would encourage them to provide suggestions about the library. In July, inspiration struck me. I looked around on Pinterest and Google for some monster crafts, and came up with this cute little thing (click the pictures to make them larger):

This is the Suggestion Monster! This afternoon, I had just finished emptying him of suggestions, he was totally full. I covered him in felt for body and spots, then I just glued some egg-carton eyes (with googly eyes) onto the top of him. Originally, he was a shoe box, which is why he has the 'hand' flap. I glued a roll of cardboard to the hand flap to let him hold his own pencil, which the students love. I cut off the other flap, and cut the front flap into the jagged teeth. The box mouth lifts up so the suggestion notes can be put inside. He took about 2 days to finish, in between regular library work. 

He sits on the computer table, underneath a page which gives the students some guidelines about what to suggest. Since July, students have regularly used the suggestion box. Usually, they suggest authors or books they would like, but occasionally they have even given me suggestions for events the library should run and the library layout. I'm happy that he continues to be such a popular feature of the library. 

We have started training up a group of student library monitors, who are doing an excellent job in assisting me with re-shelving the book returns and tidying the shelves. Each monitor has chosen a shelf to be in charge of, and I have started awarding a Shelf of the Week label. This idea has come from multiple librarian blogs, thank you all so much for continuing to share your creations!

It's hard to believe I've only been working at this school as a librarian for only 3 months. 

Catch Up

It's been a crazy few months! Even though I'm only a part time teacher, there has been so much to work on in the library.

I have been making slow changes, including adding a cute suggestion box for the students (pictures and a write up to come soon, hopefully). Over the winter break I got stuck in and removed a lot of expired materials from the library office. I even found some relics from the olden days... Music records, floppy discs and slide holders! I will be keeping a few choice items but the rest will be passed on to the spring sale or the aftercare program.

Tomorrow, I will be substituting for the Grade R teacher. I've never taught in a Grade R classroom, so I'm actually quite excited for what will probably be an exausting day. I'm lucky enough that I will have two very experienced aides to work alongside.

Senior Primary Display: Walk on the Wild Side

This afternoon, I finished the display for the senior (Grades 4-7) side of the library. After asking the classes which themes would interest them, I settled on 'animals'. This allows me to put animal non-fiction as well as fiction books on the display. I hope that the students enjoy it, and that it is as big of a hit as the "VP and the World" display was on the junior side.

Click to enlarge the images. I hope to take more detailed ones when I have time!

Before - Random collection of posters:

After - Walk on the Wild Side:

The white text is filled with various animal facts and 'Did You Know' snippets. The pink basket to the left is our Animal Ark collection. The various wooden animals were stored in a random cupboard in the library- thanks to whatever teacher/librarian left them there, they were a perfect addition to the display! The centerpiece of the display, the (hopefully) friendly snake turned out better than expected, I didn't follow any design and it somehow looks pretty good for a first attempt. I like the animal font, but if I was to redo the display I would cut the black letters in such a way that they would have white paper as an outline.

My first ever library display!

As I'm sure you can imagine, things are crazy at the moment. Even though I'm only a part-time teacher, there's enough prep-work, admin and sorting-out-the-library-work that it's always possible to stay busy. I managed to enjoy last weekend: I didn't think about any work at all. Being able to switch off has always been one of my weaknesses, ever since I started teaching, so I'm continuing to work on that.

Good things that happened today:

• I completed my first ever library display! Compared to the amazing displays I have seen online, it's quite modest - but I'm quite proud of it, and hope that the Junior Primary (Gr 1 - 3) will enjoy it from tomorrow. Since I don't know our collection very well yet, I had to manually go through each shelf to find theme-appropriate books. At least doing that helped me improve my knowledge of the collection! Take a look (click to see full-size pics):

• I found three books (2 Roald Dahl, one JK Rowling) that we had thought lost. Yay! They've returned to their place on the shelves.
• The Grade Rs came for their first ever library visit. We hope to be doing more in the future.
• I introduced the second Grade 7 class to the concept of shelving the 826 (English Fiction) books according to the first three letters of the author's surname. Each girl got a book to re-shelf  Some girls enjoyed it so much that they asked to help me re-shelve the rest of the returns! They have got a little star next to their names on my potential student librarian candidates...

We Have Lift-off!

I can now finally announce my good news: I've just started working as a teacher-librarian! I'm extremely excited to have this opportunity. For last two weeks, I've been focusing on learning my new responsibilities and tasks from the outgoing librarian. In fact, I'm so grateful that she is still around to show me the ropes! This week has been my first 'official' week on my own.

Literacy is a huge passion of mine, and I've already started to draw together some ideas that I'd like to slowly integrate into the library. Being a South African public/government school, we simply do not have the budget for drastic technological advances - just like most public schools globally - instead, I'm trying to gather ways of modernising the library with an incredibly limited tech scope. In my next few posts, I hope to formulate my ideas about 21st century libraries that are on a budget, and what can be done as a new educator to provide fresh ideas without having to splash out on.

Being brand new to this, I have a million ideas whizzing around in my head. I'm looking at finding a way of easily sorting my ideas into digital 'folders' and then expanding them into proper notes/plans/documents at a later stage. Tiddlywiki looked like a great solution, but I was having errors getting it to sync properly between my netbook and desktop. 

My ideal life-organiser:

• I could jot down text notes, fully searchable and sortable. I like branching menus and folders.
• Fully usable on my Windows 7 desktop and Windows XP netbook, with ability to sync (I also have and love Dropbox). Would be handy to store/access content on the web, but not necessarily essential due to Dropbox.
• Ability to read/view content (bonus points for adding simple notes, even to an ear-marked folder) on my android phone.
• Good timetable/scheduling abilities, though I'll take that as a separate app. Anything that lets you plan for a two-week (A/B) school timetable?
• Ideally free.

For my normal life stuff, I currently use Catch Notes on my phone for lists and memos, and Google Calendar on my phone (via 3rd party widget) and desktop for calendar tasks. For my teaching/library sphere, however, I feel that I'm going to have to have something more sophisticated. This weekend I've been browsing alternatives, but nothing has really jumped out at me. I'm giving Evernote a go, though I fear that it's reliance on syncing and assumption that you have internet 24/7 is going to be it's downfall. 

If anyone has any suggestions for contemporary, Windows/Android, free life-organisers, please let me know. 

I'm working on little changes to the library, I'm going to take some pictures and get them uploaded to show you all. Thanks to my new Twitter PLN for all the encouraging advice!