Category: Library

Small Success Thursday: Winter Wonderland Edition

franciscanmom2 Comments

Small-Success-Thursday-400px

This week, so far, we had 5 inches of heavy, wet snow and then an ice-to-rain “event.” Thanks, Punxsutawney Phil. Thanks a whole lot.

-1-

erins vegetarian chiliWhile it was snowing and I had nothing better to do but stay inside and cook, I made a big batch of spaghetti sauce with meatballs and, later, a slow cooker full of Erin’s Vegetarian Chili (I added a can of pink beans and a generous amount of corn). Middle Sister baked some Oreo-Stuffed Chocolate-Chip Cookies.

-2-

I was the Substitute Librarian/Tech Teacher on Tuesday morning. Not only did I get paid for doing something I love, but I had all kinds of fun

  • reading Snowmen at Work with the first grade. Twice. Because their teacher changes the words to “1A Snowmen” when she reads a Snowman book with them, and they needed me to do the same.
  • reading Pink Snow with the second grade. We don’t usually choose nonfiction books as read-alouds in the library, but I was looking for something not too babyish for this class, and I wanted to stick with the snow theme. The kids were spellbound and asked good questions. One teacher, whose daughter is in that class, told me Wednesday how much her daughter really loved that book.
  • attempting to convince an eighth-grade girl who was working on a “Contemporary Americans” report that you can’t use rumors as sources for a research project, even when those rumors are published in celebrity-gossip rags. Especially when those rumors are published in celebrity-gossip rags.

-3-

I finally got the Christmas decorations boxed up and moved out of the living room. They’re not completely away yet, but I need the snow to melt so I can get the boxes out to the shed. My deadline for getting that done is the next time Big Brother comes home to spend the night, because right now those boxes are in his room.

Give yourself a little pat on the back for things you’ve accomplished this week! Join us over at Small Success Thursday at CatholicMom.com–leave a comment or link your blog.

And while you’re over there at CatholicMom.com, don’t forget to link to your favorite meatless recipes at our Meatless Friday Link Party! We’re getting our souls–and our kitchens–ready for Lent!

Storytime Ooops!

franciscanmom1 Comment

One of my favorite parts about helping in the school library is storytime. Because the kindergarten and first grade only get 45 minutes to divide between library and computer class, we don’t get to have storytime every week.

Today, though, the librarian was helping to chaperone the 8th grade trip, and I was flying solo in the library. The lesson plan she left for me included storytime for both of the primary-grade classes I’d see. Bonus: I got to pick the story!

The first-graders had let us know earlier this year that they are big fans of Tomie dePaola. Me too–I’ve enjoyed his picture books since the time I used to read them to Big Brother. So I went to the bookshelf and chose one of Big Brother’s favorites: Tom.

In this story, a little boy’s grandfather shows his mischievous side, giving Tommy two chicken feet. Tommy takes them to school and uses them to scare his classmates–and a teacher.

We were just getting to the good part when the first-grade teacher walked into the library to collect her students. And there I was, reading all about how this little boy caused a little playground mayhem with a couple of chicken feet.

So…what do you think the odds are that I’ll be asked to substitute again?