Thoughts on Nearing the Finish Line

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This week is April School Vacation Week here in Massachusetts -- we celebrate Paul Revere's ride, the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the Marathon, and a Red Sox Home Day Game all on one day. We also have a school vacation.Why is it that whenever I am on school vacation, I spend about 20% of my time in school catching up? Well, I suppose that's a discussion for another time.Today, I used my "20% day" to work on two projects -- one is a joint math curriculum project with our Lincoln School Math Resource and Coach, Colleen Turco and the other is the seemingly never-ending classroom library project. Guess which one ate up most of my day -- yup, the library project!I have about 20-25 more biography books left to level and add to the database. Of that 20-25 I am considering adding all but 5 or 6 to the crates of books I am discarding from the library. Not because I dislike the subject of the biography (although some seem a bit uninteresting to me -- I know, I know, withhold my own judgements), but because in a perfect world, the biographies and historical fiction and nonfiction books would be a bit more supportive of our Massachusetts History and Social Studies Curriculum. Something to think about before we return to work on Monday, isn't it?I've also been pretty aggressively recycling the books at the upper end of the leveled library -- S, T, U and beyond. Unless the book seems to be a "classic", or an extraordinary read, it is just going to gather dust. Lucky for those books, they will find a new home I hope as we have some newer teachers in the upper classrooms who probably will appreciate having these levels added to their own classroom library.This project has been an incredible amount of work, but the books that remain in the library have purpose, are in good condition, and once the children have been taught to do so, should be easily returned to their proper homes.Next write, there will be pictures! Promise!