Day One - Exhausting, yet Exhilarating

Despite a few glitches in my own schedule, say locking my keys in my van as I dropped my children off at school, I was excited to begin my time as a school library intern.  Luckily Pine Street School is not far from my school so I was able to arrive at the appointed hour.

When I reported to Pine Street, I was warmly welcomed in the front office and even came across a familiar face or two.  Lee Anne had prepared the staff for my arrival and I was quickly on my way to the media center.  I met the Media Assistant, Veneal, as well as the shelving assistant Haleigh.

Lee Anne and I met to discuss ideas and prepare for the day. Tuesday is a busy day in the Pine Street Media Center with multiple story times, older classes conducting research, and the Tech Know Club meeting after school. 

Each grade level visiting the library involved different lessons and activities.  The Kindergarten class acted out the poem, "The 5 Little Snowmen", heard the book, When Will It Snow?, and checked out books.  Lee Anne has good behavior management strategies, including reminding students to make her their focal point.  The 1st graders took STAR Reader tests on the media center computers and then selected titles for checkout.  Lee Anne introduced me to many of the classes and the students were not shy about asking me to help them find books giving me opportunities to provide readers' advisory.  I enjoyed meeting them and look forward to seeing the same faces over the next 10 weeks.

Robert, the Follett Account Manager for our school district, met with Lee Anne to discuss new offerings and the best ways to use ebooks and Follett Shelf with Pine Street's Destiny catalog.  Expanding the use of ebooks will involve setting up user ids for each teacher and student, but as technology, BYOD and 1:1 programs expand in our district ebooks need to be a part of any library's toolbox.

Lee Anne conferenced with 3rd graders individually regarding the results of their most recent STAR reader tests and advised students on strategies for effective reading and comprehension.  The 3rd graders also checked out books and were able to access educational links from the Library Home Page. If time had allowed, this class was going to continue working on writing raps that they will perform, video and share with 2nd graders.

Throughout the day, the library work room/storage room was utilized by the reading intervention teacher.  She met with about 5 students at a time to work on reading skills.

In the afternoon, several classes of 4th graders stopped in with their teachers for checkout.  The older students seemed to know which books they were looking for and appeared at ease navigating the library.

After school, Lee Anne sponsors The Tech Know Club, a group of 10 4th graders.  The students have been using digital cameras to photograph examples of technology around Pine Street.  On Tuesday, club members selected their top choices of pictures.  Eventually the pictures will go into a video about technology at school.  I can't wait to work with this group again and have been searching out Web 2.0 tools to share.

All in all, it was a busy day and I learned so much.  Lee Anne suggested I develop a display or way to promote the South Carolina Book Award Nominees.  I have read many of the titles and was able to recommend them to some students.  They are going to report back on how they liked the books.  I even picked up some cool tips like using shelf markers to let students know where to re-shelve their books and printing a report of overdue books in advance of a scheduled class.  I am thankful that Lee Anne has been gracious enough to take on an intern and I know that I will enjoy learning and working at Pine Street.