This week at the library; or, I am feeling disorganized

wings at book club (you can tell who read Magicalamity
and who just likes wings)

What's going on; in my head and at the library

• I don't know why. I just am.
• Kohls Wild Theater is an annual event at our library. This year I booked it in May, sent out letters to the schools in August, reminded the schools again in October, forgot that I'd booked it and had a panic attack in early November when I sent out the school information again, and then spent an hour or two creating self-guided tours of the library. 
• Thursday afternoon, I realized I had better put the colored arrows for the tours out NOW and scrambled to do that simultaneously with Lego Club. There was a lot of coming and going of me, my associate, and my aide, but I finished, kids built Legos, and all was well. Until a little girl helpfully collected a big handful of the arrows. Oy. My awesome associate, who does not like seeing her boss cry, put back the arrows and taped them all down. I was lucky to have an adult who likes to attend our after school clubs break down most of the tables and chairs for me.
• Friday morning, I arrived at the same time as the Kohls van (they were early!) let them in and gave them the run-down of what to expect. I finished setting up the room with chairs, laid down tape markers on the floor, and selected books for a display. Then I finished the last bits of prep for the tours (putting out books and coloring sheets at different points and making sure everything was more or less in order, pennies at the front desk for the wishing well, staff prepared, etc.).
• At 9:30 three classes of four year olds arrived on their bus and I started them off on the self-guided tours. They had to pace entering the library so they didn't get jumbled up. For the next half-hour, I zipped back and forth between letting the public into the performance room and making sure they sat in the areas delineated for them, checking on the tours ongoing in the library, and connecting up random kids (from the afternoon class) who arrived to join in.
• At about 9:50 two classes of four year olds arrived from another school (walking) with lots and lots of parent chaperones and siblings. I moved them into their area, made sure they all knew about sitting on their coats and which door to get out of, then shepherded the classes returning from the tours into their space.
• The program lasted about 30 minutes. During it I clapped, filled out their evaluation form, brought in latecomers, kept an eye on the audience for any emergencies, from sensory overload panic (I don't know if there's a specific name for this, but you know what I mean) to screaming babies, bathroom runs, or fingers in the floor electrical socket that's missing a cover.
• Afterwards I helped shepherd the two walking classes out their door, helped teachers and parents keep kids from making a break for it, said "hi" to my friends, distributed hugs and coloring sheets, and thanked the teachers for coming. Then I went back into the room and chatted with the classes who had to wait for their bus to come (one of the teachers is also the bus driver) and shepherded them out their various doors.
• Then clean up the display, pull up the tape, make sure the performers collected all their stuff, and went around the whole library picking up anything left from the tour (including peeling all the arrows off the floor). Normally I'd also have photographs to post to Facebook and organize, but I don't do photography with school groups.
• And then I left because I was exhausted and I'm working tomorrow.

Programs

• Monday
• Pattie's C.A.F.E.
• Tiny Tots (Pattie)
• Tuesday
• Toddlers 'n' Books (2 sessions) (Pattie)
• Rock 'n' Read
• Wednesday
• November Outreach: Tales and Tails (5 sessions)
• Thursday
• Books 'n' Babies (Pattie)
• Lego Club
• Friday
• Kohls Wild Theater and tours

Some projects completed/in progress this week

• Supervising, shifting nonfiction and holiday books and oversize.
• Finally dealt with some of the mess of the library pinterest boards by transferring previous school booktalk lists over to my own pinterest pags and slimming down the library's pages.
• Created self-guided tours for 4K groups on Friday.
• Cleaning out files in an attempt to be more organized
• Finished shifting YA

What the kids are reading; A Selection

• Read-alikes for wimpy kid and big nate - Odd Squad and Stick Dog
• Dot the fire dog - only had the movie
• Football books for a 4th grader - Mike Lupica and Jake Maddox. Wanted movies too, but all I could think of was Wild Soccer Bunch.
• Made a kid very happy by telling her we just got Chi's Sweet Home 12 in.
• What bees do in winter
• Trains
• Curious George
• 1000+ lexiles
• I survived read-alikes (time to get that list up!)
• fire trucks
• American Girl (historical fiction for 4th grader, was reading AG but teacher wouldn't pass it b/c not 100 pgs, so I showed them Beforever...heh heh heh)