My Last Day

I am moving to a new library. There, I said it. I'm so very sad to leave the library where I have worked so tirelessly for the last 3 years and 9 weeks. I was fortunate enough to have another dream job fall out of the sky and land in my lap.

I will continue to blog here for my new school, Kerr Elementary School in Tulsa.

I will miss all my students and the faculty and staff at Central Oak Elementary. I have grown to love so many people in Oklahoma City! I will especially miss my library assistant, Angela Keefe, for her diligence and fun sense of humor. It has truly been a joy to work with her.

Thank you for a great season of my life, Central Oak and Crooked Oak Public Schools!

Back to School Book Fair

We are so excited to have the book fair here this week! There is a wonderful selection from the Scholastic Book Fair company this time. Students are coming in all day long searching for just the right book. Parents are bringing their little ones in to purchase something fun to read at home.

The students enjoyed watching the author video prior to the book fair and were exclaiming in joy when they saw their favorite author or book series was going to be represented at this week's book fair.

Be sure to come to our Family Night on Thursday evening from 4:30-6:30. If you would like to order from our online book fair, you can go to this link.

A Summer Hiatus, Back to School, and Lesson Plans!

So, this was quite a summer, the Summer of 2014. If you get grossed out by pictures of scars or stitches, please don't scroll down!

Surgeries
I spent the summer either in the hospital having surgery, laying on a bed or couch, and/or sitting in a recliner recovering from total knee replacement on both knees (8 weeks apart)! I am still recovering while working as a librarian here at Central Oak Elementary School. My recovery is going extremely well, considering that this type of surgery is one of the most intrusive you can have. I go to physical therapy three times a week and just try to take it easy on work days.

New Book Allocation
I am so incredibly glad to be back at work and yesterday I found out that our library is going to receive an allocation of $9.00 per student again this year! We will quickly put together a purchase list and I am trying a "preview box" from Smart Apple Media for the first time this fall. If you have had experience with that company, would you please let me know what you liked or disliked about them.

Lesson Plans
Every week, I ask that my teachers send me a copy of their lesson plans for the following week so I can prepare materials and books to enhance what they are teaching in the classroom. After I received them from the first teacher, I sent out a reminder email to the entire staff. I also included that the teacher who sent them to me first was going to receive their choice of bagel from Panera. I've never received lesson plans from our counselor, and I received plans for every other grade except fifth grade within 10 minutes! Oh, the power of food!!!

I hope you are having as good a week as I had! Enjoy your new school year!

Oklahoma Pioneer Woman

Our third graders have been studying Oklahoma history and geography lately. One of their teachers, Ms. Hicks, asked me if I would portray an Oklahoma Land Run woman for the third graders. I borrowed the Pioneer Tools trunk from the Oklahoma History Center, put together a simple costume, and read the materials accompanying the trunk prior to the program in order to come up with a good story for my character portrayal.

I decided to go with mixing up true stories of my grandmother, Myrtis, and her family (including my mom). I "set" the story about 30 years before my grandma's real birth and told a rambling story of how she and her husband, Don, and three children, Carol, Jimmy, and Janie, rode in a covered wagon in the Cherokee Land Run of 1889. I used all of the items in the Pioneer Tools trunk and told what they were used for. I also told the students that my family had ordered from the Sears & Roebuck catalog and that we were expecting our stove and plow to be delivered "any day now" by wagon from the nearest train station.

Lantern and washboard in hand!

The students were able to ask me questions while I was still in character and then when I took off my hat and came back to being Mrs. Moody. They asked really good questions about how we traveled, where we lived (in a dugout), how we cooked (over a fire until our stove got here - then with buffalo chips), and how much money things cost. They were pretty much grossed out by what buffalo chips contained!

I think they enjoyed the portrayal as much as I enjoyed doing it. Maybe this could be another "job" for my retirement!

If you are in Oklahoma, I highly recommend using the free materials from the Oklahoma History Center. Here is a link to their website!

Fiesta Book Fair!

Though I didn't take any pictures of kids at the book fair, I would say this one was one of our better book fairs. We outdid ourselves in selling books, and every kiddo that came to the fair bought a BOOK! We had the highest total sales of any book fair at Central Oak Elementary, and raised almost $200 in our All For Books donation buckets. We did that by having students vote for their favorite cat book character and put their change in the bucket designated to each cat. Pete the Cat was the favorite of the school, so he will be spending the summer with me!

Usually, I go on a fun vacation, but this summer I will be having two knee replacement surgeries. Pete and I will have some fun reading lots of books and watching movies this summer. I'll be sure to keep you updated on the blog! Here are the buckets and our most favorite cats!

Bawk! Bawk! Bawk! The Life Cycle of a Chicken

The second graders at Central Oak learned about life cycles during April this year. They raised some baby chickens from fertilized eggs that Ms. Burch received from a friend. The eggs stayed in the incubator until the babies finally hatched. Students were able to study all the cycles of a chicken's life through this real-life experience.

The classes checked out every single chicken-related book (fiction and nonfiction) from the library and located parts of nonfiction books to find out facts about chickens and raising chickens.

Their studies concluded with a real time virtual field trip to an egg farm in Illinois. The kids enjoyed watching how the egg farmers take care of the chickens, wash the eggs, and then deliver them. We were able to ask questions via the website as well. What a fun activity! We will definitely plan to do it again next year and I have included the link above so that others will know about it. Here are some pictures of the baby chickens and the bulletin boards of some second grade classes:

In addition to chickens, Ms. Burch has a few other class pets worth mentioning because they discussed their life cycles as well: frogs and a guinea pig named "Rockstar"!

This has been Ms. Burch's first year here at Central Oak and she has done a great job with her students. They will miss being in her class next year!

Bookmarkapalooza!

It's no secret that bookmarks are very expensive. That's one of the reasons why I enter every contest and talk to authors and illustrators on Twitter and Facebook! Authors and illustrators are very generous in sending free bookmarks and stickers to give to students in the library. I am so grateful for every one of them! Recently, I made "Twitter friends" with Ame Dyckman and Corey Schwartz. Both of them sent me gobs of stickers and bookmarks for my students. I also entered a contest on Twitter and won a bunch of bookmarks from @ScholasticTeacher! Woo hoo! My kids are now stocked up for quite a while!

Library Week 2014

Library Week occurred during testing time at my school, so I didn't feel like we could make a loud celebration of libraries. I did put up this (plain and boring) bulletin board for students to participate by writing book quotes on it:

It turned out to be quite a hit with teachers and students who found quotes from their favorite books to write on the Book Graffiti Wall! Here are some of the quotes that were written:

This bulletin board turned out to be so popular, I will most likely put one up like it again next year. Thank you teachers and students for writing your favorite quotes on the wall!

Some teachers had their students make cards for me and the preschool teachers donated a bunch of books to the library in my name! Thank you!!

World Record!!!

Right before our state tests, our 4th and 5th graders joined middle school and high school students in an attempt to break a Guinness World Record for hula hoop passing.

We had over 550 students who participated. The kids had an awesome time and everyone participated correctly: holding hands the ENTIRE time!

We will find out the final results in a few weeks or so. We are so proud of how our students participated!

The Postcard

I have been discussing authors with students all year long, and we have been privileged in the last two years to have two wonderful Oklahoma authors visit: Tim Tingle this year, and Tammi Sauer last year. I tell my students that authors love to hear from readers of all ages, especially students, who love their books. Some students have taken on writing letters to their favorite authors, and today, one of my little girls received a postcard of Kate DiCamillo! We were all blown away! Here is the letter Rosalba wrote to her:

She even included a small purse to contain the letter - so sweet! 

Here is the postcard that Kate DiCamillo returned to Rosalba:

And here is the happy recipient! I presented the postcard to Rosalba in front of her whole class and teacher. She was so excited that she almost burst! We took a picture together with two of the books that are her favorites:

Kate, you'll never know how much happiness you have given to Rosalba. She will never forget how important she felt because you took the time to write her back. Thank you so much!

Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Award Winner

We had several classes and students who read the required number of books and were able to vote for their favorite Sequoyah nominee. Here is our voting booth:

Students were very excited to make their own choice! At our school there was a near tie between Saving Audie and this book, which won our school's vote:

Sadly for Kate Messner, her book didn't win the state vote this year. Since I had so many kids vote this year, we decided to celebrate the actual winner with a small celebration. I made an information slide show about him, and the students learned all about...

Dan Santat, and his book that won, Sidekicks! Here is a link to his wonderful website. He has written many different books and even done some work for the Disney companies!

We watched book trailers for Sidekicks and Beekle, as well as snacked on juice and cookies!

All of the students wanted to check out Sidekicks after the presentation, so we had a drawing and this kiddo won! He was so excited to be the next person to check out the book! Dan Santat even Tweeted his approval of our drawing with a fun comment for Alberto!

We are all ready for Dan Santat's new book, Beekle, to come out so we can read some more of his books. Congratulations, Dan Santat!

EdcampOKC

I attended my first EdcampOKC this spring. An EdCamp is a type of education conference designed to provide professional development for educators focusing solely on conversations about education. Attendees gather informally to share ideas and to attend a variety of sessions, run by colleagues and fellow educators. The sessions are conversational events featuring discussions, demonstrations, interactions between participants, discourse about all things education.

There are all kinds of educators who attend, including teachers, administrators, technology directors, librarians, and parents. If you have never attended an EdCamp, I highly suggest doing so. Here is a link to a wiki created to list all the EdCamps which are being held across the world, as well as hints to use if you would like to host one.

It was great to meet the faces behind the names of many people who are my Twitter pals!

Here are some pictures of the event:

 

 

Going to the Capitol

Oklahoma State Capitol Building

Central Oak teachers on the bus

On March 31, 2014, around 25,000 teachers descended upon the capitol grounds to show support for our legislators who are working toward better education in the State of Oklahoma. We were also there to represent our students, future teachers, and ourselves. Teacher pay and spending on students in Oklahoma are nearly last in the ranking for the United States. I think Oklahoma can do better than that!

My school superintendent made it very easy for the teachers in our district to attend. He closed schools for a professional day and was able to procure buses to deliver us to the capitol and pick us up again.

It was so exciting to see so many educators standing up for our students and each other in solidarity for better funding for schools! There were some great signs and shirts as seen in my pictures.

I couldn't believe how many people were there. I saw my old Superintendent at Glencoe Schools and his wife. I shook his hand and congratulated him on yet another state championship in basketball. Here are some pictures of the inspirational crowd.

Me in front of the capitol building

It was difficult to hear some of the speakers at the rally, but I was excited that a couple of students were there and spoke on behalf of education in Oklahoma. I hope that the legislators heard us and will do something about the sad state of affairs in Oklahoma education. I'm hopeful!

The only thing that made my experience less than special was the socializing and loud talking done by a group of teachers and their administrators who were standing near me. Even after giving them my extra-special disappointed teacher look, they continued. Too bad they weren't there for the same reason I was there. They even had their school shirts on, identifying themselves! I won't say the town's name, but I was ashamed of them. I would write a letter to their superintendent, but he was one of the ones participating in the shameful behavior.