Pintester Movement: Toddler Friendly Crafting

And, my grand entrance back into the blogging world (shortly preceding my grand exit, in all likelihood) will be made with a crafting project for The Pintester Movement. If you have never seen Pintester, you should do yourself a favor and check it out! Your intrepid Pintester is none other than my fabulous sister, Sonja Foust. But I'd read her blog regardless of our shared parentage. It's hilarious, even if you're not into crafting -- maybe especially if you aren't.

As you know, I do not blog in part because I am too busy with my girls.  I have my Neve, who will be three years old on December 27, and my Ruby, who is four and a half months old. Both girls rock, but in a way that pretty much requires my full 24-hour attention, especially while I am on maternity leave until January. Currently, Neve is playing with her sister while I peer over my laptop screen at regular intervals to make sure everyone is still alive.

So, the assignment: Craft a Christmas tree ornament from Pinterest. The search began for a Christmas ornament craft for toddlers. Also, I am unwilling to paint any body parts, which is required of toddler crafting in most cases. So, we found this beauty from Birmingham Mommy:

Basically, you drop pony beads into metal cookie cutters, bake until melted, and voila! Toddler crafting requiring no painting of body parts.

So, here's our demo.

Step 1: Prepare cookie sheet. (We didn't want anyone's ornament to have leftover baked-on French fry residue or anything. And I don't really want plastic bead residue in my French fries later.)

Step 2: Create artistic mommy-demo. All you do is lay the cookie cutter down on top of an ornament hook, and fill it with a layer of pony beads of your choosing. Allow cat to inspect. (Yes, he is on the counter. Don't judge me. I know I might as well lick the litter box before each meal. I just haven't found a solution to the problem, short of barbed wire.)

Step 3: Show toddler what to do. Know that she will go completely overboard. Tutorial suggests "one layer" of beads. Toddlers do not understand this concept. Also, know that your toddler probably will not care to differentiate beads by color. "Let's make the tree mostly green," might as well mean, "Dump a handful of random beads in that sucka." But she will look good doing it.

Step 4: Sneakily redo everything the toddler just did. Not really. But kinda, yeah.

Step 5: Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes or so. Open a window; it's stinky, but we didn't die.

Step 6: Wait until they cool completely, and pop em out.

Step 7: Show it off. This is the one we're sending to Cheeseblarg because I enjoy the irony of decorating one's tree with a tree.

So, thanks Pintester, for getting me back on the blogwagon, even if it is just one post. We had fun, and since you're our loving Auntie, you might be getting a melted bead ornament for your tree this holiday season.

New Post Coming Soon!

Hey guys!

I pretty much never blog. Ever. But I wanted in on the upcoming Pintester Movement, so look for a new blog post from me on November 15 telling all about how the girls and I made a craft from Pinterest!  Hoo boy.  By way of preview, I will tell you that I have fans running and windows open in my house right now.

ITES Activity 3 by Joanna Pendleton

For those who used to read this blog, and this might pop up on your Feed Reader... This is an activity for a class I am taking on the NC Essential Standards for Information and Technology.  I will be linking the IT Essential Standards for 5th grade to the Science Essential Standards for 5th grade.  If you're not an educator (or even if you are), you may just want to bypass this one. I won't make any promises about posting anything else, but maybe you'll hear from me again before another two years pass. Who knows?

1. Sources of Information
• ITES: Use various sources of information to complete a task, making sure that the resources chosen are relevant and reliable.
• Science Connection: A teacher could assign research on any one of the science standards and require students to use resources.  Since the Science Essential Standards are supposed to be inquiry-based, students might even be asked to come up with their own questions to answer using different resources available to them.  Science Standards that would lend themselves well to research using print and non-print resources would be:
• 5.P.2.1 - water cycle
• 5.E.1.3 - global weather patterns
• 5.L.1.2 - human body systems
• 5.L.2.1 - comparing ecosystems
2. Informational Text
• ITES: Use appropriate and differentiated strategies to read information in a variety of formats and genres.
• Science Connection: Again, the ITES objectives would best be met in the context of a research assignment. See above for Science Standards that would be best for research.
3. Technology as a Tool
• ITES: Use technology tools to gather, organize, and present information.
• Science Connection: In addition to using technology tools within the context of a research project as mentioned in previous points, technology would be a great tool to use for some of the other Science Standards as well:
• 5.P.1: Force & Motion -- Students can watch demonstrations and experiments online or using the Discovery Education Techbook, making predictions as they go with the teacher facilitating discussions. Students can also create a graph using any number of technology tools (5.P.1.3).
• 5.P.3: Heating & Cooling Matter -- This standard requires the students to explain the effects of heating and cooling. After conducting investigations, students can use technology tools to create and publish their explanations to demonstrate understanding.
• 5.E.1: Weather Patterns -- Technology is an absolutely essential tool for students to be able to collect and compare weather data so that they can make predictions.
• ALL: Really, technology could be used as a tool in teaching any standard. With so many ways for students to gather, organize, and present information using technology, the possibilities are endless. I would say that for this IT Standard, the teacher should just be careful to make the use of technology as authentic and practical as possible. For example, students need not be required to type lab notes when a pencil would be just as effective. BUT if the students are to explain a concept, the teacher may wish to have a student create an informational blog post so that he or she can receive some authentic feedback.
4. Research Process
• ITES: In 5th grade, students need to be able to carry out a research process in collaboration with others.
• Science Connection: See IT Standards 1 and 2 for a list of Science Standards that could be taught well within a research project context.  In order to encourage collaboration, many of these standards could be broken up and each student or group assigned a small piece of the objective. When students present their work to one another (hopefully using technology tools that would encourage authentic feedback), they can be held responsible for what is being presented as well.
5. Safety and Ethical Issues
• ITES: In 5th grade, students should understand how to be responsible with hardware, how to use information ethically, and how to be safe on the internet.
• Science Connection: For any published research (written, posted, etc.), students will need to understand the IT SE Standard.  See IT Standards 1 and 2 for Science Standards that could be used well in a research project setting.  Again though, this standard could apply to any Science Standard in which technology or information could be used -- practically all!

AASL Conference: Teaching The Big6 for the Little Guys

When we were in library school, we were taught that we needed to use a research model to help our students learn to conduct their research using a process. Most school librarians end up using The Big6 or, for the little guys, The Super3. I myself have, in fact, used these models in teaching lessons, although I have had limited success with Super3 and almost no success with Big6. Just try saying to my 5th graders, "OK, guys, our first step is 'task definition.'" I dare you. You will immediately realize it's going to take a whole 40-minute period to explain just this one step, let alone the other five.

Amanda Jones, a school librarian like me(!), has come up with a great and quick way to teach Big6 skills to elementary school students in a limited amount of time -- even kindergarteners. The original Big6 steps are task definition, information seeking strategies, location and access, use of information, synthesis, and evaluation. Whew! That's all well and good for librarians, but for elementary kiddos, not so much.

So, Amanda's tweaked Big6:

1. Task
2. How
3. Where
4. Use
5. Make
6. Decide

Much better, thank you.

During the session, Amanda gave several awesome examples of very short (two or three 30-minute sessions) research projects with cool products done using Big6 strategies. Her visual aid that she carries from grade level to grade level for consistency is a staircase with a step on each stair. Since we use Thinking Maps at my school, I have mine in a flow map (like a timeline, basically) for my first Big6 lesson on Monday. Either way, she reminds us that it's important to stay consistent if we want kids to remember the process and build on it from year to year.

One more cool idea to introduce The Big6: Use the book Froggy Gets Dressed to teach the importance of using a process. (Froggy could have had more time to play outside if he had used a process when getting dressed, instead of forgetting so many things!)

As mentioned earlier, I do plan to introduce the process to my students starting on Monday, for grades K-3. I even modified my sad and lonely Big6 posters:

AASL Conference: Meeting Margriet Ruurs

Over the course of the next few days and weeks, I plan to share a little bit of what I learned at the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Conference last week. I was thrilled that our national conference was held in my home state this year so that I could have the opportunity to go and enjoy! Each of the following blog posts will highlight a concurrent session that I attended. I hope this information will be helpful to some of you out there in school libraries, and maybe just interesting to some of the rest of you.

The first session that I would like to highlight for you was called My Librarian is a Camel: How Children Around the World Get Books. The session was led by the author of the book My Librarian is a Camel, Margriet Ruurs. Margriet, originally from the Netherlands, was charming and fun to listen to as she told us about all kinds of nontraditional ways that children have access to libraries around the world. Read the book for more on that.

One cool project that I'd like to try with my students is called A Book Marks Our World. It's basically a bookmark exchange program, so that children from all over the world can connect with one another via their shared love of reading.

I do recommend sharing Margriet's book with children, although it's a little long for a read-aloud. I like to hit the highlights of just a few featured countries when I share it. Students love to check the book out and go back to read for more details about their favorite mobile libraries.

Home Improvements!

We have unofficially designated summer as home improvement time. This summer, we decided the most pressing item was the ceilings. The popcorn spray throughout the house is peeling, so we're having it all scraped off, sanded down, and repainted.


And since that is a totally boring home improvement, and we had to call a painting company anyway, we're also getting new walls in the bathroom. Right now, they're some sort of weird tile board with an even weirder chair rail slapped right in the middle of the wall.


The tile board is coming down, our wonderful contractors will repair any damaged sheet rock, and then they will repaint! I picked out a new shower curtain and paint color today. My paint color is the second one from the top in the photo.


They're coming to work on the house while we're away on vacation, so I'll post the "after" pics when we get back!

And just for fun, here's the guest room bed with all of the stuff emptied out from the bathroom cabinets, as well as all the "knick-knacks and valuables" from the living room and kitchen.


More posts on the way soon, I promise, and perhaps some of a personal rather than organizational nature. :)

Rime of the Harried College Student

This is an old, old piece of mine, written for a Brit Lit college course. Sonja has requested that I post it.

The Rime of the Harried Student

A harried college student meeteth three other students who hath all completed their studies for the evening and are on their way to Tate Street Coffee, and detaineth one.

It is a harried student
Who stoppeth one of three.
-- “By thy bloodshot, bugged out eyes,
Let go, and then be quick to flee!

The Coffee House is soon to close,
And I need my caffeine;
Unhand me now, or I know how
To kick you in the spleen.”

He holds him with a shaky grip,
“There was a disk,” quoth he.
“Say what! I don’t care, crazy fool!”
And flippeth him the birdie.

The Coffee House pilgrim gets caught on a nail on his way past the harried student, and is constrained to hear his tale.

He heads on past but lo! What’s this?
The pilgrim has been stopped.
His brand name shirt has snagged a nail;
The harried student plopped

Right down beside this wretched fellow
Who cannot choose but hear.
He valiantly tries to free his shirt,
But fears that it will tear.

“The disk was new, had all been cleared,
Merrily did I start
To type away, and all that day,
I typed straight from my heart.

The student tells how he began to type a long, long, long paper.

The Sun went down upon my left,
and typing I remained
Till Sun came up upon my right,
And all my mind was drained.

Typing and typing, there I sat,
Till every last page was done--”
The caffeine fiend here screamed aloud
For he would but could not run.

The young man goeth into caffeine withdrawal; but the harried student continueth his tale.

The two friends sit at Tate Street table,
Wond’ring about the other;
They ask and shrug, but then move on,
As they are not his mother.

The third friend here he struggled hard,
But got more tangled trying;
And thus continued our harried student,
On the verge of crying.

The paper is eateneth by a computer demon known only as the infamous Operator Error.

“And now that demon, on he came,
The bane of student life;
He struck with all the force of fiends
And caused no little strife.

That fiend, you see, is none but me,
For I am a rather large dupe.
‘Operator error’ rings loud and clear,
And now I feel like poop.

I typed, I saved, and typed again,
And then I saved once more.
A great fat lot of good it did me;
Computers I deplore!

The harried student goeth into shock.

And through my mind I wandered blind,
Feeling far from super,
It took some time to quite recover
From my catatonic stupor.

I scurried here, I scurried there,
Looking for a nerd,
For only such as he could help
Recover e’en a word.

The harried student catcheth sight of such a nerd, one Alby Tross, and recieveth him with great joy and hospitality.

At length I crossed one Alby Tross,
Pure-bred nerd incarnate,
And hailed him with such needy plea,
All he said was, ‘Darn it!’

He vowed and swore and said again
He would not help me through it.
He’d had enough of me and my kind
Begging him to do it.

And lo! Though Alby Tross proveth at first to be a nerd of good omen, he quickly proveth otherwise and earneth the wrath of our harried student upon his head.

I groveled, knelt, and then implored
He take but half a minute,
But he was set and would not fret,
Though I be neck-deep in it.

The tears came fast now, hot and mad;
I could not cope at all.
Who was this sniffling, pompous creep
To heed not desperate call?”

The harried student inhospitably beateth the pompous nerd of good omen within an inch of his life.

An evil glint crept in his eye,
The held-fast captive saw,
“’Alby,’ said I, ‘you nasty old thing,’
And whacked him with a drinking straw.

Since thin and malnourished Alby was,
It took but little force
To beat him down upon the ground,
And make him cry, of course.

Now I, the student, in trouble be;
I knew I had done no good
To prove my case and not erase
My essay that printeth I should.

He crieth out in anguish and sorrow, for beating the nerd of good luck.

And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work me woe:
For all averred, I had beat the nerd
That could my problem know.
Ah wretch! said I, the nerd to fry,
That could my problem know!

But when the guilt weareth off, he justifies the same, and thus screweth up his life all the more.

But beepeth the CPU from a corner,
And window box appear:
Said, ‘Sure to quit?’ and then was fit,
And I let out a cheer.
‘Twas right, said I, the nerd to fry,
And I let out a cheer!

It appeareth that the harried student hath recovered his toil of many hours.

On white and glim’ring monitor shone
My essay in all its glory;

I kissed my disk and then sat down
To finish up the story.

The computer hath been suddenly locked up.

Typed I a line, but naught appeared,
‘Twas sad as sad could be;
And I did speak only to break
The window glass with my scream!

All in an evil, silent state
That heinous essay mocks me.
And as if on cue, that Alby dude
Revives himself and socks me.

Tick after tick, tock after tock,
On the Elvis wall clock pass,
The room as idle as an empty cell
Or a maxed out Stat 101 class.

And Alby Tross begins to be avenged.

Paper, paper, everywhere,
And printers full of ink;
Paper, paper, everywhere!
Man, I need a drink!

My very soul did wilt: O drat!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy bugs did eat at my lungs,
Or so it seemed to me.

About, about, I reel and pout,
My crazed eyes glowing bright;
I can’t believe, through all my toils,
I’ve nothing to show for the night.

And ever and anon throughout his (near) future life an agony constraineth him to travel from dorm to Caf, and Caf to dorm;

Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

(Although he hath just cometh from the Caf, so the heartburn could be due to the food, rather than the agony of the story...)

I pass, like night, from dorm to Caf;
And back to Caf again;
I know that most will not listen to me,
But you are my good friend!”

What loud uproar bursts from that poor
Nail-bound addict of coffee.
Forget the shirt, he’ll rip it apart,
If it means he can only be free.

“Hey, buddy! Wait! This soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea:
It was so lonely and so cold
(Though not a sea, literally).

O sweeter than the Coffee House,
‘Tis sweeter far to me,
To sit together here and now
With you for company!--

And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence for all things (and nerds) that God made and loveth.

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou addict of coffee!
He doeth well who liveth well
By even a nerd like Alby.”

The harried student, whose eye is bright,
Still crazed with fatigue and alarm,
Is gone: and now the Tate Street pilgrim
Turned back to his own dorm.

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense out-thunk:
He shook his head, and went to bed,
And said, “That dude was drunk.”

Joanna Likness
Spring, 2000

Raising Achievement & Closing Gaps Conference: Day 3

Session #1: Victorious Vocabulary: More Words = More Learning

I went to this session because it was given by a large, successful elementary school in my county. My school is also large, so I wanted to see what strategies were in place at Jesse Wharton Elementary, just down the road from us. The presenters were the principal, an ESOL teacher, and a 4th grade teacher. They talked a bit about the school in general and then about the vocabulary strategies they use to bring equity to their schooln population. Children with lower socio-economic status generally know as little as half of the vocabulary of their upper SES counterparts. Vocabulary gives students an edge in reading, comprehension, and testing skills. I loved this session; it was probably my favorite of the conference. I took away some techniques I can put into practice immediately, especially as I read stories to children.

Session #2: If You Don't Feed the Teachers, They Will Eat the Students

Fun but not terribly practical, this was more of a feel-good session presented by the author of the book of the same title. She focused on positivity and not taking life too seriously, which is probably a reminder that teachers need fairly often.

Keynote Address: Preparing All Students for Success in the 21st Century

Dynamic speaker with a good message. His main point, which I liked, was that relevance makes rigor possible. In other words, if the students are doing work that is important and meaningful to them, they can do work at a higher level. He also said what I have been saying for years to the naysayers, which is that although America may be behind some other nations in academic achievement, our public school system is still the best in the world. Why? Because we teach all children. Excellence for the entire population (no matter their special needs, backgrounds, abilities) is much harder to achieve than excellence for the privileged few.

Overall, it was a good conference, but I would have been ok with slightly shorter sessions and a lot less down time on Monday.

Raising Achievement & Closing Gaps Conference: Day 2

What I really want to do is post about American Idol, but check me out on Twitter for that story. Moving right along...

Session #1: Establishing Relationships to Raise Academic Achievement of All Students

I really loved the presenters because they were a husband-and-wife team nearing 80 years old, and they were very passionate about it. And I was very excited about the material at first. It had to do with identifying personality types, which is something that makes a sucker out of me every time; I love that stuff. However, the more I thought about their presentation, the more I thought that it was really just a lot of best practices repackaged in a cute format. Now, if cute is what it takes to reach students, I'm all for it! But basically what they were saying is that we need to build relationships with kids and teach for multiple learning styles. Got it.

Session #2: Warnings, Warnings, Warnings... How Many is Enough?

Bordering on excruciating, the presenter was basically giving a 45-minute sales pitch for her discipline program. And the thing is, her "program" is just a rather clumsy conglomerate of a bunch of strategies we all learning in undergrad classes. The program might be good for lateral entry folks though. Maybe. One who shall remain nameless was sitting near me tweeting presentation "don'ts" throughout.

Session #3: Engage Students Using High-Tech and Low-Tech Tools for Teaching Visual Literacy

My favorite of the day. A couple of staffers from LEARN NC showed us some cool resources and talked a bit about visual literacy in the classroom. I haven't been a big LEARN NC user before now, but I may have to start.

Some Links I Need to Explore:

Especially in the last session, I heard about some really cool stuff. Here you go:

• The Commons on Flickr: Really awesome photo database pulling from organizations like The Library of Congress (only Flickr is a lot easier to use than the LC web page, believe me).
• Wikimedia Commons: Another free database, this time for all media types.
• Instructify: A blog by the LEARN NC people that looks fairly promising. Focus on instructional technology, and looks like some good tech hacks for the classroom.
• The Dream Teacher: This is really from yesterday, but it's a link, so I'm putting it here. This is Cindi Rigsbee's blog.
  

Raising Achievement & Closing Gaps Conference: Day 1

Thoughts and Happenings:

1. Someone should come up with a better name for the conference.

2. My old principal from Riverside HS, Mrs. Peebles, now works as a bigwig at the Department of Public Instruction.

3. I sat in a focus session for three hours without getting even one practical idea to take back and implement at my school. Not even one. I always get great ideas at library conferences. What gives?

4. All presenters who use lapel mics should be forced to sit through a lapel mic training session so that they know not to hold the whole unit right next to their mouths, thereby giving participants raging headaches from the excruciating volume level and amplification of presenter's bodily functions such as breathing and swallowing.

5. Cindi Rigsbee, North Carolina Teacher of the Year (and National Teacher of the Year Finalist!), spoke at the opening session, which was cool. She taught my brother in middle school. The truth was confirmed when she mentioned that her new shoes were "bo-bos," according to her students, which is a term I learned from my brother when he was in middle school.

6. I'm pretty sure "conferees" is not a word, although it is I suppose an attempt at cleverly shortening the term "conference attendees." Mostly though, it's annoying and not particularly clever.

7. "21st Century Learning" continues to be a buzz-phrase. If we're so concerned about it, WHY ARE WE CUTTING MEDIA ASSISTANTS AND TECHNOLOGY TEACHERS IN GUILFORD COUNTY? WHY?? WHY??? Ahem. Sorry. I feel strongly about that.

8. Also, a recurring theme is that in order to close gaps, children need equitable access to resources. I'll tell you what, I just finished writing four enormous papers involving equitable access to resources. Guess where a lot of the resources are: THE LIBRARY. Guess how students gain equitable access to many of those resources: THE LIBRARY STAFF. So, again, WHY ARE WE CUTTING THEIR JOBS??? Ahem. Sorry again.

9. No vendors. What? No vendors means no free stuff and no door prizes and no teachers buying vendors' stuff. No vendors is bad news for everyone.

10. If I'm in your hotel for a conference, you should give me free wifi, whether I actually booked a room or not.

The Many Faces of Scratchy Pendleton

Here's what Scratchy looked like until this morning:


Here's what he looks like now:


It was time for the springtime shave, avoiding weeks of ferocious shedding and painful clump-pulling. Unfortunately, spring weather is still a few weeks away, so I think we have an indoor cat on our hands. He's real pitiful walking around the house shivering.

They left his fluffy head, fluffy tail, and fluffy feet. I like his fluffy feet the best:


Ty asked the vet how old he is and what kind of cat he might be. I don't think they know how old he is, but he got the "senior cat" treatment. The vet says he's probably a smoke Persian, smoke being the coloring that causes him to turn white when shaven.


Still the same old Scratchy.

School Libraries May Soon Be History?

The Rhino Times recently published an article about school libraries. Several folks came up to me to ask about the situation for school libraries after reading the article. You can read the article, my response to the article, and the author's response to my response here.

Learning from Librarians

A couple of weekends ago, I headed out of town for the 4th Annual Librarian to Librarian Networking Summit at East Carolina University. (Cute yet sarcastic comment from dad-in-law: "A librarian conference three hours away on a Saturday? That sounds exciting.") Although I wasn't quite sure what to expect, I came back with some great new ideas to try, and I was extremely impressed with the event itself. If you're in the library field and have a chance to go next year, take the opportunity if you can. Nothing beats hearing what works from your own colleagues, and lunch was really good.

Why I recommend the event:

• attention to detail: Everything from registration to scheduling to lunch was planned and executed in a smooth, effective, efficient manner. Anyone who has ever been to any number of professional conferences knows that this is not often the case.
• schedule: I left Durham at 6:00 a.m. to be in Greenville on time, so I was about ready to leave when the summit ended around 3:30. Even so, since the event was about the length of a school day with a nice lunch break to boot, I didn't feel exhausted or overloaded, but it was still worth the drive.
• speakers: Most of the speakers were either media specialists from North Carolina or media-friendly folk from the NC Department of Public Instruction. I always want to hear what works for other media specialists above anyone else, so I loved the fact that most of the small session speakers were my colleagues. The featured speakers were an author (Michael Dahl - not incredibly well-known, but solid) and Ann Martin, the president (!) of AASL, so that was a treat too.
• price: You can't beat it for $25. The summit coordinators did a great job of getting sponsors for the event to reduce costs for participants. Lunch, breakfast, and snacks were provided in abundance, and we got all kinds of great free stuff, including a book by the featured author and the ubiquitous "conference bag" to add to the collection.

What I brought back home:

• Suggestion Box: I know this is kind of a "No, duh" thing probably for many of my colleagues, but I'm pretty new, and I don't have a Suggestion Box in my library yet. But I will now. And I even created a Virtual Suggestion Box on the media center web page.
• staff development plan: February, being Black History Month, tends to be my biggest month in the media center for research projects. I am in the process of planning a short staff development session for the 4th and 5th grade teaching teams that will include the topics of research process, avoiding plagiarism, research projects that discourage plagiarism by their very nature, evaluating web sites, why Wikipedia is not an authoritative source, etc. And I can also advertise myself as a wonderful collaborative partner for research projects and share my African American History pathfinder for our library materials. Should be fun!
• leadership frames: Ann Martin talked about four frames for leadership (structural, human resource, political, and symbolic) and how to incorporate each when leading and advocating for the media department. Hopefully, some of these ways of thinking will bring some clarity to what I say about the program.

Next year, maybe I'll be a presenter. I am really having a good time with my media crew kids at school this year, and I think it might be a cool idea to share. Our school is pretty unique regarding how we run clubs, and the kids are just having a blast and learning a ton.

For those new to the library field (like me!) or maybe working toward the field, my top piece of advice is to participate in professional learning whenever possible. It may take some time, travel, and sometimes (sigh) money out of your own pocket, but it's so worth everything! So go ahead and be a big library geek; you won't regret it.

New Frontiers for 2009

I have several new ideas going for 2009, both on my own and professionally. January through March will be the final sprint towards finishing my National Boards Portfolio, but I'm hoping it won't be an all-consuming endeavor. Here are a few other things I'd like to be working on:

1. Diving into Podcasting, Albeit Slowly

As of yesterday, I have a podcast over at 1ytb.blogspot.com. At my church, we are all reading through the Bible in one year, according to The One Year Bible plan. So, I'm podcasting the readings for each day. I looked around for some podcasts by others doing the same thing, and most of the ones I found were pretty heavy on the commentary. Mine is just straight up Bible passages. So, it's less like a podcast and more like an audio book I guess.

2. Continuing with Web 2.0 Student Use

I'm so proud of my kids at school for really stepping out and trying new things this year! I am able to have a special club of children in each grade level 3rd through 5th, and these guys are awesome. My fourth graders are writing and photographing for their very own news blog called What's Roaring, Tigers? In 2009, my goal is to help them publicize the blog so that we can reach a wider audience and maybe get some comments from people outside our school community.

3. Ironing Out the Snags for Video Editing

Our school was blessed this year to be able to purchase a new digital camcorder. Thus far, my fifth grade club has been producing weekly TV Shows using photographs, clip art, and audio files in Windows Movie Maker. You can see a couple of their shows here. With the new camcorder, we should be able to incorporate some live action as well, which will be exciting. However, Tech Services is having to work with me on being able to download the videos from the camcorder and edit them effectively. Restrictions on the computers are making things a little weird.

2009 should be a great year for new advances for me and for my media program at school. I'm excited to see how it will turn out!

A Creative Christmas

Today, I thought I'd do a quick highlight of my Christmas crafts for this year because I think it's neat. :) I learned to crochet this summer from mom-in-law Nancy and have been working hard on Christmas gifts almost since then.


My lovely niece got an afghan.

My sister Sonja received my first attempt at doily-making. It was actually kind of fun!

This is Nancy's hat, modeled by me. (I forgot to take pictures at the Pendleton Christmas... grr.)

Beautiful sister-in-law Ashley got a neck wrap, which is actually my favorite piece of all the ones I did, I think.

Tyler modeled his brother's ear warmer when I finished it. (We discovered it was way too big, but I was able to take it in some on Christmas and made it fit reasonably well.)

Mom asked for kitchen towels with handles like Grandma used to make. I was proud of myself for figuring out how to do these. Even with instructions, it was a little weird.

Tabetha also received a kitchen towel, which took a long time for its size but turned out pretty well.

So, if you were wondering why I haven't been blogging the past couple of months, it's because I was busy crocheting! And I'm so glad I did. Gift-giving was a lot of fun this year. In addition to crocheted items, some members of the family also received coffee home-roasted by Tyler.

We had a great time with both families and are at home now enjoying the memories of their company as well as their generous gifts. Merry Christmas!

Christmas and Twitter

Ok, my Twitter news is older and less exciting... I am now a Tweeter. I am libpendragon, so come find me, and follow me if you desire.

Now for the fun stuff -- Christmas! I'm not a huge decorator, but I do enjoy decorative touches, and having a Christmas tree is one of my chief joys of the season. Our Christmas tree growing up was always a hodge-podge of hand-made items, gift ornaments from friends and family, or ornaments commemorating special events or places, all topped off with colored lights that complemented the hodge-podge nicely. One year, I remember Mom mentioned trying to have a themed tree, and I was so disappointed at the thought of not getting out all of the ornaments, I felt like Christmas wouldn't even be Christmas. (We never did do a themed tree, and I was totally ok with that.)

So, when I moved out, I decorated my tree the same way. The hodge-podge was a little less busy, but I still had my varied and highly significant ornament collection, and I had my colored lights. Apparently, people have really strong feelings about colored lights, and I just never knew. I've never lived with anyone but my immediate family who didn't think they were completely tacky. So, the years I had roommates, no colored lights for me. Sad sad sad.

Last year, I decorated a tree for the first time as an old married lady. I busted out my colored lights with gusto. My husband hated them. I was sad, but they stayed up anyway, since we didn't have any others. Then, we went to a party, and I saw the best Christmas lights ever. They're from WalMart, and they switch back and forth from colored to white. I wasted no time this year, and as soon as the garden department underwent its tranformation to Consumer Christmas Central, I bought three strings. And now they're on my tree.

And that is the Christmas light saga. Now, I have my colored lights, and Tyler has his white lights, and I am happy, and while he may not be ecstatic, he does hate them less than the old ones.


And my favorite decoration aside from the tree is my nativity scene from Mom. I added the angel and the tea light holder myself.


Merry Christmas! (Brought to you by a completely indulgent blog post, but that's ok.)

What to Do with a Windfall

Sometimes, life just brings nice surprises with it.

Friday morning, I got up as usual, exercised, took my shower, and was getting ready for work when Tyler came out of the bedroom and notified me that my phone had been ringing. No one I know calls me (ever), let alone before 6:30 in the morning, so I was worried. I checked my voicemail to discover that school was delayed for two hours due to snow... Snow?!

Yep. For the first time ever since I've lived here, we got snow before Thanksgiving. (We've also had near-record-breaking cold weather here lately, which is extremely unpleasant.)

So, having already awoken and performed necessary morning routines, I was faced with a windfall of approximately two hours. Incidentally, these originally-scheduled two hours were some I had not been looking forward to, so I was ecstatic.

Windfalls in any form are always welcome of course. If you get an unexpected monetary bonus for example, you can save it, spend it on something fun, or use it to pay a bill that you otherwise couldn't have paid. (You'd be surprised how many times in my poorer days I ended up with a "windfall" just when I needed it.)

The same goes for a time windfall. You really can't save it up as such, but you can certainly spend it on something fun, or use it to get something done that you had been behind on. The last two weeks have been a little nutty around our house, so I opted for cleaning the kitchen (a chore long overdue) after taking a little bit of time to relax and eat a nice breakfast.

Today was an example of a major time windfall, but these little extras come around more than you might imagine. Examples include canceled meetings, arriving somewhere early, getting something done more quickly than projected, or even sitting in a traffic jam.

What are some of the ways you use you time windfalls wisely? For some of these scenarios, I can't wait to get a new iPhone in February so I can keep up with Google Reader and various other time-spenders no matter where my time windfall happens.

Huge Update and Excuses Post

I know the point of blogging is to do it regularly and not just come back every couple of months with a huge and overwhelming update and excuses for why I haven't posted lately. That being said, here comes your huge and overwhelming update and excuses from me, hopefully within the realm of subjects covered by this blog, such as librarianship and organization.

Here's the result of our October home project, which was basically carving a pumpkin:


We also planted pansies and ornamental cabbage (which, as it turns out, is the only other thing besides pansies that survives the winter), but I don't have pictures because the leaves all fell down this weekend, and the yard is therefore unsightly.

During the last couple of days of October, I was able to attend the North Carolina School Library Media Association Conference in Winston-Salem. I wasn't as excited about this conference as I have been in years past, and I wish now that I had worked up a presentation on my rockin' media schedule that includes time for kids to choose projects like a news blog and a TV show to work on during the school week. It probably would have been way more interesting than some of the ones I went to. And now, I have to wait until 2010 to do it because next year, we're all going to the ALA Conference instead, since it's in Charlotte.

A couple of highlights of the conference were meeting authors:

Joyce Moyer Hostetter talked about her book Blue, which I loved, and she gave a little preview of the sequel coming out in May called Comfort. If you have an interest at all in WWII-era historical fiction or just in a really wonderful piece of North Caroline literature, I recommend Blue. But read it in private because you'll cry big ugly tears. And the symbolism rocks, just as a side note from someone who loves to see figurative language used well in children's literature.

Author-illustrator Melanie Watt is just the cutest shy little French Canadian ever. She talked about her book Scaredy Squirrel, which was a smash hit with the kids last year. And again, the book was a decent metaphor or allegory or something cool like that.

Ok, now completely off the topic of anything blog-related, here is one of my recent fun trips:

A week ago, Ty and I drove up to Stone Mountain, NC, for our autumn hike. We were sore for a few days afterward, but it was worth it.

And with all of those marvelous things under my belt for October and November, I am now moving into Christmas gifting mode. I'm trying to make a bunch of gifts this year, so I'll try to keep a photo log of it all and post after Christmas, so as not to ruin any surprises. Suffice it to say, I will have to have very busy fingers for the next few weeks.

Good luck to all the NaNoWriMo-ers out there! Sometime, I might try to write a children's book in November, but not until I get a good idea for one. :)

Getting Ready for Autumn Gardening

My summer garden went rather well and was fun. Around the beginning of May, we pulled up the pansies (that survived all winter!), and I planted petunias and marigolds. Tyler planted vegetables in the big garden, and he sprayed out an area for me to plant an herb garden. Today is beautiful and breezy, and I can feel fall coming on. In another month or so (maybe sooner), I'll have to pull up and trim back the summer plants and get the autumn garden ready to go.

At the moment, the brick planter by the front door is brimming with pink petunias, which kind of clash with the house, but I don't care. I think these may last a while yet. However, if I was going to pull them up, I think I might replace them with three or four chrysanthemums in different colors. I already bought one chrysanthemum, but it got run over by a wayward soccer ball at our last cookout and hasn't been doing real well. It may recover, but for now, no blossoms.

The front walk flower beds are housing marigolds at the moment, but they are a little past their peak. Still blossoming, but definitely not as prolific lately, some of the plants have started to die one branch at a time. I guess pansies are the best option for winter flowers in the beds, but I may check into some other options too. Any reader suggestions? Especially if you live in my area, what flowers work well in the fall and winter? I'd like to try something new and interesting if I can.

The herb garden is probably ripe for harvest, but I've never had one before, so I'm not sure. Any tips from my herb gardening friends? Left to right (but pretty hard to distinguish), I have chives (potted), parsley, oregano, sage, rosemary, thyme, and purple basil. We've had fun using these in our cooking over the summer. Tyler is much better at incorporating them on the fly, but I will use them when recipes call for them too. I think what I need to do with these is clip them back and dry the harvested herbs so that they can come back next year. They should all come back except the chives and parsley. The basil definitely will. It's already trying to take over the world. I wouldn't be surprised if it came back well before true spring, in fact.

Here's my wish list for my autumn yard:

• two rocking chairs or a glider for the front porch
  
• plant stand/table for the front porch (great place for a jack-o-lantern!)
• chrysanthemums galore
• something other than pansies for the flower beds
  
• a wheelbarrow (because it would be fun to haul dead plants to the compost pile in that instead of carrying them because it just seems more garden-y)

What are your autumn plans?

My DIWLO Wedding

This post is in honor of my faithful and recently-engaged reader Kimberly. She recently shared her plans for her upcoming DIY Wedding on her blog.

My wedding was kind of DIY, but more like DIWLO (Do It With Loved Ones). Just about every piece of the wedding was personalized and created by one or more people who love us and wanted to help. This was made possible by the fact that ours was a small wedding (about 60 guests), and we just happen to be surrounded by a hugely talented group of family and friends.

You can view the slide show at the bottom of the post for some pictures of how things turned out, but here is a list of items contributed:

• the invitations - My sister Sonja and I worked late into the night one night designing and printing the invitations on her laser printer. We used blank invitations from Target. I chose the dogwood as the theme flower for the wedding, even though it was past dogwood season. That's the joy of artificial flowers, folks.

• the programs - I designed these on Microsoft Word and then had them copied on nice paper at Kinkos.

• the wedding party flowers - For the wedding party, I chose artificial flowers. I talked to Sonja about what she had done for the flowers at her wedding and then went to Michael's (craft store) for supplies. I picked out white flowers for boutonnieres and corsages and a bunch of flowers I liked for the bridal bouquet. For the bridesmaid bouquet and tossing bouquet, I found a ready-made bunch of white flowers at the same craft store.

• the reception flowers - My sister-in-law Tabetha ordered two dozen yellow roses for me from Costco. Sonja went to pick them up the day before the wedding, and it turned out that there were four dozen! So there were yellow roses everywhere. I bought a bunch of little vases at Target for the reception tables, and those flower arrangements doubled as guest favors. Mom, Grandma, Sonja, and Tammy (my friend and photographer) spent a long time arranging flowers throughout the reception area and sanctuary.

• the officiant - Pastor Mike from my church of four years officiated the wedding. It was one of his first weddings, and everyone commented that the message was excellent.

• the musicians - All of the musicians were friends and family. My brother Aaron was our genius pianist. We got more compliments on his amazing talent than any other part of the service. In addition to playing the prelude, processional, and recessional, he also accompanied the singers and played a solo Liszt piece. Singers were soloist Joy, my roommate, and trio singers Sonja, Sarah, and Tarah. Everyone sounded beautiful.

• the photographer - Tammy, my former coworker and friend, came and took pictures for the wedding. You can see some of her brilliant work here.

• the videographer - Robbie volunteered for this position.

• hair and makeup - Sonja did my hair, and I got my makeup and nails done at Balance Day Spa with a gift certificate from Tyler.

• catering - Ty's brother Chris did the catering for the wedding with help from his girlfriend (now fiancee) Ashley. Ty and I agree that it was the best wedding reception food we have ever had, and it was all personalized just for us. There was even gazpacho, upon Tyler's request.

• cake - Instead of traditional wedding cake, our guests feasted on cheesecakes made by mother of the bride Sara and mother of the groom Nancy. Neither Ty nor I are fans of regular wedding cake, but we both love cheesecakes, and our moms were incredibly generous to prepare these for us. Also on the dessert table were mints homemade by a family friend, Denise.

We felt so blessed to have so many people involved in the execution of our wedding. It may not have been the party of the century or even the season, but our closest friends and family were there to help us celebrate one of the most important days of our lives, and that's exactly what we wanted.

For other great DIY wedding ideas, check out Sonja's series of blog posts on her wedding, featuring her wedding scrapbook.

And here's the promised slide show... You can also link to the album here.