Today, the Book Fair arrived from Scholastic. While Cindy taught classes in the reading center, Toni and I prepared the rest of the library for the incoming cases of shelved books. Typically, the library has many volunteers that come especially for this day to un-box and set up the displays, books, and other fun. This year, for varied reasons (mostly sickness), only two volunteers were available and in attendance. Thankfully, the janitors of the school and a few teachers on planning offered their help, even if it could only be 20 minutes or so. There is no incentive for volunteers at this point for Ravenel's LMC, but Cindy said most parents just enjoy doing this event. Several years ago, Scholastic allowed librarians to assign some discount percentages for volunteers/teachers, but Cindy said that any "discounts" would now come out of profits.
Thankfully, the delivery men from Scholastic and the janitors wheeled in the giant cart/shelves into the library. Each cart was also laden with boxes filled with more materials to be set in the Book Fair shop. Once the shelves were in about the right place, the Scholastic employees required a signature and were off, leaving us to move the sometimes heavy boxes off of the highly stacked carts. Again, we were so grateful to the custodians as they lifted the heaviest boxes and set them on the floor.
The unloading was a bit chaotic. Each box has a title of content based on pseudo-genres and grade-level appropriateness. At first, we were piling boxes just by those content, but we were also trying to place them under or near the tables they would be displayed on. This worked for the most part, until people started pulling the materials out of boxes. Then, it was like Christmas morning in a family of twelve! Books and materials starting cropping up everywhere! As we were all placing books on display, we also realized that the size of tables wasn't always appropriate for the amount of resources in the boxes. This led to shuffling of books that were already set up in display! About halfway through the process, we saw that some areas were densely crowded, while other spaces had large gaps. This then led to trouble keeping the pseudo-genres together. In addition, the Scholastic genres were not necessarily genres I would understand or categorize based on. This made collecting and redistributing texts onto the displays an extra challenge. Too, Cindy had pulled a few books off of the shelves to rearrange, which made some holes on the shelves themselves. Phew! I honestly was a little panicked at the state of the fair, but just reminded myself that I wouldn't be present for the full fair and that it needed to suit Cindy and Toni as the true leaders of the fair.
First what I noticed about content, then what I would do for my Book Fair.
Holy bobble pens and kooky highlighters, Batman! It felt like more than half of the fair's goods were cheap novelties like funky erasers, giant pens, and character-topped highlighters. Cindy and Toni cover this table up when the students come for a wish list walk-through to focus on the books available to them. Secondly, almost all of the novels were paperback: I'm sure to make the texts affordable to the general child shopper. There was a fair range of texts and topics, though empires like Marvel, Lego, and Disney dominated many tables and shelves. I am sure this ties back to Scholastic's corporate deals and maybe even ownership. Despite this, there were many books that were excellent choices that I had both heard of and seen good reviews for. All of the books were new or recently new titles with the exception of Harry Potter. Even still, the Harry Potter texts were the new artistic covers and were matched with movie books and Fantastic Beasts materials, a recent film. The picture books were a little more diverse, with a specific requested selection of SCASL Children's Book Award nominees present for sale. My last big notice were some larger, higher level texts available for sale, but not in the "adult" section of cooking books and biographies. These books were mostly about presidential history, science industries, and compendiums of sports facts. Not only did these books seem not appealing, they also were greater than $40. I was a little confused as to why they are present at a elementary book fair, but imagine Scholastic is both trying to make money and potentially appeal to parents who come through the shop.
One great thing Scholastic did this year is create a box for students who had no money at the book fair. Cindy said that she had always gathered some books that they purchased through donations (donation can included in the setup kit) to give to students without money or with little money. There was also an overflowing table of "discount" books as the spring book fairs are headed towards selling off all inventory to buy new inventory for the following year. Both of these options made the book fair more accessible to all students, which I thought showed some recognition of reality from even a business like Scholastic.
Content-wise, I am sure that I would not have made all of the novelties available to the students. There were so many character iterations on the tops of pens that my own head was spinning! I know as a child, these attracted me, too. And why wouldn't they? Colorful, characters, useful! But as an adult, I can see that the prices are rather excessive for something you could get for a quarter or may never use at all. I would want to both protect my students from those buys and encourage them to buy texts or project kits that would develop learning and experiences from the book fair. Additionally, I think I might have to take the first delivery day by myself or just have volunteers move the boxes down. At least for my first year, I think I will want to know what is going where to keep my own head straight during the sales process. Perhaps the Scholastic genres will be sufficient; I just want to understand them first!
I am so grateful to have been present at the setup of the Book Fair. This is one of the things that I think may be most practical to help me, especially if I end up as a middle or elementary LMS. As one of the biggest events within the library and one of the most complex (especially financially), this day has been extremely helpful in my LMS formation.
Showing posts with label procedures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label procedures. Show all posts
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Monday, February 13, 2017
Day 9: My Monday as the Librarian!
Today was a bit crazy! (Though I imagine most Mondays are!) Two classes come in very first thing in the morning, but hordes of books also come through the door right away! This is logical and great for the classroom teachers: the students have had the book all weekend/last week and are going to return it as part of the Monday routine. As a librarian, I am so glad Cindy has an aid! Toni was absent today (to try and help me feel what an only-two-member-staff would feel like), and we could barely keep up with the influx of books and needs of the patrons! To manage this rapid arrival of at least 100 books, Toni is in the habit of putting newly checked-in books on the main tables in the center of the library. Students know to look at those books first, especially if they wanted to read something a friend had turned in. The benefit to this method is that students immediately have access to books checked into the system and the popular books remain in circulation without the effort of correctly shelving them. For sure, the pressure of the moment is the drawback. With two twenty-something student classes coming to checkout books and the four to six classes' worth of books being returned all within the same hour: phew! I did have a headache before the first story time even entered the library! Without changing the schedule majorly, I am not sure how I would improve this Monday morning time. Toni and Cindy must have established a rhythm for this time in order to still be successful with it this far into the school year.
My own lessons didn't go as well as planned. I had chosen to read If Kids Ran the World, by Leo and Diane Dillon, because it showed how kindness and love could abound in the world through different acts of graciousness and care. The pictures are also rich, detailed, and respectful depictions of varied world cultures. I knew the text was a higher level than kindergartners, but thought that walking through the story together would still lead to a good read and moral lesson for the week of Valentine's.
NOPE. The kindergarten class I had first was not engaged in the message of the story, but instead focused on all the goings-on of the pictures. The students were excited about story time, but could not contain their outbursts about each page. Even the questions I would ask like, "Have you donated food to someone who needed it?" ended in strings of stories that they all wanted to share and have listened to. PHEW. I knew that something would need to change with tomorrow's kindergartners, but still wanted to try the book with 1st grade so that I could judge if this was merely an inappropriate level to read If Kids Ran the World with, or if the book itself should be binned from the "Story Time Together" pile.
This first grade class responded better on the understanding level of the book, but were difficult to keep focused during the reading time and lesson itself. Several of the students were trying to roll on the floor, or get up towards the bookshelves, or otherwise wander with their bodies and minds. About half of the students responded well to the questions and engagement of the book; the other half could not settle down and focus. Even when I tried to bargain with them about showing a video clip from the Book Fair, the rowdier students only stopped to think for a moment before resuming their activities. When the class was preparing to leave, both Cindy and the homeroom teacher fussed at the children for their behavior. I felt like I didn't get a good measure on If Kids Ran the World with those students, so I may try this book again tomorrow with a different first grade class.
Lessons from today or goals for tomorrow (in no particular order):
My own lessons didn't go as well as planned. I had chosen to read If Kids Ran the World, by Leo and Diane Dillon, because it showed how kindness and love could abound in the world through different acts of graciousness and care. The pictures are also rich, detailed, and respectful depictions of varied world cultures. I knew the text was a higher level than kindergartners, but thought that walking through the story together would still lead to a good read and moral lesson for the week of Valentine's.
NOPE. The kindergarten class I had first was not engaged in the message of the story, but instead focused on all the goings-on of the pictures. The students were excited about story time, but could not contain their outbursts about each page. Even the questions I would ask like, "Have you donated food to someone who needed it?" ended in strings of stories that they all wanted to share and have listened to. PHEW. I knew that something would need to change with tomorrow's kindergartners, but still wanted to try the book with 1st grade so that I could judge if this was merely an inappropriate level to read If Kids Ran the World with, or if the book itself should be binned from the "Story Time Together" pile.
This first grade class responded better on the understanding level of the book, but were difficult to keep focused during the reading time and lesson itself. Several of the students were trying to roll on the floor, or get up towards the bookshelves, or otherwise wander with their bodies and minds. About half of the students responded well to the questions and engagement of the book; the other half could not settle down and focus. Even when I tried to bargain with them about showing a video clip from the Book Fair, the rowdier students only stopped to think for a moment before resuming their activities. When the class was preparing to leave, both Cindy and the homeroom teacher fussed at the children for their behavior. I felt like I didn't get a good measure on If Kids Ran the World with those students, so I may try this book again tomorrow with a different first grade class.
Lessons from today or goals for tomorrow (in no particular order):
- less complex stories are really okay for kindergarten
- at the end of the day, it's one story time and can mean a lot, but the repetition and diversity of readers and reading material is more important
- try If Kids Ran the World with Mrs. Guill's more strict-led class
- choose a secondary book as the choice for kindergarten
- ask or observe more discipline strategies for young children
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