I know, the picture doesn’t have a rose in it, but I’m very proud of this photo – taken just minutes ago while out “walking” the dog. I’m REALLY enjoying my new Nikon D5000 camera!
This is Labor Day weekend. Labor day “is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.” (US DOL.gov) I planned to take this weekend off - to sit back and relax, get some reading done, and generally be a sloth! However, I just can’t seem to turn off my work switch. There are so many things needing to be done and/or planned for in the upcoming weeks/months.
2 Read or Not 2 Read – Midland Valley and I have finally gotten our book club blog up and running. I’m still waiting on some last minute approval before I can give out applications to my students; however, Midland Valley introduced the blog to their students this past week. I’m VERY excited about having our students interact and share book reviews/discussions through blogging.
Library Card Sign-up Month – September is library cards sign-up month and I, along with the librarian from the Wagener public library, have been asked to visit/speak with the middle school English classes on Sept. 22nd. We are supposed to share what we are doing/offering in our programs. Still not sure what I’m going to speak about, but I was specifically asked to share the library’s web page, the new blog, and other “multimedia for 21st century skills” – hopefully I’ll figure out whatever that means by the 22nd! Wish me luck.
SC Young Adult Book Awards – The nominees for the 2010-11 SC Young Adult Book Awards have been announced. As always, there is a display of these title in the library. In addition, I am on the SCYABA book award committee and have been reading a bunch of new YA titles. I’m really excited about many of them and can’t wait to recommend them to our students. Being on this committee forces me to read a wide variety of YA titles I wouldn’t normally read.
WSHS Book Club – tentatively, the first book club will meet this Friday, Sept. 10th, during both lunches. We will be adopting the Midland Valley book club monthly themes – September’s theme is Mystery. Please encourage your students to join the book club.
Technology Workshops - the new Technology Committee for WSHS has been tasked to provide workshops for the next Early Release Wednesday. We’ve come up with a proposal and are waiting for the okay before developing our workshops. All TC members are working on finding and reviewing web resources. Right now, we are reviewing the AASL Top 25 Websites for Teaching and Learning (2009) to determine which of the blocked sites we want to petition to have unblocked. The classroom teachers are supposed to review and provide feedback as to whether or not they would be useful in their classrooms. I’ve created a Diigo account for WSHS where I’ve begun bookmarking these and other useful or interesting links.
These are just a few of the items on my mind this weekend. Others include: library advocacy, August monthly report, WSHS Drama Club (meets this Wednesday); Banned Book Week (begins Sept. 25th); pull-out classes begin soon; Teen Read Week (Oct. 17-23); signing up for another photography class; submitting a proposal for the SC Association of School Librarians conference, and making plans to attend the SC Title 1 (Oct. 25-27) and SC EdTech (Oct. 27-29) conferences.
*Sigh* – I think I’ll just go read a book instead! Enjoy what’s left of the Labor Day weekend ya’ll!
