We have finally completed the Library Renovations. Our tables arrived this week, and they have all been assembled and most of them are in place. They look beautiful! Please stop by and see for yourself -- the beautiful wooden bookshelves filled with new books, the Reference Room with its new wall, the new tables and chairs, and the fabulous murals on the walls are truly magnificent!
I am proud to announce that the Reference Room is now completely shelved and open for business. This means that the ENTIRE Library is completely functional and open for all to use!
The Reference Room in the Library contains all the Reference books for kids, such as encyclopedias, oversized atlases and dictionaries, and other sets of books that we do not circulate.
Also shelved in the Reference Room are the Professional books for teachers, the videos for teachers to use in their classrooms, and back-issues of student magazines and professional journals. Nothing in the Reference Room can be checked out by students, but can be used whenever they visit the Library.
The story area (also where we will have SCNN) is still being decorated, but it is also open and being used. so far, we have the pond rug that Mrs. S bought several years ago, the white rocking chairs donated by the Elfun group 6 years ago, and the backdrop for the 1st grade play which was lovingly painted by Mrs. Wyckoff and is being borrowed by the Library from teh first grade (thank you!) Decoration will continue with curtains to hide the television equipment which will be used once SCNN starts in January.
Thank you all for your patience and support during the Library's reconstruction. We are finally through it all!
The Library is officially open for business to all students and teachers! Today, Monday, December 5th will be the first day that students are able to check out books from the Library. Teachers will be sigining up for a time to bring their students to visit the Library, receive some orientation and instruction and check out books.
It is very important that all the children receive instruction during this first week. While we all want the students to be able to get to the books and check them out, they need to be able to locate books and have a basic understanding of how the Library and its information is organized. These orientation sessions are taking about 30 minutes and students are free to browse the Library shelves after that.
It has been been a successful and joyous day here at Sope Creek, and I expect the week to continue the same way!
Welcome back, everyone!
Well, we hope we're in the home stretch now. We took down the wall today to see what the Library will look like once we're open for business. Not bad, huh? We have gotten about 2/3 of the Fiction books shelved, and everything but the 000--400s as far as Non-Fiction goes.
The builder was out of wood for a bit, but now has one hundred shelves at the shop to work on over the Thanksgiving holiday. This means that we should be able to complete the section of the Library that will house circulating books (not the Reference Section) in the next few weeks.
Even though the Library will not be ready for circulation yet, we will begin Orientation sessions with individual classes when we get back from the Thanksgiving Break. Each class, Kindergarten through 5th grade, will need to sign up for an introduction to the Library. Otherwise, no one will know where anything is! this shelf arrangement is new, and very different from what we had before. As soon as all classes have had their Orientation, we should be ready to circulate books (cross your fingers!).
Mrs. Schultz-Suggs (Mrs. S) has drawn a map of the Library shelves, which you can find here. A few small changes have been made, but for the most part it's accurate. Once the changes have been finalized and the original map has been updated, a newly updated map will be posted here for all to see.
Mrs. S has been teaching the second grade about the Super 3 and the Big 6 using content from their Social Studies curriculum. She has been teaching them to apply the steps of this research process (Plan, Do, Review) to any information problem, but specifically in order to create a timeline of the Early Settlers in Jamestown and Plymouth. The classroom teachers have been providing the historyical knowledge, Mr. HIgman (the Technology teacher) has taught them how to use the computer program Timeliner, and Mrs. S has showed the stduents how to combine their skills and their knowledge (using the Super 3) in order to create their final product. The rubric for this assignment was shared with the kids as well, so that they could plan (Step 1 in the Super 3) their work and shoot for becoming an "Expert Colonist." They had a great time in the computer lab with Mrs. S and got a great start on this project. Instruction on using the Super 3 Research Model will continue throughout the school year, and the students will be introduced to the Big 6 when they enter 3rd grade.
I am happy to announce that parts of the Library are open for business to our teachers! Though we still do not have all the shelves or all the books out (about 1/3 of them are up), we are allowing teachers to come in and check out books for their classrooms from the sections that have been shelved.
The E (for Everybody) picture book section is complete, as is the ER (Early Reader) chapter book section. The Folk and Fairy Tales (Dewey Decimal number 398.2) are also shelved. The Dewey Decimal 500s and 600s are on their shelves -- that's both Pure and Applied Sciences: things like space, physics, chemistry, wild and domesticated animals, the human body and medicine, dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures, as well as "domestic science" (parenting, personal budgeting, and other household stuff like that). The 700s are finished: that's Arts and Leisure -- all kinds of sports, drawing, games, dance, etc.
The 800 section (Literature) is sort of in flux. We have the American Poetry shelved over with the Fairy Tales and the ER books, but we have a LOT of space on the shelves we set apart for Literature, so we may be moving them back to their rightful spot in the 800s. We haven't made a final decision on that yet.
Our ultimate goal with all this rearranging is to increase the circulation of some of our wonderful books. We have weeded a lot out of our collection and will be working hard in the coming months to build it back up again. What we have right now is very good -- but some things the kids just don't check out. This is why we moved Folk and Fairy Tales out of the non-fiction section and over by the Picture Books. More kids will see more great books that way. I hope that the new arrangement of shelves encourages our students to sample new and different books than they might otherwise have chosen. Although the space is small, access to the books themselves is much improved, in my opinion.
As of right now, classes are welcome to come and visit for instruction or for stories (much of the first grade and all of the second grade have been in already!) even though the books are not quite available. We are still searching for tables and chairs, but feel that the highest priority at this time is preparing the Library for business. Please stay tuned for more updates on our progress.
We want to keep everybody informed on the status of our furniture order. We are still on a Quest for the Perfect Tables and Chairs. Until such time as we find said furniture, we will continue to use the rectangular tables and plastic chairs that have always been in the Library. Rest assured, the lack of new tables and chairs will not prevent us from providing full and complete Library Services.
We have some shelves!!! Not a lot (60) but we're really getting started. Megin and Jessica have gotten 2/3 of the Picture Books out on the shelves already. As we shelve, we are weeding the collection (getting rid of really old, outdated or falling apart books) and spot-checking (some books really need to be in a different category -- Early Reader chapter books or Folk and Fairy Tales).
The shelves have dividers in them, which prevent "floppy shelves" -- when the bookend slides over and the books tilt precariously just waiting for the whole shelf to come down on an unsuspecting child! We are hoping they will come today or tomorrow with more shelves for us to fill.
I know that many of you are concerned about the fact that our school has been operating "without a Library" since August. I would like everyone to know that despite the fact that the Library space is not yet open, Library services have always been available to the teachers. Before the books were packed up last year, teachers were given the opportunity to select books for their classroom reading libraries and curricular units. And in terms of access to actual books (even though it's not ideal) the public library is always an option.
In addition, Jessica and Megin have been available to all faculty and staff to provide help using computer software and hardware, and locating online resources which tie into classroom instruction. We have been busily ordering and cataloging books, planning for our Book Club and television show, collaborating with grade levels, creating lesson and unit plans, developing a Library website (which is not quite up and running yet), this blog you're reading now, and even teaching classes. All this in addition to some of the less glamorous aspects of our jobs: changing laminating film, overhead bulbs, and broken computer equipment; installing software and printer drivers on new computers; fixing paper jams and other problems with all the copiers in the building. Not to mention the time an effort we have been spending on the library renovation itself -- the configuration of the shelves, the selection of furniture, and maneuvering through the County's Purchasing procedures.
Early on in the year Jessica develpoed a Reference Skills lesson with the 5th grade, and just this week she began introducing the 2nd graders to the Big 6 and the Super 3 in the context of their upcoming Early Communities unit. She has participated in the All-Day Planning days of three grade levels and is working to develop collaborative integtrated lesson with 2nd, 4th and 5th grades. The Kindergarten, 1st grade and 3rd grade Planning Days are coming up and she will be attending those as well with an eye toward making curricular connections with the instruction of information skills.
Please feel free, at any time, to come and visit and chat with Jessica about any questions or concerns you may have. If the shelves continue to be delivered at the rate they have been, we should open for business in two weeks.
The tentative opening date for the library is no longer valid (and no one is as sorry about that as Jessica and Megin). The shelves have still not arrived. If you haven't been in the Library recently, you may not know that we have all our bookcases up and in place. We just don't have any actual shelves yet. The manufacturer has the wood at this point (it only arrived this week) and they are working very hard to get us our shelves ASAP. Jessica and Megin spent much of this week moving hundred-pound boxes of books from the SCNN studio (where they've been stored since last year) to the bookcases where they will eventually live. When the shelves arrive, we are ready to go!
We are continuing with the Library Volunteer Training as scheduled (Oct. 28, 10:30 - 11:30 and Nov. 1, 9:30 - 10:30). Our opening date, however, is still somewhat up in the air. Jessica has taken pictures of the changes and you can find them here.
The bases for the shelves arrived today. There is a picture in the October 21 -- Almost Ready! photo album. The workers report that 60 shelves will arrive next week, so we can get started with the shelving! Hooray!
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!
We are in the process of trying to order the tables and chairs for the library. What we want is well-made and beautiful -- as well as functional for our needs. The name of the manufacturer is TMC, and the chairs are wooden and stackable with adorable little leaf and flower and bee cutouts in the back. They blend very well with the color of the shelving and the overall feel of the library. The tables will match in both color and style.
Currently,, the County Purchasing department is working toward making the actual purchase -- no word on an order or delivery date yet. Please be thinking happy furniture thoughts so we can order exactly what we want!
Fraser Manufacturing is here again today working on the shelving. They are screwing the laminate tops to the shelving units that have already been built, constructing the shelves that will go on the walls in the Reference Room (as soon as the Mad Scientist is cleared out), and assembling the Circulation Desk. Everything looks beautiful! The workmanship is really quite nice. If you have not had a chance to come in and see the shelves, please feel free to stop by any time and take a look. We always welcome visitors!
In the meantime, please don't think we are lacking for thing to do. Quite the contrary! Megin and Jessica have been ordering and cataloging books, working on computer and database issues, working on the webpage (and this blog!), creating an equipment inventory of the school, updating our Accelerated Reader quizzes (which will soon be updated on the school website), and planning collection development based on the new Georgia Performance Standards. Jessica will be collaborating with each grade level during their all-day planning days, integrating library and information skills with the classroom curriculum.
Sope Creek is also working toward adopting a research model schoolwide -- the Big 6. This is simply a way of approaching research and information problems. Jessica will be working with each grade level to introduce this concept to both the teachers and the students. Stay tuned to learn more about the Big 6!
