That's great, Eric! Let me scan them and then I'll give you your total.
Okay. Here's the one I want to buy, and here's the one that I want to get for free.
Okay, Eric. That's fine, but you'll have to buy the more expensive one and then get this one for free.
Why can't I just get the cheaper one and then get the more expensive one for free?
(Laughs) Well, that's how BOGO works! (Smiles at Eric)
Well that's a rip off!
No, no, no. Again, that's how it goes...like everywhere... in real life.
But this is school.
But this is a BOGO sale and those are the rules of BOGO.
Well I think that's stupid.
Thank you for your thoughts, but I have no control over the BOGO rules, kid. Have a great day!
The struggle was real, folks. BOGO Book Fairs are a living nightmare. When first being told we were putting on a "buy one, get one" fair this week, my teacher heart was warm with the thought of kids getting the opportunity to get two books instead of just one. How quickly those warm, fuzzy feelings faded. If a kid doesn't understand the idea of BOGO, fine, I can explain. But repeatedly being accused of cheating people is mentally exhausting. All current librarians that have been in this position and survived- please, teach me your ways!
Having the book fair allowed Ms. Allen and I the opportunity to discuss the many advantages and disadvantages to offering such an event to school and students. Her thoughts were very reflective of Ms. Maddox's at Cedar Grove. The major differences that I saw between the two was that Ms. Allen's was much smaller, less attended, and was not provided any volunteers to help. She seemed to believe that this was the norm for most middle schools, as students prefer to spend their money on other things that interest them.
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| Although fairly simple, I did find this little guy to be lacking in the user-friendly department. Sorry Scholastic! |
Also this week, I worked with the library aides to get some serious shelving done. Every morning, one of my girls checks in books while the other girl shelves. Since Ms. Allen first gave me the responsibility of monitoring them at the beginning of my practicum experience, some days are very productive, while others are not as much. Their productivity often depends on their involvement in various clubs as well as their mood for the morning (shocking that mood would effect a middle schooler's performance, I know). Typically, we have one morning each week where we hit the shelving hard. The rest of the mornings throughout the week, I typically spend my time shelving. However, this week the shelves needed some major TLC and many books needed to find their way back to them. Overall though, these two ladies did an excellent job and worked very hard to get it all together and back to normal.
On a side note, Ms. Allen and I have completed yet another project aimed at creating an environment that is suitable and inviting to our students. This time, we spent about a week gathering resources and then choosing our favorites to turn into QR codes. Everything from virtual tours of famous art museums, to tutorials and homework help sites, to even silly prompts like, "Stop and dance. Yes, really. Do it!" are now mingling on our library walls. Close to fifty of them in all, we have been enthusiastic in promoting them to our students. The picture below shows just one section of many. The white bubbles hold the QR codes.
We also have continued to create paper-based sculptures to use as installation pieces. This past week, I led a small group in creating some of the paper strands.
Like the paper cranes, we hope to expand our collection so that they branch out over the whole library!
Lastly, I am sorry to say that I must end this week's post on a negative note. This week, I learned that no one is to be trusted at my school because:
We have a thief in the night!!
Okay, so that is being a little dramatic, but when I asked Ms. Allen how I should introduce this issue on my blog, that was the first phrase to come out of her mouth. Needless to say, I promised her that I would include the quote in this post. Not to mention, it is far better than anything I could have came up with! Now back to the issue- we seriously did have something taken from the library.
This projector, which we have been using for our secret project, typically sits on a cart. But, when we first walked in Wednesday morning, we found it just like this- on the floor. Now, Ms. Allen often gets frustrated with teachers for not returning items such as laptop cords, keyboards, and computer mice, but taking a terrible old cart and just leaving the projector- without as much as a simple note- that was taking it to another level! One thing that I know I will need to be ready for as a LMS is the willingness to hunt down items. Traditionally, librarians only had to worry about getting their books back (which is a huge issue in itself), but the present-day LMS has a lot more to keep up with. Mobile labs, technology accessories, digital resources, etc.- the list could go on and on. It is a very common occurrence to have school-wide emails in my inbox regarding the disappearing act of a particular object or item from Ms. Allen. However, what is even more interesting about this particular instance of an object going MIA is that the cart STILL hasn't been returned. We are both curious to hear the story behind this one. I'll be sure to keep you posted!
