How was your week? It was... I don't know how
a three -day week ends up feeling so long, but
it did. I think, honestly, I do know how. Thursday
and Friday, we had tel -pos testing on our campus,
and so we did like a testing schedule, which
means we saw the kids for less time, so we only
saw them for 30 minutes each. And in the morning,
we basically spend about the first hour and a
half helping kids sign into their computers.
Because the second graders that do the TELPAS
testing have to do it on laptops, and they don't
have laptops in their classroom. And then half
of them don't know their own birthday and that
kind of stuff when you're trying to get them
to sign in using first initial, last initial
birthday kind of stuff. So we had to like help.
I think we had 28 second graders. So like me
and my whole team were upstairs helping get that
done. Cause the classroom teachers are still
teaching their classroom kids and we just pull
those couple English learning students. And so
like we did that. And then it's after that, it's
making sure that Now that they're logged in are
the headphones working are the microphones working?
If not, can we get them working? Do we need to
restart the computer and start all over again
like so that the computer recognizes that the
Microphone that the headphones have been plugged
in and that like all of that kind of so it just
makes for a long day when you like so basically
both days I didn't get a planning period because
The way it's supposed to work is that we help
from 7 .30 until like 8 .15 and then we have
from 8 .15 to 9 o 'clock for our planning before
we start seeing kids. What really happens is
from 7 .30 until about 8 .50 we're helping kids
and then we go downstairs and start seeing kids
immediately. Oh my gosh. And on Thursday I saw
a pre -k class which meant I didn't get my lunch
break either. So that was fun. Oh my gosh. And
Wednesday my book fair showed up. So Friday yesterday,
I spent the day, any spare second that I had
setting up the book fair for next week. So it
was only a three day week, but it felt really,
really long. That's horrible. Yeah. How was your
week? Oh my gosh. Not like that. My week was
okay. Yeah, it was okay. Um, I Got it so that
the book fair my book fair can be delivered early
so I can set it up before I have to leave to
do all the things with my mom right and That
also means that I can have it open for open house.
Oh So I think actually I really want I wanted
to do it anyway for obvious reasons, right? But
I actually think that having an open for open
house. I'm hoping will alleviate the traffic
the following days when i'm out yeah yeah because
you'll get if especially that's what i found
because last fall in the fall i did it so that
i opened up like that friday night before the
week of because we had trunk or treat and i did
a ton of the sales that night and so it was easier
and more relaxed the rest of that following week
because so many parents took the time to buy
then. So I think you're right. I think that'll
help you a lot. That's what I'm hoping. I'm hoping
it'll be, and then it'll just be, and it would,
I mean, it's good for sales, but I don't know.
I feel bad that April has to run to book fair
simultaneously. But it sounds like she's, she's
working to get some help though. And you know
what? She is. You need to be there for your mom
too. So that's important. And I think they, That's
one thing about our district is that they understand
that family is an important thing and they want
you to be there for that kind of stuff. So they
really do. Like it's kind of incredible. I don't,
I mean, it's kind of like that, but not to this
degree. Like it felt more like it, there were
certain individuals that value family. That's
just values family, like the whole district.
It's great. It's like top down. I agree. And
I think, and honestly, like I say this all the
time, I think that our district thinks of itself
still being like a small town district and it's
not anymore. But I think that's one of the benefits
of them thinking they're a small town district
is that they do care about people and making
sure that their families are taken care of. So
I think that that becomes a benefit for us in
the end. Yeah. I hope we don't lose that. I do
hope they. figure out their bigger district.
Yeah. But that's the one thing I think that they
need to keep. I hope so. Yeah. So hopefully that
sticks around because that's, that is really
nice that we get that. Cause I know like, um,
one of our front office ladies at my campus,
her mom passed away this past week. And so like
other. So like that kind of thing where like
people are like, Hey, we got your back. We'll
take care of you so that you can do the thing
you need to. That's something that the district
does a really good job with. That's great. Yeah.
Hello, I'm Patrick Adams. And I'm Caroline Legere.
And this is Librarians of Littles, a podcast
where we share books, give makerspace ideas,
and give tips and tricks for working with our
youngest learners in the library setting. This
week, we are going to be sharing two books that
are Geisel Award winners. And the first of those
books is titled, You Are not small. It is written
by Anna Kang. It is illustrated by Christopher
Wayant and it's published by Two Lions, an imprint
of Amazon Publishing. It was published in 2014
and won the Theodore Seuss Geisel Award in 2015.
And it was an A .L. CS Notable Children's Book
for 2015, and a CCBC Selection for 2015. The
author, Anna Kang, was born in the Bronx and
grew up on Long Island. She attended Tufts University
studying International Relations and Asian Studies.
She then moved to Los Angeles and received her
MFA from USC School of Cinematic Arts. After
graduating, she participated in the Sundance
Institute Screenwriters Lab, and her personal,
professional, and creative experiences led her
to write her first picture book, You Are Not
Small, with her husband, Christopher Lant. Some
of her other books include more from the series,
so it's I Am Not Scared, That's Not Mine, It
Is Not Perfect, We Are Not Friends, This is not
enough. As well as Can I Tell You a Secret, Eraser,
Marker, Hudson and Tallulah Take Sides, So He
and Loey, and all of these are illustrated by
her husband, Christopher Wayant. And that illustrator
Christopher Want is a native of New Jersey and
he is the product of 12 years of Catholic school.
He graduated from Gettysburg College with a BA
in political science and economics, planning
on a career as a lawyer, but he gave it all up
for a pen and a brush. Want is a cartoonist for
the New Yorker and the Boston Globe. His cartoons
are in permanent collection at the Morgan Library
and Museum in New York City. and at the Smithsonian
Museum. The Nieman Foundation for Journalism
at Harvard selected Wayant to be a Nieman Fellow,
the second cartoonist to receive that honor in
the foundation's 85 year history. Some of his
other books are My Pillow Keeps Moving by um
which well some of the other books that he has
illustrated are other than the ones by Anna Kang.
My Pillow Keeps Moving by Laura Gale and Silly
boobies, a love story by Amy Dyckman. And I had
to look. It's about birds. I looked at the cover
and I was very confused, but I didn't get any
farther than that. It's birds. I'm going to need
to read. I knew Amy Dyckman. I was like, there's
going to be a catch. And that's what I know.
I was thinking the same thing. I was like, okay,
now I trust you, Amy. I do. I have faith in you.
I don't know. I don't know what's happening here.
All right, so the summary for this book. This
book is the story portrays the argument between
two bears and their perceptions of each other.
One bear appears to be much smaller than the
other, and so the larger bear calls that bear
small, while the smaller bear calls the larger
bear big. They continue to argue that they are
not that and that the other is as they have stated
and they get reinforcements of other bears of
similar sizes to continue their argument until
in the end an even smaller bear and an even larger
bear show up and both of the original bears can
agree that they are both big and small in comparison
to the others. And so I think this is a fun story.
I think it's a good way to introduce students
to perspective and perceptions that we have of
each other and of other things. And it's good
for comparing. Things like especially in pre
-k you're comparing things. Well, this one's
smaller. This one's bigger This is the biggest
like that kind of thing and so introducing some
of those words and introducing some of those
concepts is a great thing for our pre -k students
I think the pictures in this book are really
fun and I enjoyed Seeing all the different bears
and the different sizes. It was pretty clever.
I Really enjoyed this book. I think it's a it's
a lot of fun. I think it will definitely get
the kids laughing. And I think that it'll keep
them engaged for sure. So I'm gonna say this
is like a five out of five bookmarks. I think
it was a fun story that I think a lot of the
kids enjoy. I really like this book a lot. It's
really excellent. I think it's like, it is kind
of simplistic, hence winning the Geisel. But
it still kind of is great I think for starting
to introduce some like higher level thinking
and like critical thinking concepts because you
do when you're initially reading it and you see
you know there's just the two size bears and
it's just one that's smaller and one that's bigger
and then like it's pretty obvious at first like
this is small and this is big but then when it
starts you know You keep going and you have an
even bigger bear and an even smaller bear and
like the size disparity gets even bigger Like
it kind of gets the kids thinking that like size
is kind of relative and it's not as simple as
it might Seem at first. So actually I think even
though it is somewhat simplistic. It's not not
really it is kind of great for you know, actually
thinking about Concepts like that. So I absolutely
love it. It's a really great book and it's pretty
easy to see why it won the Geisel with the It
does have just a few words in there making it
very easy for independent readers and Readers
who are starting to pay them independent anyway,
but it's also Because of the different sizes
in there. It makes it a little bit easier to
understand the concept. It's easier with the
To have those context clues with all of the pictures
in there. It's great. It's a wonderful book.
I agree five out of five. I love this one a whole
lot It's a great choice. Yeah, and I love to
introduce this book because then My students
love to find the other books in this series and
read those as well because it has some of the
same characters and that kind of stuff and so
It becomes something that they can go and access
more of the books that are similar But they can
follow through on that on their own. And so I
love any time that I can share a book that gets
the kids to go look for other books that are
like it. And so this series in general is just
really great for that kind of stuff. Yeah. All
right. So as far as like a makerspace connection,
I would love to work with my students and give
them the IO blocks that we've talked about. in
previous episodes I'd love to use those eye blocks
and have the kids build their own big and small
bears because I would love to see how creative
they could be with how they could put those pieces
together to make a smaller size and how they
would have to do something different to make
a bigger size bear and see like the different
ways that they could do that. You could even,
like you could make it a challenge where they're
like, can you make the biggest and the smallest
bear kind of thing. But I think just having the
kids work on their own and having them build
a small and a big bear and come up with different
ways to make those because the way the IO blocks
interconnect, you'd have to. come up with two
different ways to make the bears based on those
sizes. And so I think that would really challenge
the kids and it would be something that would
be kind of cool to see how they come up with
solutions to some of the problems that they would
come across with that. So that would be pretty
fun. That's a great idea. I don't think I would
have thought of having them build bears out of
IL blocks. I think that would be really fun.
And then like once, like you said, once they
finished building, you could even like compare
several different kids and see which one is the
biggest and which one is the smallest. That's
great. I love that. I think that would be a lot
of fun for the kids too. All right. So at this
point, we will do another makerspace spotlight.
And this is one of my favorite things. And I'm
super disappointed. I do not have one of these
in my current library. Really? I don't, but I'm
going to be looking because these are so cool.
The Coda Pillar. Coda Pillar is a preschool age
STEM toy from Fisher Price. It was designed to
teach fundamentals of coding, sequencing and
critical thinking. through hands -on play. And
there are two different versions of the Coda
Pillar. And I'm going to say that while both
of them are great, I like the classic version
better. There are two. So the classic version
uses USB connectors. And so you have individual
segments that plug into the main Coda Pillar
body. And each of those connector pieces Have
a movement or a sound or a lighting structure
that goes with that specific segment So if you
plug one in it might like it shows on top that
it's a right turn or a left turn or a go straight
or It lights up or it makes out whatever and
so you plug in the individual connector pieces
together to make a long caterpillar and then
when you tell it to start it lights up each individual
segment showing you what it's doing as it does
it so that you can see the sequence. It follows
all of the coding that you've put into the Coda
Pillar and it works. The other version is the
Coda Pillar Twist. It's a newer one. I haven't
seen that one. The reason I don't like it as
much is because it is a set length and so you
don't plug in and unplug pieces. It's a set length
Coda Pillar. So all of those segments that you
would normally plug in are all connected already.
And instead of each segment being its own individual
coding maneuver, there's a dial that you twist
to select what that segment of the Coda Pillar
does. So you can turn the dial to make it do
a right turn, or you can turn it to make it do
a left turn or you can turn it so that it does
a straight or other so like all of the pieces
are already pre -connected and you just turn
the dial on each segment to change what that
piece does so it's not bad i like the physical
putting the code together and clicking it all
in to make it do what you want Cause I think
that's more of the hands on the dial. Like, yeah.
So there's on the back of the segment, it has
like the arrows and there's the dial has like
an arrow that you just turn it to point to what
you want it to do. So you can visually see what
it's going to do, but I like that. Like for the
classic version, the segment that's a right turn.
on top of it, it is a light up arrow that turns
to the right. And that piece is always gonna
do that piece of code. And then the left turn
is always gonna be a left turn and the straight
is always gonna be a straight. And with the classic,
you could buy additional segments. So you could
make your Coda Pillar 20, 30 pieces long if you
really wanted to. The twist. It is a set amount
and I think it's like six or eight segments and
it's set and that's as big as the code you can
make is. It's not bad. It's just, I like that
the kids have to physically pick and connect
the segments together with the classic. As far
as the way this works, it works best on hard
flat surfaces in a school setting. the kind of
carpet that most schools have, it works fine
on those because it's that hard carpet that just
the squares of carpet better. The cheapest you
can find. Yeah. Yeah. We got it. So if you're
trying to do this at home on your Berber rug,
it's not going to work great. But if you're at
a school, most of the carpets, it should work
fine. It will work very well on tile as well
or laminate. And so it works great there. Like
I said, It's the device itself. If you use the
twist, it's a set length. If you use the classic,
you can make it shorter or larger based on how
many segments you put in. So it takes up a little
bit of space, but it also moves a pretty good
distance. You want a big open space for this
to work so that it, but to be fair, like if it
bumps into something, it will stop and be like,
wait, I can't do the rest of the code. So that's
a cool feature to it. It's not going to keep
trying and like burnout its gears or anything
like that. When it bumps into something, it stops.
It doesn't keep going, which is nice. So it's
pretty cool as far as that goes, but it does
take up a lot of space. There is, if you use
it, it is kind of loud. There's not a volume
control on the classic version. I think there
is a volume control on the twist version. So
that's, they did learn from that for that part.
For the classic version, there are expansion
packs. So you can add additional pieces where
they have like a 180 or like silly sounds or
other light up features. And so you can buy additional
packs. You can buy additional packs that are
just like the turns and straights and stuff like
that. So you can have quite a few pieces. And
at the last, at the pre -k campus, when I was
there, I left with you. There is a good number
of pieces that we bought a couple extra expansion
packs. So we had them all. And it was one of
the favorites of the kids to be able to play
with that. Agreed. Thank you for that. We had
a great time. Yeah. And so I don't have one of
these at my current campus. This is one of those
like wishlist kind of things. Cause I, if I get
one, I do want the classic. So I got to look
and see if I can find one for a reasonable price
and try and get it. Because I think that This
is a great piece for kinder and pre -k to introduce
coding and introduce sequencing and problem solving.
Because like I said, if it bumps into something,
it stops. So, okay, that didn't work. We don't
have the space for that. We need to make a turn
sooner, that kind of thing. And being able to
have those kinds of conversations so that the
kids can figure out like how to fix problems.
But like, I love that each segment lights up
as it goes because they can see what's happening
right then and why it's happening. And so they
can make those connections of this piece made
this happen because then that's why it's lit
up at the moment kind of thing. And so it starts
to help them really understand that they're the
reason why the robot is doing what it's doing
because they put that piece in and told it to
do that. And so that kind of connection is a
really Good foundational start to get these kids
to understand coding and when they get older
They'll understand that each piece of code each
line of code. That's input has Like it has an
outcome and if something's not working right
then they need to go back and figure out what
part of that code Gave them the issue. I also
love that There's no need for screens. You don't
need a tablet. You don't need That's my favorite
part. Another device to make this work. And so
that's really, really nice because so many of
these kids are on devices and on tablets and
on screens for so long that having a way for
them to have fun without having to be in front
of a screen is really important. They need it.
They need it a lot. And so I would highly suggest
checking out either version of the Coda Pillar
from Fisher Price. I think that our pre -K students
really enjoy it and have a lot of fun with it.
So it's worth looking into. It's a little pricey.
When I bought it originally, it wasn't too bad,
but as they've kind of gone away from producing
each one, they... have gotten a little bit more
expensive but not too bad i think let's see like
the coda pillar itself now it's like i'm finding
one and the twist one is sitting at like 54 bucks
which isn't terrible that's not that bad yeah
is a twist one cheaper than the classic the thing
is is i it's harder to find the classic i think
That's lame Yeah, so like a lot of the classic
ones now are like pre -owned because the Because
they I think they moved away from making the
classics to doing the twist ones And so that's
why it's gonna be a little more challenging to
find although This one is the classic from Walmart
and it's 28 .99. Oh. So you can still get it
for a relatively reasonable price. Oh, they're
out of stock, but that's how much they sell it
for if they have it in stock. 28 .99. 30 bucks
is not bad for the classic. And I think that
the twist one is probably if depending on where
you look for it, it's probably similar pricing.
Yeah. I will say like the If you can find like
the expansion packs and stuff like that or another
15 or 20 bucks a piece to get like three or four
additional segments Yeah, that's not bad, which
isn't terrible at all so yeah, it's a really
cool product that oh, I think a Lot of our kids
get a lot of enjoyment out of so yeah, definitely
worth it. I Need yeah, I don't have any coding
anything In my library right now absolutely nothing
my maker space is the tiniest little cutest little
I don't know I'm kind of surprised they even
call it a maker space but that's okay. And I
was told that they had like a dedicated maker
space room at one point so I don't know what
happened to that or what they put in that but
that's okay. This would probably be a good first
introduction when I get around to. Putting some
coding stuff in there. I think I need more basic
stuff first before I go to coding Yeah, but yeah,
these were fun like yeah, you left these for
me at the early learning center that we were
both at and Yeah, the kids loved them. They're
great. They're pretty efficient easy to use pretty
intuitive and the kids really were engaged with
it and they could understand pretty quickly where
they went wrong in their coding. So it was, they're
great. I love them. They're durable. Durable
is good. Yeah. Cause these are made for pre -K
kids to be able to bang them around a little
bit and still. Yeah. And the less screens we
can have them on. is the better. They're just
inundated with it now. I'm hesitant to do like
anything with screens at all. I just, they do
it all the time. And there's other parts of their
brain need to be developed before they start
getting on screens. So these are great. And so
over the next couple of weeks, I think I'm gonna
like for these segments, I'm gonna do a couple
other makerspace coding things that are without
screens because I think like when we think of
coding a lot of times we think of sitting in
front of a screen and doing it but there are
so many ways that we can introduce coding to
our younger students where we don't need screens
so over the next couple weeks as we do these
episodes I'm gonna have a couple other coding
activities and devices that do not require a
screen because I think That's the best way to
start with so many of these kids. It is. Yeah,
agreed. All right. Well, the other book that
we are going to talk about today is We Are Growing.
It is another Geisel winner. It was published
by Hyperion Books for Children in 2016, and the
author and illustrator is Lori Keller. This one
is... technically a little bit Mo Willems as
well though not very much only like three or
four pages out of like the 50 or so pages of
the book it's an elephant and piggy like reading
story so it does have a couple of pages with
elephant piggy but for the most part it's Laurie
Keller and like she gets all the credit on all
the things so we're just going with Laurie Keller
for now this book won the was a ALSC notable
children's book of 2017 won the Geisel in 2017
and the state lists that it's on are the Illinois
Monarch Award for 2019 Iowa Goldfinch Award for
2018 Kentucky Bluegrass Award 2018 Michigan Great
Lakes Book Award 2017 and New Jersey Garden State
Children's Book Award 2019 And Lori Keller grew
up in Muskegon, Michigan. After graduating from
high school, she initially went to college to
become a teacher. However, a friend reignited
her interest in art and she eventually graduated
from Kendall Art College of Art and Design with
a degree in illustration. She began her career
by illustrating greeting cards from Hallmark.
Then she did more of that and decided that if
she could design an entire greeting card from
start to finish Then she could also design children's
books as well So that's kind of what she did
for the rest of her career. She currently lives
in a cottage on the shores of Lake Michigan Sounds
nice Yeah, it does sound nice Yeah, it was kind
of hard to find it not too hard. I guess to find
information on her like her website is like copyright
2022 and pretty much just says more information
coming soon. I don't know. I was looking and
she's like 65 ish. So I'm thinking she's like
retired and living her best life in that cottage.
So go her happy. Yeah. Right. So some of the
other books that she wrote and illustrated include
potato pants. Do Unto Otters, a book about manners,
The Scrambled States of America, Arnie the Donut,
The Scrambled States of America Talent Show,
Open Wide Tooth and Side, Bertie's Smile Book,
and Grandpa's Gazillion's Number Yard. Yeah.
And in our book summary, there's blades of grass
out enjoying a typical day when something very
exciting happens and they all start to grow.
As each of them, as they grow, each of them notices
something unique about themselves, except for
one blade of grass in particular. They all try
and think of what might make that last blade
of grass unique until the lawn mower comes along
and mows everybody down. At first they're pretty
upset by that, but once they realize they'll
grow again, they figure out that that final blade
of grass does have a unique quality after all.
The lawnmower brought it out in him. I like this
book a lot. It's really funny and I I like like
the intro at the beginning with elephant and
piggy is like, hey, let's watch some grass grow
and it like And that's what you do in the book
and it sounds super boring, but it's not it's
amazing and kids like laugh out loud whenever
I read this one to them. I like this book because
it you could do it from like a social emotional
standpoint and talk about how everybody's unique.
Everybody's the best at something everybody has
strengths and weaknesses. You're gonna be good
at some things You're not good at other things
and that's okay Everybody's a little bit different
and you could just do that perspective or you
could do it with like a plants or gardening unit
anything with where things are growing because
that's what the book about is growing so you
could either so Either way works either social
emotional or like a science perspective But yeah,
it's so funny. It's so great. I think with some
of other uh, lori killer's other books They're
not always my favorite because her illustrations
i'm fine with the text in her books, but her
Illustrations for me personally are a little
overwhelming most of the time Like they get I
don't know where my eye is supposed to go and
I think if it was just a piece of art great that's
fine. But when I'm trying to like read I get
distracted and I don't know, it's just not my
favorite. Not really anything wrong with it,
just personal preference. And I think it's a
little bit harder to read those books to kids
when you're trying to like point out text because
everything else is so distracting. But this one
is a little less distracting. There's like shades
of green. It's not too overwhelming. for me which
means it's not going to be too overwhelming for
the kids and it's easier to focus on the text
on the page when the pictures are like that.
So this is definitely my favorite of her books.
I just love it. I think it's a great book. I
really like to read it every year and kids love
it too. They really like those elephant and piggy
like reading books where everybody loves elephant
and piggy. So them getting to introduce a book
to them and this is just amazing. and then yeah
it's just it's a good book i love it it's a five
out of five for me i really do read it every
year yeah usually in the spring agreed uh this
is definitely a lot of fun i enjoy reading this
with the kids and they definitely love it each
blade of grass having their own kind of unique
personality and being you know kind of silly
and different makes it very entertaining the
kids love it and They like the lawnmower is in
the background for a couple pages before it actually
gets turned on and that kind of thing and so
like the kids are slowly like noticing that in
the background I got oh and Like so like there's
a little bit of tension that builds up as that
is happening in the background while other things
are happening in the story and it's a lot of
fun to see the kids like realizing what's about
to happen and It's just a fun story and I agree
the kids love it. It's a lot of fun to read I
do tend to read it around springtime just because
it works for that really well. But it definitely
has that social emotional aspect of pointing
out that we can all be different and still get
along and be supportive of each other and that
kind of thing, which is a really important message
for the kids. So definitely love this one. Definitely
five out of five bookmarks. Yeah, this one's
great. I think the We Are Not Small probably
got the Geisel Morpher. It's still a great book
and everything, but like that simple text I think
is what won it. This one's text is a little less
simple. I think it's more of the unique aspect
of everybody has their own strengths and weaknesses
and you're having fun watching the grass grow.
Who does that? I don't know. We do. I enjoy watching
the grass grow in this book. Yes. It's a great
one. I think for a makerspace activity, it depends
on what kind of what your purpose is for reading
it. If you are reading it for like a social emotional
aspect could have the kids do like talk about
themselves a little bit and you know what makes
everybody special and then do like self portraits
and try and emphasize whatever their strengths
are whatever if you're going for um the more
of the science aspect and just talking about
things growing in general because that's what
the plants are doing in the book then i think
we you could do just like have kids build plants
out of i put down legos but you could use io
blocks as well i mean really anything just give
them you know simple photos of plants and see
if they could recreate whatever plants you're
showing them. Yeah. I like that idea. You got
choices. Yeah. Yeah. I love both of those ideas.
Those would both be really great. And I think
you could even offer both choices and have some
of the kids do one and some of the kids do other
based on their inclinations as to what they prefer
to do. And that is true. You just go deeper into
the book. Yeah. Very cool. Love that. Well, thank
you all for joining us today on this episode
of Librarians of Littles, and we hope you found
some fresh ideas for inspiring our young readers.
Please be sure to subscribe and connect with
us on social media. Happy reading. Thank you
for listening to this episode of Librarians of
Littles. We hope that you've enjoyed it. Check
back each Wednesday for a new episode. Librarians
of Littles is a podcast produced and hosted by
Patrick Adams and Caroline Legere. Editor, Patrick
Adams. Our theme song is performed by J .D. Adams.
You can follow us on Instagram at Librarians
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at librarianoflittlespodatgmail .com. you're
doing getting book fair set up for you the week
after that is the week before spring break and
like that Thursday is a cluster of stuff going
on on my campus because it's the last day before
the kids get spring break and so that Thursday
we have the fun run fundraiser in the gym all
day and we're ending the day with the fifth grade
and the talk so that's a whole other cluster
of a thing. I don't know when we do that. I have
not heard. Your campus is doing it that day too.
It's a district thing. The entire district they
do it with fifth grade the day before they leave
for spring break and most campuses do it literally
like 20 minutes before the kids walk out the
door so they can't go and start talking to people.
That's a district -wide business. Yeah the nurses
are all told this is the day you're doing it
and they do it because it just it's an easy way
to be like all right here's all this information
bye you've got a week before you come back to
our campus yeah which to be fair is pretty brilliant
um i mean the thing is used to be it used to
be that that day was a half day and so literally
it was like do this half day bye um this year
it's a full day and so like and we're doing my
campus is doing the fun run that day so that
means that I basically told my PE teacher, I
was like, listen, I will be in the gym all day
with you until the last group, that first grade
group, while they're in there. I got to go in
the library with my principal so we can show
this video. And the nurse is going to take one,
like, I think she's going to take the, um, either
the counselor or the makerspace teacher into
the makerspace room with the girls and they're
going to have their video going. And then, then
we dismiss. So. Yeah. Okay. Well, maybe I'm glad
I won't be there that day. Yeah. Um, yeah. That's
because it's like, I'm not mature enough for
that situation. And so my principal every year,
I swear he must hate it just because I'm in there
with him because I'm sitting in the back giggling
to myself the entire time. I don't think they've
told our campus that that's happening that day.
Nobody has said anything to my nurse was told
me that every elementary campus does it that
day and that it's a district directive to be
done that day because they want it done. And
it's a good time to be like, here it is. And
now you have a week to go talk to family and
not other students about this. No, I think that's
great. Yeah. Agreed so I don't I mean as far
as I've been told it's the entire district does
it that day I'm sure we are doing it that day.
There's just a lot of stuff. I feel like at my
campus where they're like Like I told you when
Santa came into the library right and they didn't
tell me until like ten minutes before Yeah, like
that where it's like this is happening. Nobody
knows It's cool. I have no doubt it's happening
On my campus, they just yeah So Jacob would else
also end up in the bear with us. So Jacob Smith
and so He probably is gonna be stuck in that
again this year. Yeah There's two other male
teachers on our campus, yeah, but yeah He's the
only male fifth grade teacher though, it's only
fifth grade, right Yeah. Yeah. It's just the
fifth graders and it's the only the ones that
their parents sign them to say they can. Okay.
Yeah. Like it's an opt in kind of thing where
they have to fill out the paper and turn it in
to be able to participate in that video and conversation.
Okay. Yeah. See, look at all the fun stuff you're
learning coming to an elementary campus from
the pre -k campus. I know. All these new things
you have to deal with. I know. Oh my gosh. Pre
-K had its own kind of crazy, but. Yeah. Ugh.
The stuff at elementary. I don't know. This is
part of why I avoided going to elementary for
so long though. Yeah. Sucks a lot. I don't need
testing. I don't need puberty. I don't need any
of that.