Scholastic Book Fair

Today, I helped Mrs. Deep start setting up for the Scholastic Book Fair. Mrs. Deep gets 7 tall rolling carts full of Scholastic Books. Additionally, they send her more books in cardboard boxes. Mrs. Deep has figured out a system that really works for her patrons. First, Mrs. Deep takes a picture of the contents of the shelves to ensure that she puts the remaining books back where Scholastic put them. Then, Mrs. Deep takes the books off the shelves, one at a time. She rearranges the books by price. The reason for this is so that the students, especially the younger students, come in, they are able to easily purchase and find a book that they are able to buy. Mrs. Deep said that it took her a while to figure this out. This is what I helped her do today. We took two shelves, took the books off of them, arranged them by price, and re-shelved them. Then, I took tape and marked how much the books were on the shelf under the book. This really helps the Bookfair move more fluently.

After we organized the shelves and put the prices under the books, we looked at the Scholastic Bookfair brochure that went home with the students last week. Mrs. Deep said that a LOT of students come in searching for a specific book that was in the magazine. Mrs. Deep learned that the easiest way to keep track of the book's location on the shelves is to keep a copy of the brochure and label where the books are located on the shelves. She labels them using the SAME stickers that she uses for the lexiles out in the library. How smart is that!? For example, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" is sky blue in our library. She would put a sky blue sticker on the brochure and a sky blue sticker under the book on the book shelf. This enables her to find the book quickly when a student asks for it. It also allows the students to know that that book is, or is not, on their current lexile level.

American Education Week Breakfast for Teachers

American Education Week is next week! As a token of her appreciation and support to the teachers at TCES, Mrs. Deep uses her funds from the library to purchase breakfast for them. This is an event that Mrs. Deep has done ever since she first started working in the Media Center. She stated that teachers are very important to her, and she wants to support them any way she can. This is a way for her to demonstrate her appriciation for all of the hard work that teachers put forth every day.

American Education Week is actually next week. However, Mrs. Deep is celebrating a week early so that she doesn't have their breakfast AND the bookfair all in the same week. Last year, she had both going on and it was very stressful trying to check students/parents out and set up the breakfast for the teachers. She learned her lesson the hard way!

I helped to set up the tables, get the supplies (cups, ice, napkins, plates, and platters), and lay out the breakfast according to the signs. Mrs. Deep got McDonald's biscuits for everyone. She also had coke, diet coke, and orange juice. Yum!

Afterwards, I helped to clean up and distribute the remaining items that were left. It was a big hit! I would love to do this one day when I become a Media Specialist. It is very important for your teachers to know how much you appreciate them!

Title Wave Box Trailers

Today I helped Mrs. Deep go through some of the Box Trailers that Title Wave sent to her. A few times a year, Title Wave will send Mrs. Deep a box or two of books for her to go through and see if she wants to add them to her library's collection. First, Mrs. Deep checks each book to see if they have an AR test on Renaissance. If they don't she puts them back in the box and does not consider them at all. Then, she researches the appropriateness of the book (maturity of the content, profanity, and/or relevant to the curriculum). She often uses Goodreads, a website online that has a catalog of all types of books that offers information on the appropriateness of the book. It also have ratings from readers who have read the book.

After checking each book to see if they had an AR test, we discussed the next steps of purchasing the books. If Mrs. Deep decides to purchase the book for the library's collection, she emails Title Wave to tell them which books she wishes to purchase. Then, Mrs. Deep goes into Destiny, goes to vendors, selects the Title Wave vendor and makes SURE that the bar codes that they have for their books do not belong to one of her bar codes on a book within the library. Again, this would cause major confusion and aggravation if it is not fixed or avoided. We did not catalog or check the bar codes of the books because Mrs. Deep had not contacted Title Wave yet and she did not have access to the bar codes.

Organizing/Labeling Weeded Books

Today I helped Mrs. Deep in organizing and labeling the weeded books. Mrs. Deep told me today that she has weeded many books over the last year and that she just put them into a stack in the back room. Over time, she forgot the reason for the books being weeded. Together, we pulled out each of the weeded books and labeled them with sticky notes. Some were weeded because they were either incorrect information or out of date, ruined beyond repair, and some were not AR books. Mrs. Deep and I labeled each book with sticky notes so that we could continue to add to the weeded collection. Mrs. Deep plans to have a cart outside of the library on Academic Night for parents. teachers, and students to comb through.

Finishing the Thematic Display

Today, I helped Mrs. Deep to finish the thematic display in the showcase. I helped to add 5 red table cloths to the display to look like curtains, created a film wheel, and laid out the floor and red carpet for the display. Last, but not least, I added stuffed animals reading books to go along with the red carpet theme. How cute!?!

This thematic display helped me to get into the school spirit of supporting reading literacy among our students. I was enthusiastic about the display because I know that the students will see it and want to become "Show Stopping Readers"!