Booked Inn

Answer: Time to get a new clock.

You may recall my emergency repair job on the library’s “Auckland” clock, part of our set of “newsroom” clocks in the revamped library? Well, the clock mechanism has failed again. I can’t get it to run longer than a few minutes. I very much doubt I can buy a matching replacement for a clock bought six months ago “on special” – and, rather than put up with a clock that was always giving a totally random time, I decided to go back to an idea I used a few years ago when I was teaching Stage 1 full time.

I’d realised that many students in that had no concept of a longcase grandfather clock, so I created one with corrugated artboard on the classroom wall, utilising the regular schoolroom clock that came with the room. We added a mouse to the clock when we were studying the nursery rhyme, “Hickory Dickory Dock”, and the students were shocked one day when the battery ran out right on the dot of one o’clock!

Anyway, “Auckland” has now been officially replaced by “Storyland” – and that clock’s time is permanently striking one, so to speak:

At least it’ll also be the right time every lunchtime!

I also took the opportunity to make a better version of my laminated “Time 4 Learning” signage, and changed the “Library Rules” chart to match the green colour of our core values signage. Previously, it had been white.

(Click photos to see larger versions)

NEW YORK, LONDON, PENRITH, AUCKLAND.

Lots of New Zealand jokes these last few weeks. Not terribly politically correct.

While the four new “newsroom” clocks on the library’s freshly painted wall have been paying off as teaching tools in numerous lessons – the students are getting quite a buzz from discussing the four time zones represented, even just in passing – our “Auckland” clock has been falling behind, needing to be reset at least once each morning. Jiggling the battery was losing effect. The battery was checked: yes, fully charged. Still no improvement. Very annoying. Eventually, Auckland time kept stopping whenever its sweep hand reached the 6.

I had been celebrating the fact that I had bought the clocks for such a great price, but they had also also the last stock in the shop. Taking one clock back for a refund was not going to keep my “newsroom” functioning at peak capacity.

Eventually, I brought out the trusty star screwdriver from the staffroom toolbox. The moment the screws were loosened, the clock started ticking again. Somehow the sweep hand had begun to come into regular contact with the glass front. I removed the back of the clock, bent the end of the sweep hand just a tad… and now New Zealand is keeping perfect time again!

Where would teacher-librarians be without a screwdriver?

Phyl Williamson from Syba Signs is coming by on Wednesday morning to give me some quotes on library signage. I’m hoping for a “Time 4 Learning” sign under the clocks, four sets of vinyl lettering for some windows, some poster hangers, and a big external sign so that people won’t have to guess which building is the school library. My fingers are crossed.

You know what? This has been the hardest blog entry to write – ever!

I completed the paint job on the back wall on Thursday afternoon, hung around after school for the paint to be dry enough to remove the masking tape from all the edges, re-adjust the couch’s purple cover and push all the furniture back into position, and then had to head into the city. Although I was exhausted from Wednesday’s undercoating (mineral turps cleanup, ugh!) and the Thursday’s two coats of semi-gloss (water-based), I did have photos to share, but something was stopping me.

Here it is Sunday afternoon already, and I’m still dragging the chain. Since this is probably the end of the current wave of shoestring makeovers, and normal classes start in the library on Monday, maybe I’ve become too attached to the renovation process? But I must… share!

Why green? Well, I picked an obviously contrasting colour from the beautiful purple-framed Kim Gamble artwork I’d decided to decorate around. And our carpet is already the medium green school carpet. The Taubman’s Living Proof Silk green paint tint is actually called “Coral Fantasy”. The closest match I found to the existing purple frame, in case I need to paint anything purple in the future, is called “Tyrian Purple”.

In any case, the back wall started like this:

and ended up like this:

Some plants, both artificial and natural are still to come, but… I’m sooooooo ready for that IWB to arrive!

NEW YORK, LONDON, PENRITH, AUCKLAND.

I loved the “newsroom clocks” idea, from a secondary school renovation in Kevin Hennah’s presentation last year, and I wondered if it was appropriate for a primary school. Or just too confusing? On my visit to Spotlight last year, I bought MDF letters for the signage on the opposite wall. When price-checking my purchases at the nearby rival store, Lincraft, I noticed they had three large white clocks on special for just $9.95 each. I’d already figured I needed four. Then I noticed they had a few of the same model in black – but again, not four. Brainstorm! I realised: even students who can’t read should be able to tell that “Penrith” time is on the black clock! (Well, okay, if they can’t read they probably also can’t tell the time, but you get the idea!)

This was my Friday afternoon very-shoestring solution to a problem. When the school assistant helped me remove all the pinboards that were covering this wall, this last one was not able to be unscrewed, because the school’s burglar alarm system is bolted through the board. I did intend this section to have some MDF letters, perhaps in purple, to spell out our four core values, but I was also concerned I was going overboard with MDF lettering. Could I perhaps try a more economical piece of signage on the laminator, as a placeholder until it’s proven the area needs something more permanent?

On top of this, people kept asking me if Kevin Rudd was giving us a brand new library, and therefore why was I still redecorating the old one? So, anyway, here’s my quick solution: purple cardboard to cover the annoying old pinboard, and some laminated core values. The “TIME 4 learning” at the top is a small version of what I planned to have, as a vinyl-lettering-on-3D-perspex sign, under the four clocks. Until the IWB arrives, I really don’t want to tempt fate. Yet.

Note the white “Library rules” sign, which we made last year on our special library signage template. On Friday I also took down the matching “Closed for stocktake” signs. There are also red, green and purple “Premier’s Reading Challenge” laminated signs in appropriate places.

Oh, and the new coloured-pencil containers on the desks? I figured those old hessian- and/or Contact-covered cat-food tins from the 70s had outlived their usefulness. The new Accent Concepts containers (below right) are $3 each, in both purplish-blue and black, (and a pinkish shade for lead pencils). From Hot Dollar:

And the couch corner goes from this:

to this:

My special thanks to parent helper, Laura, who braved what is now known as Thickening Paint Thursday, – especially when we had to turn off the two nearest air conditioners because condensation was running down the outside of the ugly conduits we were so desperate to disguise the same green colour as the wall to which they were screwed!

The theme of today was definitely… time.

1. All morning, getting ready for work today, I was racking my brain to remember how to generate the calendar in OASIS Library. A chore I haven’t had to do since early 1997. I knew I’d remember when the time came to do it – and I did – but there still some moments of self-doubt.

2. The school day commenced with a staff meeting in the library. Naturally, when I happened to glance up at the clock, it was totally wrong. The battery had run flat during the vacation. I saw quite a few colleagues do double takes of their own.

3. It finally became really obvious that, as of today, I still hadn’t set the time stamp preferences properly here on Edublogs. It didn’t matter too much last week; when on holidays, every day blurs into the other. My attempts to get it adjusted this afternoon caused today’s comment writers some confusion. (My penpal in the USA, a fellow science fiction fan is always impressed when she gets my emails with tomorrow’s date on them. I just say to her, “See? Time travel really is possible!”) Hey everyone, thanks so much for the comments and emails! I hope I find the time to post something useful/interesting/exciting every day.

4. It’s actually a blessing that I can’t seem to find any way to change the dates on already-posted blog entries and comments on Edublogs. I once found a way to do it on my other blog page at Blogger – and now that I can post-date articles there – I no longer rush to post before midnight. Then I get lazy and forget to post at all.

5. Whew! I had put the draft Term One library timetable in a safe place last year. I found it, too.

6. I just realised how Tardis-like this blog’s About page picture appears. Spooky!

7. Time to get back to work on preparations for tomorrow.

8. You know, I do have an actual Tardis image around here somewhere…