Westwood March 16th

School: Westwood Elementary

Mentor: Sara Martini

Date: March 16, 2016

Hours: 8

  
     Today I met Sara's Media Para, Dawn. She has been working with Sara since she was at Talahi Elementary. Sara has been a LMS for 17 years in the St. Cloud school district. I am excited to see how she runs her media center and to pick up all of the tips from her that I can during my practicum.
    For the most part I just shadowed Sara today. I watched how she read to her groups in the media center, and how each teacher does things a little bit differently in the way they want the kids to sit, when they get their shelving stick, how many books each kid can check out that day, who can sit in the black rocking reading chairs, where they sit after they check out their book etc. There seems to be a lot of variability in what each group is expected to do in the media center during their library time.
    I also helped check out books, but this took some getting used to as well, because the students may only check out as many books as the grade they're in that year. So a third grader can only have 3 books out. In Kindergarten and I believe First grade they can always check out one book because Sara believes they need access to books and need a chance to have them at home to read. At least Westwood uses the Follett library system called Destiny, which I know how to manage quite well.
   Sara is very motivated and works fast, so I'm adjusting to being in an elementary setting and (figuratively and literally) getting up to speed with how she works. I find it difficult sometimes to work at another person's pace. She has her schedule and pace very established, so I'm doing my best to keep up and get my head around everything as quickly as I can.
    Below is an image of this week's scheduled library classes and book groups. This comes from Sara's Google Calendar that she shared with me to make planning each day's activities easier for us both.
    

March 14 - 18 Media Center Schedule