So yes, last month contained School Library Month, week, day, along with National Library Week AND….opportunity to set up events for a whole year to follow.

Case in point, making connections to everything around us it VITALLY important. Girls Who Code was initiated this semester at Woodbridge High, with three attending ladies and yes, I was skeptical. Yet, the connections these ladies have made and established in setting up this club has been AWESOME. They decided on a theme of Habits, seeing habits be tied to programming and how it can establish a student in many areas, not just in programming. I thought pretty forward thinking. Additionally, these ladies are experimenting with the programming Code Scratch, and it is easiest to just let you see the basis of the last meeting we had this week – and what one of the three has learned from this experience:

GREAT job Olivia!   We watched Olivia’s Scratch video:

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/842191574

and this is what we discussed:

Olivia’s only experience with Scratch was in Science where she just as on the receiving end of seeing the programming.

I forget, but was going to ask –  Wendy, what has been your experience?

Some things Olivia learned re: Scratch –

You can’t duplicate some actions/commands

Moving – this sometimes has to be paused to allow a fluid motion of a image/character moving in a clip and cause that wait time.

 Regarding the theme of Habits we discussed about connecting to the Spring ’23 Girls Who Code, Olivia mentioned she saw determination and perseverance as two specific characteristics that align with that theme.

Olivia had the idea to show us opening boxes to use as PR and advertising for Girls Who Code, and we discussed the possibility of upcoming, before the end of the year, if we can try 5^th period to get a lunch where we can meet in the library and work on one of the boxes/projects we have to see what we have and work with it!

Any questions, let me know, any help, let me know, but let’s meet Thursday to see if we can see some new Scratch clips!

Way to go Olivia!

It is very good to see how school libraries can serve as a hub for creativity in and out of the classroom, while still creating a new world within the same school. It is almost like breathing – not exactly sniffing- new life into how poetry can be viewed and conceived.

~ Speaking of connections and utilizing your senses, what happens when librarians seek connections outside of school? Thank to the Delaware Humanities, connecting with the Lewes book store Biblion, to the poet Shelley Puhak, connected to the History Book Festival in Lewes, we were lucky enough to connect students studying Poetry (in the month of April)

and bringing various perspectives of poetry, from back historical periods of Greek mythology and say, Salem Witchtrials, to present day and how poetry could be relevant. Thanks to the generosity of the Delaware Humanities/ Lewes History Book Festival, Biblion bookstore, and Shelley Puhak, students were able to dive into some of their favorite, unknown-to-be-favorite-yet-poetry, and figure out how poetry could take on more personal meaning.

It goes without saying, juggling schedules, interruptions and technology when it does not want to work, all poses undue stress on all parties and yet, it was a GREAT experience to show how you work and persevere through challenges, find alternative points of view of something that might seem isolated to a classroom, and open up scenarios that would not even be conceived of.