Saturday, May 28, 2011

This week at the library; or, yay. summer.

Ah, summer, the time of year when we relax, get some sun, have a vacation....choke on pollen, work 50+ hours a week, sweat like a pig in un-airconditioned schools, and try to have contact with 2,000+ children in less than two weeks. Yay. I'll feel more cheerful about this when I've had that strange thing people do sometimes called sleep.

Monday
  • Monday morning started at 7:30am with sixth grade visits - see my earlier post. Early Monday afternoon was desk time. Late Monday afternoon was our last session of Make it and Take it. We did beading, younger siblings got to come in and join us, and we finished all our art projects from the semester that needed paint etc. Monday evening was a stack of mystery books and a list of emails on program planning I sent myself for further consideration.
Tuesday
  • Tuesday morning was sleeping, as a result of having become so engrossed in Casey Sciezka's To Timbuktu that I stayed up reading until 1am. Tuesday early afternoon was flyers, surveys, more school visit planning, stacks of new books, and the sudden realization that having had a pear for breakfast, I better eat some lunch. Soon. Late Tuesday afternoon was Wii gaming (batteries weren't charged and nobody came), desk time and whilst on the desk, more flyers, new books, a gazillion phone calls, etc. Tuesday evening - more of the same, plus talking to some teens, potential volunteer, looking for missing movies, etc. etc.
Wednesday
  • Wednesday morning was a school visit for a small parochial school, First Lutheran (posted on this earlier). It was raining, of course. Then some desk time, our last Messy Art Club, at which we did "cut and glue", and yay, day over! I brought over the paper cutter for Messy Art Club, although we didn't end up using it, and had tons of paper, die cut shapes, glue, scissors, pens and pencils, and we made a lot of creative stuff! Smaller group than usual, just 15, but it's getting near to the end of school and it was a hideously dreary day. My tweens didn't show up until much later, which usually means they took the bus instead of walking or biking so they didn't come to the program room until we were done.
  • People occasionally ask if we don't have a problem with toys, especially our train, going missing. Well, we have a large theft problem, but not in this area! As I was putting away our craft stuff, I noticed that we seem to have mysteriously gained at least three train cars which I never saw before!
Thursday
  • Thursday was cold. At our last preschool storytime we did our last singing of Jim Gill's Face the Facts, read Jeremy Tankard's Boo Hoo Bird, then Kenn Nesbitt's More Bears (this was a little old for some of them, although they liked saying "more bears!") then we all did Scott Fischer's Jump together - they crouched down and jumped every time I turned the page, then we clapped to John Lawrence's This little chick, and finished with Kevin Henkes' Birds. We made the same birds as last week at Make it and Take it, from Catherine Woram's Paper Scissors Glue, but my aide cut them out ahead of time and we used markers and crayons, not paint. When we next meet it will be Preschool Interactive, my new early literacy/process art program. Hope people like it!
  • Thursday afternoon was publicity, displays, summer reading, and desk time. Some interesting questions including contact information for "The Hare Krishna group that hands out Bibles at airports", somebody at the Milwaukee Journal told somebody they could get free copies of the paper at the library, lots of patron interactions, and a group of dedicated middle schoolers working on a scale model of a concentration camp for school. With much fear and trembling, I allowed them to bring their hot glue gun into the study room. They're all pretty responsible, so it should be ok and I gave them ample newspapers...
Friday
  • Happily, it was not raining and my first big elementary school visit didn't start until 9:25 and I stayed late at the library yesterday prepping so I didn't have to leave until 8:30! Ran home for lunch afterwards and then back to the library for a desk shift from 2-6. Lots and lots of publicity...thank you notes for a couple donations...new books...*yawn*

No comments: