Last Week in the Library...

I cannot believe that my last week of my practicum has already come! This semester has blown by so fast, I do not know where all the time went! Since my last day on the job was spent just finishing up a few hours that I had left, I did not do too much different or new tasks. I was able to help order some more Pirate books for the up coming story time. We received most of the ones we ordered through inter-library loan, however, they were either too long or not age appropriate. I also went through the stacks in our branch and pulled some more pirate themed books as well. I am however a little surprised at the lack pirate books we have in both our story time collection and our regular collection.

This week I also helped with the Space themed story time. I read a book to the children during both the Tuesday story times. I also helped the children with the craft afterwards, which consisted of painted the rockets which I made and assembled the past week. And, I was right, the children were so excited to paint them! I do think though they were just mostly excited to paint!

Through out this practicum I learned so many things that could not have been taught within the classroom. I am very grateful for this experience because of that. Confidence, children's reference, readers advisory are just some of the things that are best learned on the floor. I was so incredibly nervous to create and participate in my first story time; by the time it came to my last day and I read a story, I was not nervous at all! That is one HUGE thing I am grateful for. As I continue on in my career and aim my career goals towards becoming a children's librarian, these elements are extremely important and essential to tasks I will have to complete in the professional world. Christina allowed me to help with collection development, weeding, projects, and activities. Not only to I owe her huge thanks, but she helped me to realize what I really would like to do with my career.

15th Week at the Library

This week at the library has been a very busy one. I was extremely busy preparing for two future story times as well as helping with the usual children's reference desk needs. The children's area has been rather slow the past few days, so the reference questions were very few and far between. With those circumstances, I was able to help collect and order books for the story time two weeks in advance. The theme for that week will be pirates, which I think is a fantastic theme. However, the amount of pirate books available is rather limited which surprised me. There are several, but they are either too long for a story time or too involved. I was able to order several though, so when they arrive, hopefully this week, we can evaluate them and determine if we can use them.

In addition to helping with those tasks, most of my time this week was dedicated to building four story time rocket ships! This coming week's theme is space, so Christina and I decided that for our craft we would build rocket ships that children could paint or color afterwards and we could display them within the libraries, both the Canyon Country and Newhall branches, afterwards. Boy, this was a real work out! Christina helped me to build the rockets and then I covered them in white butcher paper myself, so that the children can paint them. It took a very long time, several hours, to construct and prepare them for the children. Even with all the hard work, I think that all four rockets were definitely worth it! I am very excited to see how they turn out as well!

Here are two of the four rocket ships!