Elementary Visit

All I can say is, you folks ROCK. I seriously don’t think I could make it in an elementary school, or would ever really want to. The students are all over the place in terms of interest and ability (I don’t even think you would get the same span of qualifications if you combined middle and high school students) and that media center HOPS. I actually volunteered in my own kid’s elementary media center when they were younger and for four hours a week ALL I did was return books to the shelf. Oh, and in the spring I scanned shelves during an inventory. There is just so much going on.

The media center I visited had a lot of interesting programs that were completely different from us. One is the newspapers—I have only ever had two people ask if we subscribed to any and they were substitutes! At this elementary center though there was a steady stream of students every day doing current affairs activities with the papers. It was enlightening seeing such active, engaged learning. Lexiles was also a big focus—much so more than I have seen or heard about anywhere else. They do not do Accelerated Reader but they do have a rather large school-wide reading program run by a committee of PTA parents. Overall, a fun experience but was a bit overwhelming to me!