Open House and Spring Break

Spring Break is almost over and I of course did not get as much done as I hoped. I did, however, spent lots of time catching up with friends, taking a trip to see my parents, and READING! It is now the last hours of break which means it is time to cram everything in.

The week before spring break is Texas Public School Week.  This means that it is also Open House.  I have not had a chance to do as many Late Night in the Library as I have wanted, but I was excited to have the library open for the evening. The weekend before I had spent camping with my Girl Scout troop, so I knew I needed something easy with a big impact.

NASA has several ready to print items and I printed several of this one and placed my buckets around the library.  I was super pleased that I had almost 50 people stop by the library, and all but 5 of them stayed for the activity.  (I have a clicker that I use for counting, but I have also started using a click counter app. ALL data is important! Now I know where I can try to increase next year... side note. I have been using the click counter app to help me with my weeding as well!)

Not all the rockets worked, but what I loved about this activity is the parents were actually working with their child (middle school people.. middle school!) Our awesome DLC (Digital Learning Coach Kara Noah) and our amazing VILS Coach (Verizon Innovative Learning Coach Alissa Womack ) had also set up a Flipgrid scavenger hunt which made it more enticing to stop by

I set up 3 different stations with all the materials. These buckets are a life saver! Easy to set up, keep filled and clean up. I was also smart this time and added small trashcans with each one.

Our launching pad to measure how far each one had gone.  

Finished rocket!

Obligatory open house pic. I am sort of in love with the fact my leggings have bees on them and my jacket says Hello Sunshine!

Over spring break I always have a ton of things I want to accomplish, and lets be real a ton that I don't! What I did get accomplished was some reading! Now, I know.. I am a librarian.. I should be reading all the time!! I do read.. I love reading, but I do the majority of my reading during the summer (now when I was in elementary school, my reading was huge.. picture books are just a little shorter than middle school books)  But, I am on a roll right now with some great books! I have finished one and over half way through 3 others.  We have one more day of spring break so I am hoping to get at least 1 more finished!

We have the North Texas Teen Book Festival coming up, and I have about 23 kids going (not as many as I wanted, but a start) If you are in the area.. they are still looking for volunteers.  It is an AMAZING day full of over 70 authors, panel discussions, books and so much more!

The book festival was the perfect jump start I needed to get some amazing books read. I of course love reading, but I need to get better at the book talk.  I got some great ideas from Rhonda Jenkins, Esther Storrie, and Lana Lozure along with all of the other great ideas on the various Facebook librarian groups I created my Book Talks.  I plan to make a slide of each book that I read, but you can look at what I am reading, various genres, and how to connect with me at Busy Bee Book Talks

Now to finish up some lesson plans, prepare for the next Girl Scout meeting, get ready for our end of the year Destination ImagiNation party.. and get ready for North Texas Teen Book Festival! Texas Librarian Association Annual Conference is just around the corner!