Monday, May 09, 2005

Locked in the Library

Last Friday I held my 4th Annual Library Lock In. It's a highly coveted and difficult to attain Accelerated Goal - the price of admittance is 300 AR points. Given that most simple chapter books, such a Junie B. Jones are worth only 1 point each, that's a lot of reading. Great big honking chaper books such as the 5th Harry Potter are worth 32 points which is still a lot of reading. The children who attend are the motivated, goal orientated, bright and inhale books. Just the kind of kids to make a librarians heart go pitter-patter.

Pizza and Friends Posted by Hello

I set the goal high on purpose- if I'm going to be locked in the library with kids, they had better be well behaved kids whom I know and know well! This year 7 children earned their way in - new record. We were the poster child for diversity. The group included 1 Vietnamese, 1 Albanian, a brother sister duo from Shri Lanka, 2 Mexican Americans and one Anglo. Oh yes, and one alternative lifestyle though that wasn't trumpeted. And one straight lifestyle, invited as a CYA precaution by the alternative lifestyle.


4 in a row Posted by Hello

Slumber parties are very middle class phenomena so most of the children had never been to one. "Can we really stay up all night" one of them asked me and was amazed when I said "Sure". 2 of them actually took me up on it!


6am and still going Posted by Hello
We ate pizza, hauled out the laptops, took a flashlight tour of the school, explored my puppet collection and played on the playground in the dark. Someone forgot to tell the district police and they paid us a midnight visit. Nice to know they were doing their job.


Online at all times Posted by Hello
A good time was had by all, but I really am getting to old to sleep on the floor!

All In! Posted by Hello

2 comments:

Gel said...

Cool! Hi, I'm a regular on Julie's blog. I've been by here before but not sure if Blogger let me comment, plus I've been blogging only sporadically.) You have tons of patience and enthusiasm to do this w/ the kids! :)

doulicia said...

What a fantastic idea. I'm nearly certain if our school had one, my son would try his hardest to be included. These kids will remember you their whole lives I'm sure!

(p.s. I, too, came to you through Julie's blog!)