LibraryButterfly

I have been doing a tiny tot story time program for the past 3 years in my library. It’s every Friday in the morning.  It has been pretty slow getting a following.  I used to have only 3 kids coming!  Today I had my biggest group yet…seven!  It was great!  Today we read about and made baby owls with pinecones and cotton!  They turned out really cute!  We started by reading Owl Babies by Martin Waddell.  It’s about 3 owls who wake up to find Mother Owl gone.  They worry but try to be brave.  The kids loved it everytime Bill the littlest owl would always say, “I want my mommy!”  We also sang “If you want to be an owl, shout – WHO!, WHO!” an off shoot of “If you’re happy and you know it!”  The pinecone owls were very easy to make.  Get a pinecone (cinnamon scented is best!) then tear cotton apart and put into every nook and cranny of the pinecone…add eyes and an orange beak and TA DAH!  You have a fluffy baby owl that smells nice!  The kids loved them!  Then we checked out our books and the parents had time to sit with their little one to read.  We all met back on the carpet for our second story, which was Good Night Owl by Pat Hutchins.  This story is about an owl trying to sleep but is kept awake by several day birds…but he gets his say that night when they are all asleep…WHOOO! WHOOOO!  October is always a fun month for stories and activities at Tiny Toro Time!

My library has been SUPER busy since school started.  We are doing a fun Reading Incentive program called Go For The Gold!  In honor of the past summer Olympics, our library is giving out medals to readers!  They must read so many books to receive Bronze, Silver, or the highest Gold medals!  The kids are really excited!  Every Friday, I have been announcing the new winners with Olympic Theme Song and fanfare, etc.  So far there have been about 40 kids who have made it to the Bronze and 2 for the Silver!  We will be running this program until the end of January.

Library 2.0 – It’s many things to many people. What does it mean to me?  It means using WEB 2.0 tools like blogging, podcasting, wikis, etc as a way to reach and teach the students at my elementary school.  I do feel a little overwhelmed…not sure where to jump first…but I do see its potential in offering better library services to my students and staff and parents.  I would like to start a Book Blog so students could recommend and comment on books (online booktalks).  I would like to use podcasting as a way to do book reviews using students as the stars! or perhaps as a way of having an online Library Orientation.  I think I could start a Consideration Wiki on my website.  This is so patrons can suggest titles for the library to purchase.  I have a paper file in my library but this would be able to reach more people.  I also want to use wikis as a Research Collaboration tool.  Here the teachers and I could flesh out ideas for projects to be done in the library.  I have even thought about having each grade level create a product to share the info they learned using a web 2.0 tool…2nd Grade – Podcast…3rd Grade-Wiki…4th Grade-Blog…5th Grade- ?  I do hope I can realize some of this in the school year to come.

So…that is what Flickr is!!!!!!!!!!!!  I had seen it of course in my widgets but never understood what it was for.  I was afraid to click on it!  (Didn’t want to set off a bomb in some part of the world, right!)  Anyway, I had a good time exploring Flickr for my All Together Now: Learning 2.0.  I uploaded photos from my Cozumel trip and some photos I had of my library.  I am the webmaster at my school so I am constantly uploading photos onto our school’s site for what is new and going on at CVE.   I plan on making a library account and loading pics from my library onto it.  That way more people will be able to experience what is going on in the library!  This is great! 

Wikis are so COOL!  I like the fact that a project can be worked on with out wasting time with meetings, emails, phone calls. I want to collaborate with teachers on research projects we could do utilizing the library.  I would prefer not to chase teachers down for help on collaborating on research projects! 
A wiki would be perfect for this type of collaboration.  We could define project ideas, who will teach what,
resources to use, set dates and times.  I could set up wikis for each grade level for year round ideas! Awesome!

I did it!   I created my feeder reader page or agregator and suscribed to many feeds.  I called my page JulieGATOR!  I decided to use NetVibes.  It is fun!  I think I will make this my homepage.  However, I am unsure what to do with the public part of the page.  I don’t see why the work I have done on JulieGator doesn’t just transfer over to the public page…and I am unsure what to use it for.  I already posted a request on my school districts Webmasters Corner to see if our website has an RSS feed.  I want my campus to have feed capability as well.  That way, parents, students, and staff can access the newest info on our district and school.  I hope to be able to put a feed onto my library website so students can RSS my library blog about new books, etc.  Teachers can use it to keep parents up to date on class news.  This is great!!

Well, it has been quite a while since I began this endeavor.  I want to try it again.  I realized when I created this new blog that I wasn’t quite sure how to get others to see it.  Maybe School Library Journal’s All Together Now 2.0 will help me to get a handle on this and other 2.o applications. Here is the website if you would like to join in.  It’s not to late:

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/290000629/post/530030053.html

Anyway,   It is summer now so school is still out for me.  I have been working in Gruene, TX at an antique shop…You may have not have heard of Gruene’s historic district but it is the site where John Travolta played the angel Michael and danced in the bar…that was Gruene Hall!  It is located in New Braunfels, TX which is between Austin and San Antonio!

Ahhh! The joys of the library!  I love making displays in the library.  As a librarian I do a lot…a LOT!  I would love to have an assistant to help with some things that get pushed aside…but even if I had one…I would still want to do the displays.  It makes me happy to keep the library looking colorful, seasonal, and friendly.  I have put a new display on Books Made Into Movies!  It was a success!  I borrowed book characters from the library shelves and from other teachers to create a red carpet setting.  I have the witch from Narnia, and Aslan walking down the red aisle.  I also have Harry Potter, Sponge Bob and Garfield strutting their stuff.  Seated are other characters like Clifford the Big Red Dog, Arthur the Aardvark, and Liz from Magic School Bus…on the sidelines are Cruella DeVil, Cinderella, and the Cat in the Hat!  I displayed all the books I have that have been made into movies.  I also have a lifesized standing Obi Wan Kenobi with light sabre extended…this was donated by a teacher/Stars Wars fan!  I recently received and email from LM_Net (librarian listserv) with an idea to make a recipe display.  You know with books like  “Green Eggs and Ham” and other titles with food in them.  I can’t wait to work on that…besides of course all the other things I have to do as I manage a library on my own!  (It always seems to get done!)

I’m so glad it’s Friday!  I was thanking the heavens on Thursday night before I went to work on how great it was that it was going to be Friday!  It has been a fun week but rough!  I spent most of the week weeding out my library collection.  That means (just in case…) I was going through books and choosing which ones to discard.  It turned out to be about 500 books!!  That was just from the 900′s (history, geography, biographies, etc.).  There were some books that had been sitting on the shelf for 26+ years!!  They had never been checked out!  I know (500!  That sounds like a lot!).  It is only a blip in my school’s 10,000 plus collection.  It needed to be done.  That section looks so much fresher and new! 

My name is Mrs. Gallichio /Guh-lick-ee-oh/.  I am the librarian at Coronado Village Elementary.  It is alot of fun being a librarian.  I enjoy inspiring the kids to read, and I also enjoy helping the staff with their resource needs.  I became a librarian in 2005.  Here is a link to my campus website: http://sc.judsonisd.org/education/school/school.php?sectionid=4