Last Day 5 for Friday

It is officially summer vacation (minus the fact that I signed up for three curriculum writing days next week)!  That makes this my last 5 for Friday about this current school year.  My thoughts can "officially" move on to the next school year with new little firsties.

1.
I added 200 more books to the book room yesterday.  Bagging, labeling, boxing.  Next step is for me to log them into the book room website.  That goes on my "summer list."

2.
This year I tried something new.  I called it "Take Your Pick" (you can click on it to see my original post).  Basically, students in 1st and 2nd grade could earn tickets.  They used their "raffle" ticket to try and win a book of their choice.  I picked 5 book winners a week.

 It was a Ginormous success.  Kids would cheer when they won :)  So I decided to continue this for next year and was able to round up enough books to do 3 boards of books next year.  One for K, 1st, and 2nd grade!  Here is my filing cabinet of organized books.

3.
We found out this week that we will have a new curious teammate next year!  Lauren!  She taught 2nd grade this year and Title I the year before.  Lauren and I shared a teeny tiny little closet during her Title I year.  It was so strange this year to not see her everyday.  I am so excited to work with her again!  Welcome, welcome Lauren.  We are so happy to have you.
4.
It is that time of year again...Kings Island.  We only live about 10 minutes from it and thank goodness for that!  We are there all the time.  This week my little 4 year old rode her first "big" roller coaster.  Oh my goodness!  She was just so excited about it.  Then she got some of Kings Island's famous blue ice cream because she tried a new ride.  (This is actually a rule in Maria's household that we decided to adopt! Thanks, Maria)

5.
So the new Daft Punk album came out.  Of course my husband bought it the second it was available.  My girls love "the robots!"  I had to share this video my husband took.  Every time this song comes on, this is what happens.  I am pretty positive this will be the song of my summer!

Quick Transformation Part 2

Thursday was the day for part 2 of some transformations.

#1
Last week (was it last week?  I don't know) I posted about a cork board that changed into a chalkboard with a quick coat of paint.  Here is Maria's final product (so cute, Maria)!

#2

My wonderful mom came to help me finish our school book room today.  As I stated earlier, we have tons of new books and they must fit in our cafeteria.  So we found some beautiful new shelves to put them on.

With the help of some duct tape...

the shelves now look like this:

Better, right?  But with some book boxes, it looks like this:

Yay! Thank you duct tape.  You made my life much easier today.  So did you mom!  Thanks!

Em

Bookroom Remodel

I moved to a different school within my district three years ago when my elementary school closed.  As I was getting to know my new school, I learned that the bookroom had been shoved moved around quite a bit!  All the books were mixed up in four filing cabinets in the cafeteria.  Those poor books!! I could tell they had been nicely organized at one point in time.  That is when I decided that it was time for a REMODEL!  Stage 1 begins...

So I took a trip to IKEA (of course)!  And I bought these awesome boxes for two bucks!  What a deal!
                                                        
Each of the book sets got a new clean bag and label. Organize, sort, organize, sort...and voila! I had lots of boxes full of lots of books.

Now came the tricky part...where to put them all?  Our school is busting at the seams.  We don't have room for boxes of books.  But that does not stop a teacher...so my brain starting turning....

Oh, husband!!! After much hammering, sawing, and sweat...we came up with this: shelves on a cafeteria wall.

The curtains (also from IKEA) protect the bookroom from little hands!

Stage 2 of our remodel started when I decided that all of these wonderful books needed to be logged into a format that teachers could easily search through.  I wanted teachers to be able to look at titles by level or category so that themes may tie together better.  Well...that was a stupid brilliant idea!!!!  I have spent hours upon hours upon hours logging books.  Here is what it looks like:

www.sharpsburgbookroom.wordpress.com

So stage 3 started this summer. I was asked to order $10,000 in books!  Oh you read that right...10,000 dollars!  Are you wondering what that looks like?

It was like Christmas in August today!  Opening box after box after box of all these wonderful books! (Here is my mess)

So this week will bring more bagging, labeling, and sweat (no air conditioning).  But how exciting to have so many new, fresh, interesting books to use this year! 

Oh and one more thing.  Thank you to Heinemann for a whole box of free books.  We look forward to using these.

Thanks for reading about all of my bookroom adventures!  I look forward to uploading the finished product!

Em