Sit a While

My Space

2011-09-14T15:23:00.003-07:00

Jesse surprised me with a little piece of the internet to call my own. So I'll be hanging out over there now. Come visit me, won't you?

http://www.calliefeyen.com/

My Hands Sing the Blues by Jeanne Walker Harvey

2011-08-24T11:24:00.000-07:00

"You put down one color, and it calls for an answer. You have to look at it like a melody." - Romare Bearden

My Hands Sing the Blues is the story of the artist Romare Bearden, told in his voice, as he thinks on his time in North Carolina and his move to Harlem, New York. The story is a gorgeous poem starting with Bearden snipping "a patch of color" to make a collage from a picture when a train comes into memory. He follows that train, incorporating it into his artwork and telling us the story of his trip North.

Bearden and his parents leave for New York City in 1914, because of the discriminating Jim Crow laws. And while they are moving North to make a better life for themselves, the sadness of leaving his great-grandparents is palpable.

There are many things I love about this story. The first is Ms Harvey's writing. I wrote about her book, Astro the Steller Sea Lion on this blog and what struck me while reading My Hands Sing the Blues is how varied her story telling is. She writes a musical poem - filled with rhythm and capturing the great sounds of a train - for Bearden's story, all the while telling a great story in his voice. In Astro the Steller Sea Lion she incorporates facts about a sea lion into a touching narrative. In both books she captures these two different beings' stories using different forms of writing.

I also love the illustrations. This is Elizabeth Zunon's first illustrated picture book and the pictures are stunning. As a mother of young children, I spend lots of time looking at picture books. I am always impressed at the way the illustrators bring out the words, enhancing emotions or highlighting a character or a scene. Ms Zunon does this beautifully on every page. You will taste the tomato slices Bearden shares with his great-grandma as they sit on her porch swing in North Carolina. You will feel as though you're on the train headed to Harlem. And you might just try your hand at a collage.

Which brings me to the third thing I love about this book. It is a chance for us to not only read a touching story, but to try and work through a memory of our own using art. When Hadley and I read this story together, we talked about collages and what they are and then I asked her if she'd like to make one of her own. We went through some summer pictures and she picked out this one (which happens to be my favorite):

We put it on a larger piece of paper and talked about what kinds of things she could add to the paper. She began talking about what she remembered about this day: it was a birthday party, it was sunny, there was cake and presents, she named people who were there, etc. I wrote down some words in block letters and cut them out, and Hadley glued them onto the page where she thought they'd look nice.

I also told her that with a collage, you could rip paper to make images instead of drawing something and cutting it out. She thought that was pretty cool. I think getting things "just so" can get overwhelming for her....I wonder where she gets that from. Anyway, she loved ripping paper to make a sun and clouds.

Finished product:

What I hoped I was able to do here was give Hadley a chance to own this memory. That's why I kept my mouth shut and didn't say what I remembered about this day: there was a pinata, a Little Mermaid cake, that Harper and Hadley looked so cute swinging on the swings eating lollipops in their bathing suits, that there was a major brawl when we had to go home. It's not that I don't want Hadley to remember what I remember, but I wanted to give her a chance to process through this event by herself.

I love this from the book:
"Like a flower, I have roots in my Carolina past,
roots sunk deep in my childhood long past.
The people and the places are in my art to last."

How easy it would've been to read "heart" in place of "art." But I love that Walker chose to write "art." To me, she (and Bearden) are saying that the events in our childhood - in our lives - can be molded into art whether it's collage, paint, photography, writing, dance, perhaps even baking. We can take these events and shape them into something so that everyone can see the melody.

When people read My Hands Sing the Blues, I hope they will be inspired to "put down one color" and wait "for an answer." I know Hadley and I were.

Road Map

2011-08-11T16:24:00.000-07:00

I did a guest post over here and I thought I'd share it on the ol' Sit a While blog.

Recently, my family of four took a trip from Washington DC, where we live, to Chicago, where I grew up. This is not a fun trip. Oh, it’s fun once we’re there, but getting there is a marathon with a 2 and 4 year old. There’s DVDs to put in and then fast forward, there’s straws to be put in juice boxes while driving 70 mph, there’s all the turning around and reaching for some toy that dropped and the girls insist they need instantly.

Since we make the trip a lot, I have some tricks up my sleeve that I find useful. My daughters, Hadley and Harper, each have kid sized backpacks with their names on them. I fill them with coloring books and crayons. They also both have small Dora the Explorer lunch box type purses that fit perfectly in their backpacks. I fill these with small toys – Polly Pockets, miniature dinosaurs, stickers, etc. These keep them entertained for at least the amount of time it takes for my Starbucks to cool down to drinkable status.

The other thing I do is raid the dollar aisle at Target. You can find great things to fill travel bags for the kids here. I usually buy several items then surprise the girls with them while we’re in the car, thus giving me adequate time to drink half of my Starbucks coffee.

This last trip, however, I wanted to do something more. Something creative. Something educational. Something awesome. Something that would allow me to drink all my coffee while it was still drinkable. So here’s what I did: I made a map for my oldest daughter, Hadley, to follow.

I printed out our travel route from Google map, cut it into large chunks and glued it to file folders. After highlighting state lines, and different cities we’d travel through, I put several stickers in an envelope, then bound it all together with a ring. This way the stickers would be handy-dandy for Hadley to retrieve when we drove through one of the locations.

Hadley loved it. It was a fantastic tool for a little person who loves checking off things with stickers. It also helped Hadley look closely at the signs to see whether the letters matched what was on her map.

There was one thing I neglected to think about while planning this bodacious activity. That is, Hadley gets carsick. Specifically, Hadley gets carsick somethin’ awful on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It is best for everyone if she does nothing except sleep or look out the window during this part of the trip. Looking closely at a map and then trying to match that to words on green signs while slaloming in the middle of mountains? Not a great idea.

Needless to say, we were pulled over on the side of the road before you could say, “Change of clothes.” And that is why the rest of the map was filled out in this outfit while we were at a rest stop in Indiana.

The thing is, moms, I don’t really know what I’m doing. But I do know this – I love my girls. I love pointing out the Chicago skyline to them as soon as I can see it. I love watching them play in the neighborhood parks that I used to play in when I was a kid. I love listening to them talk and play with their grandparents. And while I don’t look forward to dealing with a bored, tired, throwing up kid, I’ll deal with it. With or without a map.

Cinderella Stories

2011-07-08T16:46:00.000-07:00

It's happened. Hadley's become obsessed with princesses. I'm not completely surprised that she's stepped into this world. I haven't tried to hide the princesses from her. I myself am a bit of a sucker for those dresses. I may or may not have had a life dream of wanting to be Scarlet O'Hara (I know she wasn't a princess but you get the idea).

So Hadley and I are doing a little Cinderella study. We went to the library and checked out as many
versions of the Cinderella story that I could find. The thing I like about reading with my kids is that it gives me a chance to study what it is that interests them. I get an understanding of why Hadley loves princesses so much, or why Harper is fascinated by dinosaurs. And, well, Diego. But that's another post.
Here's what we did: I created a little worksheet for Hadley that had questions like, "What do you remember about this story?" Or, "What did you like about this Cinderella story?" "If you could change one thing what would it be?" I wrote down the responses as Hadley talked. I also had Hadley draw a picture of something she remembered from the story, as well as practice writing the title down.

We looked at the story Cinder Edna first and I noticed Hadley had a hard time copying the letters down (they were in script). When we lookedat another Cinderella story, Hadley breezed through copying the letters down and said, "Whew! I'm real glad these these letters aren't pretty." It took me a second to figure out what she meant, but I figured out it was easier for her to copy block lettering. This seems significant in our study of Cinderella in that not everything that is beautiful is actually appreciated or functional. Just a thought.

This is my favorite picture of Hadley's from our study:

A castle, a carriage, and a "path to get to the castle."

When we were discussing the different stories, I liked that Hadley said things like, "I remember that Cinderedna learned to play the accordion," in Cinderedna. Or, "I didn't like the prince's hair" in the Cinderella that happened to be the Caldecott winner. I'm glad I kept my mouth shut because it was fun to remember why I liked this story so much as well. The gowns, the fairy godmother, the balls, the pumpkin turning into a carriage. I think the idea that anything is possible is what's so appealing in this story.

So that's why I don't react much to the stepsisters' cruelty, or the fact that Cinderella's father doesn't do much to help his daughter out. If Hadley wants to discuss these points, that's fine, but I like exploring this story through her eyes. There's time for these sorts of discussions later.

For right now, we'll focus on tiaras and glass slippers, and all things sparkly.

A Story By Hadley

2011-07-05T13:26:00.000-07:00

Last week Hadley made up a story using a twist tie as a main character. You know, those twisty things you use to tie garbage bags or bags of chips with? She twirled it around her finger and apparently this inspired her to come up with a story about a spring who saved a squirrel.

I thought the story was pretty clever so I wrote it down as she said it. She used words like "bobbed" and "rustling" and I couldn't help but be proud.

I wanted to make this story into a book, but the last time I tried this it didn't go too well. I think Hadley got overwhelmed with all the writing and lost interest. So instead of having her rewrite her own words, I typed up the sentences twice, taped one copy on a baggy, then cut up parts of the second copy for Hadley to put together.

She put her words in order, then glued them onto pages I made for her.

Then she illustrated her story.

Here's the story: The Spring Who Save the Baby Squirrel that was Stuck in the Mug of Hot Coffee

by Hadley

One day I heard an annoying rustling sound. It was a squirrel that was stuck in a mug of hot coffee.
So I bobbed along the path to save the baby squirrel.
The baby squirrel was by a cat-o. A cat-o is the Spanish word for cap.*
After I saved the squirrel I bobbed along the path to tell my mommy and daddy all about my adventure.
The End.

(*Hadley's likes to make up a words and say "That's Spanish for.....")

Smart Summer Challenge - "I Like Myself" Collage

2011-06-29T19:42:00.000-07:00

We are participating in the Smart Summer Challenge, a six week adventure where we try and sneak in learning into our summer. You can get more information (and TONS of ideas) about this challenge over at Teach Mama, Pink and Green Mama, or Naturally Educational.

I took an idea from the Smart Summer Challenge calendar, which was to make a "me" collage or diorama. Recently, Hadley has requested the story I Like Myself by Karen Beaumont, a delightful story about a little girl shouting about the glorious creation that is HER. She says confidently that no matter WHAT she looks like she will ALWAYS like herself. I love this story and am sensitive to make sure this idea is drilled into my girls' heads as they grow older.

I thought that this book would be a good introduction to a "me" collage, so Hadley and I read it first and then got out the scissors, magazines, and glue.

What I hoped to do with this project, was to get Hadley to start thinking about the kinds of things she is interested in. I asked her what she thought I would put on my collage if I were making one for myself.

"Uhhhh, I don't know."

"Well, what are some things that I like?"

"Uhhhh, I'm not sure."

"What's the first thing I have to have in the morning?"

"Oooo! Oooo! WATER!"

I was going for coffee, and we got there eventually. I told her that if I were to find a picture of a coffee mug, I'd cut it out and glue it on my collage. So Hadley looked for a lot of pink things because that's her favorite color. She also cut out animals and flowers. It was fun for me to see what kinds of things she would pick, and I'm glad I have a little "print" of what she was interested in during June of 2011.

While she was cutting out pictures, I asked her what were some things she liked about herself. Here are some things that she said:

"I like about myself that I like pink."

"I like that I like chocolate milk."

"I am good at running." (her Uncle Geoff would be proud.)

"I like that I can write my name. And do color by numbers."

And my favorite, "I liked it when we started this project."

We also took some time to "map" ourselves using chalk outside. I traced the girls' bodies with chalk, and they filled in what they were wearing using chalk.

Hadley:

Harper (I did the skirt):

Harper wanted to do Bear, too:

What would we do without Bear? He's been a dear friend to both the girls. I think it's appropriate to add him to our collages and "me maps" since he does represent a HUGE part of these girls' lives. I'm happy to have him.

Carrot Soup and Carrot Seeds

2011-06-29T05:16:00.000-07:00

We went to the White House Egg Roll in April and came home with some lettuce and carrot seeds that the girls have wanted to plant. Here's the thing: I know NOTHING about gardening. My last experience with growing something, well, besides two babies of course, was a sunflower in my backyard. It grew so high I needed to get on a ladder to reach the top of it. But I'm pretty sure I had nothing to do with it growing. I think my parents were behind that project.
I'm just not what you'd call an outside kind of gal. It's a major flaw, I know, and I try to work on it. Take this post for example. I garden suited up and we planted us some carrot seeds. (We were going to plant lettuce seeds too, but Harper insisted on carrying the pot we were going to plant them in and promptly dropped it on the sidewalk before we got any soil in it.)

First, we had to go to Home Depot to find pots and soil.

Who knew there were so many kinds of soil? And who knew they were in an "outside/inside" area of the store? With birds and bees? Not Callie. Don't worry, I chose the 25lb bag of soil for a pot this size:

I absolutely know what I'm doing. Nobody had to go back to get a smaller bag of soil, and nobody had to go back for gardening gloves and a small shovel to put the soil in the pot.

"What are we supposed to do with all this dirt, Mom?"

Anyway, we figured it out with the help of my husband. His grandpa was a farmer so I think it's in his blood.

After we saved the day, I do what I do (better) and found some books to go along with our carrot seed- watching.

We took a look at Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss, and I'm afraid Hadley has huge expectations now for how big our carrots are actually going to be.

We also read Carrot Soup by John Segal, a cute story about a rabbit who plants carrot seeds in the spring for his favoite dish, carrot soup. Throughout the book, all his friends take the carrots behind Rabbit's back and surprise him at the end with a carrot soup par-tay. Hadley and Harper love this book because at the end all the animals yell, "SURPRISE!"

I had Hadley make a chart so she could track the carrots' progress, also helping her to answer her own question, "Are the carrots here yet?"

The other thing we did while we waited was try to make carrot soup. In the back of John Segal's story, there is a recipe for it and Hadley and I thought it'd be fun to try it out.

Hadley and I also made cheddar/parsley bread to go with it. That's not in the book, but nobody in this family can just have soup for dinner. And by nobody I mean Callie.

Hadley didn't want to crumble the butter into the flour, so she took a picture of me doing it instead.

It all turned out pretty yummy. Plus, it's fun watching the carrots grow. I admit that I'm the first one out in the morning checking on their progress. That seems significant since I'm usually standing behind the porch screen looking for wasps.

2011-06-08T17:43:00.000-07:00

Recently we took a l'il vacay to the OBX and had ourselves a grand time. On the last night there, Hadley, Jesse, my dad, and I walked along the beach looking for seashells. It was a scene straight out of Wave....except instead of just the girl and all those birds it was Hadley, her parents, and her grandfather. Still, it was very Norman Rockwell.
Hadley collected several seashells she liked and put them in a bag. I thought that she might like to decorate them during her "down time" in the afternoon one day this week. Hadley likes to do anything that I'm doing during quiet time which makes these hours in the day a little challening for me. I adore the child, but sometimes it's nice to have a little quiet in the day.

However, I have found that if we are doing arts and crafts together, she can work on her stuff, and I can work on my stuff and the both of us are happy. So that's what we did this week.

A bag o' goodies I made for Hadley's teacher. To be clear - I stamped it. I did not sew it.

A note to go with the bag.

Meanwhile, Hadley painted and glitterfied seashells.

Hadley says the most interesting and funny things when we are both working and it's just the two of us. I like to keep a notebook close by so I can remember what she says. I assumed that since we just got back from the beach, and she was with several of her relatives, she'd talk to me about her time there. So I was eager to hear what she said.

Here's what happened:

"Momma, remember when you, Grandma, me, and Daddy were at the pool on vacation?"

"Uh-huh"

"Well, remember when Daddy said, 'Mom' and you and Grandma both said, 'What?'"

"Yea."

"He shoulda just said, 'Callie.' Then you woulda known who he was talking to."

"That's a good point, Hadley."

That's all I got.

C'mon, Hadley. Don't you know I completely depend on your for my writing material?

ABC Egg Game

2011-05-11T17:10:00.000-07:00

I'm going to go ahead and admit that I like activites that my kids can do by themselves. Especially during quiet time, it's nice when Hadley can find something to do that she doesn't require my assistance. The challenge is finding things she likes to do because otherwise she wants to watch TV for the amount of time Harper takes a nap. That can be anywhere between 2 - 3 hours. That's a whole lot of Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

Lately, Hadley's been interested in working on practicing letters, writing and reading words, and figuring out their sounds. She has an assortment of workbooks that help her with this, and those are fun to watch her complete, but one game that's been a hit in our home the last several days is what I like to call "The ABC Egg Game." I took the idea from a blogger who writes the blog, "Rub Some Dirt On It." You can find the post here. The entire blog is worth a look or two. She has adorable children, tells great stories (my favorite post so far is about her finding an animal skull in the yard during her one year old's birthday party), and is really creative.

This activity is very simple to put together, and you probably already have the materials on hand.....unless you're super organized and threw out all the plastic Easter eggs. In that case, nevermind.

Here's what you do. Get yourself 26 plastic eggs.

Write an uppercase and lower case letter on each egg. One per egg, and one letter on each half. (Do I even need to write that?)
Break the eggs apart, put them in a bag (I used an old Starbucks bag), and shuffle them around a bit. Then, go get your child who might or might not be watching Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and tell her that you made a game for her.

Explain how it works (match up the letters), and then walk away. You're golden. Go cook yourself some dinner. Check email, Facebook, or I hear Twitter is all the rage these days. Whatever you do, there is plenty of time to do it because this game takes TIME.

And look how happy? Trust me, it's a fabulous game. And you know that the kids are doing something educational AND fun at the same time. That's a good thing. Otherwise, you leave them alone to play and they end up creating scenes like this one:

What in the world is going on here?

A Post for First Book

2011-04-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

I wrote this post for the First Book Blogger Book Club. "First Book provides new books to children in need, addressing one of the most important factors affecting literacy – access to books. An innovative leader in social enterprise, First Book has distributed more than 80 million free and low-cost books in thousands of communities." (Taken from the First Book website.)

There's a story I love to tell that happened one evening while my friend Alison and I were studying in the library. It was during finals and the library was understandably crowded. Unfortunately, the only table that was available was one next to the copy machine. Apparently several students at Calvin that evening decided it would be a good idea to copy their entire textbook in order to study for finals. The sound of the copying was driving us crazy and we were getting nothing done.

"There should be a 'No Copying Hours' time around here." Alison said.

"Or an 'Out of Order' sign for it." I responded back.

Alison lifted her eyebrow slightly like I was on to something. Or perhaps I was daring her to do something a little wicked. During a lull in the copy marathon, Alison took out a piece of paper and wrote "Out of Order" in her gorgeous script, swiveled around in her chair, then slammed it on the copy machine.

She never made eye contact with me after that. Highlighter in one hand, and eyes on her book, if you hadn't been watching her the last 2 seconds, you never would've known what just happened.

But I saw her. And as much as I wanted to giggle I did my best to follow suit. I looked down at my notes and tried to concentrate (Alison had, after all, fixed our problem), but waited excitedly to see what would happen when someone went to use the copy machine.

It wasn't long before I had to leave the library because I couldn't control my laughing. Student after student walked up to the copy machine with their 450 lb textbook, paused to read the sign, then let out an overwhelmed gasp as if to say, What am I going to do NOW?!?!?!

Alison never laughed. She kept right on studying (which is probably why she's a doctor now). And this made it even more funny for me. The fact that she so quickly wrote the "Out of Order" sign, put it on the copy machine, then went back to work without so much as a "Hee! Hee!" was incredible to me.

Perhaps it's not the greatest anecdote, but to me and Alison, it's hilarious. When I remember that evening I get the giggles at how quickly she acted, and how stoic she was. I smile because we got away with it, and I laugh (even if it's a bit of a guilty laugh) at the students' faces when they learn they can't use the copier.

I thought about this incident several times while reading the book The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart. The main character, Frankie, is a 16 year old girl who starts dating Matthew Livingston, a seemingly charming fellow who's in a secret all-male club.

I feel disresptectful to write that Frankie is desperate to be a part of this club. I worry it makes her sound as though she might be interested in it because of her boyfriend, or perhaps she doesn't have any friends of her own. While these statements might have some truth to them, I think what makes Frankie desperate to be in the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds is the need to want to be in on something.

I get that. Even if the bond is because of pranks that are being pulled, I understand the need to want to be in on the joke, and I wonder if that's how some of the great friendships start. What Frankie discovers through observation (a.k.a. spying) of the Bassets, as well as reading (after stealing) The Disreputable History of the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds is this: "...the sense of togetherness. The king usually wrote most of the entries, but Bassets edited each other's writing, scribbled in comments, and took turns telling stories as well. They planned to know one another when they were ancient and gray....." While Alison and I and my other close friends in college liked a good laugh, we also were forming a bond. These girls who made me laugh uncontrollably were also the girls who saw me cry because I was homesick, or throw books at walls because I didn't understand that darn math assignment. They're the women today who understand my stuggles with motherhood, and through all of that, they can still make me laugh. I think that's what Frankie is looking for.
I feel for Frankie while at the same time admiring her. She becomes a criminal mastermind and it is such fun to watch her lead the Bassets around on a leash. Plus, I love that they have no clue it's her who's doing the leading. But I feel for her too because she's trying to prove to these guys that she can be one of them. The thing is, they aren't interested in this proof. This club is for boys. It reminds me of the story Best Friends for Frances by Russell Hoben that Hadley and I read together frequently. Hadley gets so angry when Albert tells Frances she can't play baseball with he and Harold, as does Frances. The boys' reason? "This is a no-girls game." And Hadley loves Frances even more when she creates a "Girls Only" day that Albert cannot be a part of.

I liked a lot of things about The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. I thought the dialogue was hysterical and spot on with how teenagers speak to each other. I enjoyed the parts where the narrator seemed to take a step away from the events of the story and reach out to the reader as if we were sharing some gossip over a mani/pedi. What I think I like the most, however, is that this story got me thinking about the great friendships in my life, and how they started. Pranks are bad. Breaking the rules is not something we want to encourage our kids. But laughter is so, so good. And while I want to be very careful in what I write here, I also want to express that it was in some of the not completely stand up things that I shared with my very good - best friends, I also found a part of myself. We shared many late nights of side splitting belly laughter, and because of that I am able to come to them with more serious things.

I hope Hadley and Harper read this book. I want them to enjoy it. I want them to root for Frankie, but I also want them to grow with her. I hope they see that one of the greatest things she did in the book was figure out who she was, and who she wasn't. "It is better to be alone, she figures, than to be with someone who can't see who you are. It is better to lead than to follow. It is better to speak up than stay silent. It is better to open doors than to shut them on people." I love that Frankie figured this out pulling some of the greatest pranks in Basset Hound history.

Figuring something out about yourself can by scary and overwhelming. Trying to see where you belong might be one of the hardest lessons to learn; and we have to learn that over and over in life. I hope my girls have the confidence to see what Frankie saw in herself. Maybe it'll be stories like this that make them see that. Or maybe it'll be meeting a few great friends that make them laugh so hard they can't breath. Or maybe it'll be a great prank that shows the Alberts and Matthew Livingston's of the world they can do anything boys can do.

Something tells me that if my girls meet Alison's daughters they'll come up with something way better than shutting down a copy machine for the night.

Kickin' It Old School

2011-04-13T18:30:00.000-07:00

Hadley's been quite interested lately in trying to figure out how to sound out and make words. She likes helping me write grocery lists, and when we read stories together, she tries to find the words she knows like "yes," "stop," or "Euoplocephalus." I'm just kidding on that last one. Sort of.

Anyway, she and I were hanging out one afternoon as we often do, and she wanted to play a game. I decided it was time to teach her how to make a fortune teller, also known as a "cootie catcher" for reasons I do not know. We didn't talk about cooties growing up. We were all about "MASH" and these fortune teller thingys.

It wasn't until my adult years I heard other peope calling them "cootie catchers." Cootie catchers? Seriously? What good is that? How are you going to figure out what kind of car you'll drive or who you're going to marry with a cootie catcher? Who cares about cooties? I want to drive a rabbit convertible.

But this is not a post about my issues with material possessions. This is a post about teaching letters and words to Hadley.

Ehem.

So I creased the paper just like my mom taught me, and showed Hadley how it moves once it's all folded. Hadley, being the ever practical child asks, "What do you do now?" So instead of teaching her about fortunes or cooties, I came up with a little game that I believe was a stroke of genius on my part. Read carefully because you're totally going to want to try this at home.

We wrote numbers and letters on all the appropriate folds of our creation. Then, after moving it the appropriate number of times (called by the number on the fold), we looked to see what letter popped up.

Then we wrote that letter down and after we had several letters, we tried to make words.

It's a great little game to do with kids who are learning how to read and write words. I had so much fun I'm thinking about bringing it to the next party we go to.

Well, I guess I need to be invited to a party first.

There's the rub.

A Lot Can Happen in Ten Minutes

2011-04-03T16:04:00.000-07:00

I found a blog that quickly has become a favorite. It's called Seriously A Homemaker and you will be sure to giggle your way through several of her posts. Plus, her layout is so cute. I want my blogs to look cute, but I don't know how to do any of that stuff. People tell me it's "super easy" but they don't understand how technically challenged I am. For example: last week at the gym I forgot my mp3 player in the spin room. When I realized what happened I went to the front desk and told the guy, "I need to go back to the spin room because I lost my WALKMAN." He said, "You lost your what?"

So I'm afraid to do anything other than write and add pictures or the occasional video to my blogs.

Anyway, the author of this blog has a 10-Minute Challenge this Monday. What you do is take a mess in your home and, as she writes, "kick its butt" in ten minutes.

Usually I would put this sort of thing on my "Notes from Naptime" blog, but the thing that I did combines the book Madeline at the White House by John Bemelmans Marciano, an art project, and a little homemaking all in one. If that's not multi-tasking, I don't know what is.

Jesse brought home a book from Grand Rapids for each of the girls last weekend. Hadley's was the Madeline book. I think it is my favorite of all our Madeline books because it's about Washington DC during the Cherry Blossom season. Last year, Hadley and I went to the Easter Egg Roll and she and I love looking at the pictures of the Egg Roll in Madeline at the White House. We compare what we did and what Madeline and Co. are doing in the book.

I thought a fun project to go along with this book would be to make our own cherry blossoms. This idea came from the Queen of Homemaking - Martha Stewart herself. Here's what she suggests.

I wasn't planning on this project taking 10 minutes. I figured it'd take 30-45, but the H's weren't super excited about doing this.

"Awwww, Mom! Not another one of your projects!"

"Just humor her, Harper. Then maybe we can have some chocolate milk."

You know what Hadley was excited about? Making this:

We went outside to pick up sticks for our Cherry Blossom project, and in the time it took me to put Harper down for a nap (ten minutes), Hadley made a stick guy.

Not exactly what I had in mind, but I had to take a picture of it because it is pretty impressive. Also, Hadley told me the guy is saying, "Hey guys! Wait for me!" That's why one of his arms is raised. I know I'm biased, but I think she's quite possibly the coolest four year old in the world.

Back to the project.

I'm not sure why a stethescope was essential for part of this project, or why Hadley had to wear her ballet outfit for it, but I'm learning that some questions are best left unanswered.

Here's the finished product:

Here's why I think this is a nice "10 Minute Monday" submission. First, it took 10 minutes. Second, Hadley, Harper and I created something for our home that makes us happy when we walk into the playroom (despite their lack of enthuiasm while doing the project). Third, I didn't spend one penny on the project. Sticks? Free. Tissue paper? Leftover from presents that were given to us. Vase? It came with flowers that were sent to us when one of the girls was born. Most of all, it combines things that I love: trying to bring the stories we read into our everyday lives, making our home a nicer place, and hanging out with the H's. Of course, I also get to blog about it which is a lovely bonus as well.

It seems that a lot of what the blogs I like to read are about is taking something that you have and improving on it - whether that's parenting, homemaking, design, writing, what-have-you. I like to be a part of that kind of thinking.

Book Club - Naomi Knows It's Springtime

2011-03-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since we've had a book club because every time I had it scheduled, somebody was sick. This morning, however, everyone seemed good to go and we were excited to have our friends over for our monthly book club.

Today we read the lovely book Naomi Knows It's Springtime by Virginia L. Knoll. The language in this story is beautiful: "Naomi knows it's springtime when wind whispers secrets to the trees and doesn't screech and bellow at the houses anymore." Each page describes something Naomi knows about springtime using one of her senses. I recommend reading the story with a glass of lemonade and a pair of flip flops. Or perhaps a Corona.

Since the author does such a fine job of describing springtime, I asked the kids how they could tell spring was on its way as a prompt for observing the change in seasons. The kids mentioned noticing bugs, or wearing t-shirts instead of sweaters and sweatshirts. I said I always know spring is coming when the birds start chirping at a terrible hour outside our bedroom window. Not exactly the poetry of Ms Knoll, but you have to start somewhere.

After we read the story we went outside to look for spring. I gave each child a piece of paper that read: "_____________ knows it's springtime!" They took a marker to draw or write how they could tell it was spring (it was quite cold this morning so I was nervous this was not going to work out so well).

We noticed buds, or "new leaves" on the bushes outside.

Hadley noticed that there was mud instead of snow on the ground.

At one point someone found a worm, and another child noticed that it was dead. "It's dead. I'm going to write that down." Suddenly I was afraid this book club was going to go in a very different direction.

After we collected some observations, we went inside to work on another activity. The kids each made a caterpillar and a butterfly.

The caterpillars had numbers on them for the kids to put in order and then glue on the body. Harper was mostly interested in the glue part.

I have to give credit to Hadley for this activity. She picked it out, and the kids seemed to like putting the numbers in order. Except for Harper. But she has no respect for caterpillars.

Another mom made pretzels and jello in the shape of butterflies for the kids to eat. They were a huge hit.
(You can see one of the butterflies that was made on the table.)

So even though it might not feel like spring this morning in the DC area, we had a nice time talking about it. Before we know it, we'll be reading a book titled, Naomi knows it's time to turn the A/C on. That sounds like a hit of a story.

"Leaving You With Something Better Than Before"

2011-03-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

Hadley and Harper are both frightened and excited when we get the car washed. I understand, too. It's loud and somewhat disorienting to have monster washclothes thud and splash at you as you are pulled along slowly. And you're not really sure what's coming next, but here you sit waiting.

It always seems quiet as those plastic curtains lift off the windshield to reveal the outside. The last bit of water dries, and then we're on our way with a new, clean car. Although, I always feel like we've been in another world for a bit, and that we have a new lense to look at the "real" world after we've left.

Cameron, a student at Goshen Middle School, compares going to a carwash with reading a book in the following poem. I love the metaphor.

"Carwash"

Books are like carwashes,
Hooking you in, pulling you to the action.
You're not sure what will happen next
But the author gives hints.

You feel like the character
As they are battered and beaten with events.
What's that?
Is that the end?

No. The big dryers add something
Entirely different,
Then it's over,
The mystery solved.
Leaving you with something better than before.

An Attempt at a St. Patrick's Day Book

2011-03-17T17:50:00.000-07:00

I have always wanted to be Irish. Or maybe it was Catholic. Either way, my interest in this group of people started when the majority of my friends went to something called "CCD" on Tuesday nights and at the end of this class they wore these great white dresses that resembled wedding gowns. We were all 8 back then, and I wanted to wear one of those dresses so badly.

It seemed that if you grew up in Chicago, you had a good chance of either being Irish or Catholic, or both. But not me. I grew up Presbyterian. Once, after a heated discussion with my parents over why I wasn't allowed to take Communion at church until I was 14, I told them, "When I grow up, I'm going to be Catholic." I married someone who went to graduate school at Notre Dame, and that seemed to satisfy my Irish-Catholic interest (even though he's 100% Dutch).

At any rate, every St. Patrick's Day I wear green, and think about watching Circle of Friends, and eating soda bread, and this year I wanted to do some sort of book and activity with the girls to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. However, we don't really have any St. Patrick's Day books.

I did the next best thing and took out The Song of Francis by Tomie dePaola. You've got your Catholic Saint, plus the entire book is filled with color which reminded me of the rainbow and the pot of gold.

It's a stretch, I know, but what I love about the book is that St. Francis wants to share the love of God that with everyone. He doesn't know who to share it with because he is all alone, so an angel tells him to go ahead and share God's love - talk about it - and there will be a response. Soon different parts of creation come to join in the singing, and the climatic part of the story has all of God's creation singing "Love! Love! Love!"

It's a little like that last scene in Love Actually.

Anyway, we talked about where we can see God's love in our lives. We see it in Harper, and Hadley, and Mom, and Dad. We see it in the squirrels outside our condo, and in the trees. Hadley and Harper suggested we see His love in chocolate as well.

We decorated birds to remind us of God's love in creation after we read the story.

And then we hung them in the sunroom.

It seems better then teaching them a drinking game.

Student Poetry

2011-03-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

I am behind in posting student work from Goshen Middle School, which is a shame because this latest batch of work has been impressive. Lisa, the teacher of this group, had the students describe a book or an experience reading a story through poetry. I love this idea, and I think each poem is so unique.

The first one, by Jennifer, takes a personal look at a very familar story in our household. Readers to young children will probably know the story right away.

"Family, Family"

Little sister, little sister
What do you see?
I see my big brother
Looking at me.

Big brother, big brother
What do you see?
I see my big sister
Looking at me.

Big sister, Big sister
What do you see?
I see my little sister
Looking at me.

Little sister, little sister
What do you see?
I see my parents
Looking at me.

Parents, parents
What do you see?
We see our children
Getting sleepy.

The second poem, by Kim, describes the suspense reading can bring as well as how hard it can be to put a book down.

The cover looks OK
Harmless enough
I open the cover and start in on an unknown world

The story's getting better
I can't stop reading
Flip, flip, flipping the pages
All the characters are popping out of the book

They're showing me the story in their eyes
Soon they pull me in with them
I feel what Nora feels as Patch
gets closer and closer

I see how much taller Patch is then Nora,
And I see the black eerie upside down V
Scar on his back

Something's going to happen
Nora touches his right scar
Now we're both in his memory
The place is familar

We can't believe what we're hearing, what we're seeing
And then it's over
We're out of Patch's memory
We feel his anger
His strength
And, and

"Kimmie!"

"Mommmm! Ugh!

Nora and Patch look at me
"We understand," they say.

As I shut the door behind me,
I wonder,
Is it a good idea to leave those two alone?
Who knows what they might do.

It's Like a Volcano of Inspiration

2011-03-01T12:37:00.000-08:00

If you happen to be looking for some great articles on incorporating reading and writing into your children's lives, you'll want to hop on over here to the Book Chook blog. The 8th edition of the ezine Literacy Lava is out, and it's filled with great ideas for both parents and teachers.

Also? I'm in it.

Astro The Steller Sea Lion by Jeanne Walker Harvey

2011-02-25T06:50:00.000-08:00

Over the past few weeks the book du jour around here has been Astro the Steller Sea Lion by Jeanne Walker Harvey. In the beginning of the story, we meet Astro off the California coast. We travel along with him to The Marine Mammal Center because he was orphaned, and this is where marine mammals go when they are stranded or hurt.

When I write "we travel along with him," I almost mean it because the pictures in this book tell the story as much as the words. On the first page, the girls and I see Astro in the back of a pick-up truck riding down the road, the California coast a backdrop to the story that's beginning. Both Hadley and Harper touched the pick-up truck when they saw it at first, and I wondered if it's because it looks as though you can hop on and ride along with Astro as well.

The next page the girls become hooked, and you might think it's because they fall in love with Astro and want to find out more. While this is true, it happens later in the story. On this page, the girls hoot and holler because there is a girl wearing blue rainboots with orange fish on them.

Well of course this book was made for us! The illustrator used our favorite colors! Let's read on!

And we do. We read about Astro drinking salmon smoothies, and we learn a new word: surf. However, the reason I keep turning the pages is because I want to know if the scientists at The Marine Mammal Center will successfully get Astro to return to the wild. They make several attempts to put Astro back into the ocean, or on the beach, but he will have none of it. My favorite part in the story is the part where Astro, after a lot of encouragement, jumps into the ocean with his other sea lion buddies. Everybody on the boat thinks this is fantastic and that Astro is on his way into the wild.

"But...." Ms Harvey writes, "...10 days later, Astro swam under the Golden Gate Bridge into the San Francisco Bay. He climbed onto a sandy beach in someone's backyard - not far from The Marine Mammal Center." I love that he found his way back, and seemed happy about it despite the concern of the scientists that he'd never thrive in the wild.

Hadley loves looking at the picture and hearing the part of the story where Astro is put into the wild again, and not only finds his way back, but sees a group of children and their parents on a field, and goes over to join them. She thinks this is so funny, and I think hopes this sort of thing will happen to her one day when she's out at recess.

There are a few ways I can tell whether a book resonates with the H's. Do they ask to have it read to them frequently? Do they re-read it again to their stuffed animals and baby dolls? And last, do they want to take it along with them when we go to Starbucks?

Astro passed all three.

The girls love books about animals, and thanks to Diego, they love to hear stories about animals being rescued or going on an adventure. The importance of taking care of Astro and putting him in an environment that is appropriate for him might've gone over their heads as we read the story over and over. However, the great thing about this story is that it will resonante with children on several different levels. Harper, who's 2, loved looking at the pictures of Astro when he was playing with the rubber duck and the balls. Hadley, who's 4, loved listening to the story as she colored and would put her hand on my hand when she wanted to stop and study a picture or ask a question. As they get older, they'll understand the work and care that went into keeping Astro safe.

As for me, I really liked Astro, and I rarely connect with animals. I'm more of a "don't bother me I won't bother you" kind of gal when it comes to animals. But I loved Astro. His swimming under the Golden Gate Bridge, and running onto a field of kids to say hello made me smile. I loved that he showed what he wanted and where he felt most safe.

I hope we can visit Astro sometime in his new home in Connecticut.

Middle School Confidential by Annie Fox, M.Ed

2011-02-16T10:41:00.000-08:00

When I was pregnant with our oldest daughter, my husband and I took a labor and delivery class along with several other first time parents-to-be. We watched birthing videos, learned how to time contractions, and to simulate the dreaded contractions, I practiced holding ice cubes in my hand for as long as I could stand it.

I think at one point the nurse that was teaching the class sensed that the mothers-to-be were overwhelmed (it might've been the gasping and the sobbing of several of us during the birthing videos that tipped her off). It was at this moment that I believe she gave some very interesting advice. She told us that no matter what, our bodies know what they're doing. We can take a class, read birthing stories, practice our breathing, but in the end we have to have faith that our bodies were made for this.

She then compared it to going through adolescence. She said, "When you were going through your teenage years, you didn't read a book to tell you how to become a teenager. Your body just did it."

I took comfort in the fact that my body knew what to do despite my being scared, nervous, and in a tremendous amount of pain. But it didn't make me stop reading about other women's birthing stories, or looking through pregnancy books. I was looking for a connection to other women who've been through what I was going to go through. Perhaps I was trying to "steal" some of their confidence.

And while I think the nurse was correct in telling us that our bodies know what they're doing when we go through adolescence, that doesn't always stop our fear or our pain. Sometimes what we're afraid of doesn't have anything to do with our bodies at all. I remember being ashamed that I still wanted to play with Cabbage Patch and Barbie dolls when the girls I hung out with were no longer interested in them. I also couldn't figure out why everyone wanted to wear jeans when sweatpants were clearly way more comfortable. But the worst was this question: why don't the girls that I've been friends with since kindergarten want to be friends with me anymore?

Enter the Middle School Confidential series by Annie Fox, M.Ed. If I were to create a "Middle School Toolbox" for my girls when they reach this stage, these books would be one of the first things to go in there. They are packed with easy to read informatioin on how to not only get through Middle School, but how to thrive during these years.

One of the aspects that I like about these books is that they read like magazines. Kids can look at a few pages and easily take something away that is applicable to their lives. A lot of times, when I sit down with a magazine, I turn to the articles that I want to get information from first. In Ms. Fox's books, the Table of Contents are clean and easy to read, and the titles of each chapter, such as "Friendship Dilemmas," or "Struggling with Siblings," make it clear what the student will read about. And like a magazine, the reading isn't all article reading. Sometimes there are cartoons, sometimes there are questions to get readers thinking, and sometimes there are quotes from students. All in a colorful format, these books will be great resources to return to again and again.

I really liked the quotes from other kids that Fox incorporates. I think readers who are going through adolescence will find comfort and confidence in knowing others are going through the same things they are. I also think that these books are great resources for parents and teachers. For example, if I were still teaching, I would incorporate the section, "Ads Mess with your Mind" from Be Confident In Who You Are. The questions Fox asks students help them analyze commercials they see on TV and in magazines. This would be an excellent activity to get kids talking about how they see themselves and how they should see themselves.

Like giving birth, adolescence is not an easy thing to go through. It can be scary, and painful, and confusing. But I don't think that's all it can be. There can be laughter and good memories, too. Yes, I can remember with stinging clarity the day I walked up to say hello to someone that had been my friend since third grade, only to realize that she was no longer a friend. (And this all happened without words. How do girls do that?) But I also remember just as vividly the day I met the girl who would be my best friend and eventually stand up for me at my wedding. There are stories like this one by a lovely blogger named Yuliya that capture the pain and confusion of growing up, but there are also stories like "Seventh Grade" by Gary Soto that can make us laugh. I want my girls to surround themselves with these stories because I believe it will give their experience a voice. However, I also want them to read the Middle School Confidential series because it will give them tools to add to their experience as they grow up.

I admire what Ms. Fox did with this series. I think that it is a good resource for librarians, teachers, and students in middle schools. Like the nurse in my labor and delivery class, she is giving kids information on what they need to know, and at the same time, giving them the confidence that their bodies know what to do. Even when it feels exactly the opposite.

Poems from GMS students

2011-02-10T14:44:00.000-08:00

This week's story poems come from Natalie, Kaylah, and Aidan. The first poem, "reading" doesn't discuss a specific book, rather, Natalie describes the experience of reading.

reading

sitting down in the blue bean bag
the world around me starts to melt away

to have the sea water spraying my face
or to feel the flames on my toes

the emotions are overpowering
and I have no sense of memory
of the world I am leaving behind

you get to know the characters one by one
until you know them all by heart

there is devastation, love, and happiness
the book grabs you
by the hand never wanting to let go

but at one point in time
you have to break the grasp
it may leave behind a bruise

but
you will cherish the memories
always and forever

My favorite part of this poem is the idea that the book "may leave behind a bruise." I understand the idea that it can hurt to have a book end, or that a story could leave scar. Powerful things, these books.

The next poem, by Kaylah, describes a book that she doesn't like but cannot put down.

Ten Little Indians....what?

I hate it....
I hate how she
names a billion people
with names like
Constance Culmington
I mean...
Does she expect me to remember all those names,
how they got to Indian Island,
What their letter said
really?

I hate...
how you already know
who's killing...
everyone who's dead
And how you already know
how they'll die.
The nursery rhyme
tells it all
I could....
call it dull
for that word surely fits
But yet, here I am
still reading this so called
'dull' book,
and hating every part.

Ironically, I want to read the book Kaylah writes about. This is kind of how I felt while reading The Hunger Games series. Did I enjoy reading these books? No. Are they important books? I think so. But they were very difficult to read.
I also love the way this poem reads. I think Kaylah was able to create a voice that sounds quite frustrated and passionate.

The last poem comes from Aidan. He writes about a character named George.

Comparison: Bark George

Like in Bark George the mom says,
"Bark George" and he says, "Meow.'"
For me my mom says, "Go do the dishes."
I go play the Wii.

Then his mom says, "No, dogs go 'woof.'
Now bark George."
He says, "Oink."
My mom says, "No, go do the dishes."
I go play on the computer.

Then George's mom says,
"No, bark George." He says, "Moo."
Then my mom says, "No go do the dishes."
I go build my awesome lego set.

Then George's mom says, "No bark George."
He says, "Woof!" and his mom is happy.
Then my mom says, "Go do the dishes."
I go do them and she is happy.

I love how Aidan related this story to his life. I think perhaps his mother does, too.

Oh, The Places You'll Go

2011-02-07T08:29:00.000-08:00

When we moved to Washington DC in 2004, one of the first things I did was find where our local library was. It happened to be a short walk from our condo on Connecticut, and between unpacking and figuring out where to apply for a teaching job, I spent my time walking to the Tenleytown-Friendship Library, or Politics and Prose.

The first book I checked out from this library was Heartbeat by Sharon Creech. I sat in the Starbucks across the street and wrote down notes as I read. I wrote down quotes I liked as well as a few sketches for ideas of writing one of those "weblogs" I'd heard about at the Festival of Faith and Writing.

I wasn't able to visit the library for too much longer because it closed, but it re-opened this Saturday and it seemed important to take the H's to one of the first places I went to when we moved.

Plus, Erica Perl was there.

Here she is reading from Ninety - Three in My Family. She puts on a different hat for each story of hers that she reads (the most impressive is the hat from Chicken Butt). We read this book a lot last year as Hadley loves to count and loves animals. However, what I didn't know about this story is that it's best when it's sung.

The story is hysterical by itself, but to hear it sung adds so much, and it was a reminder of the importance of reading stories in different voices, or singing, or even using puppets and props. The children get into the story which is a benefit, but I think they understand the story more as well.

Hadley knew that we might hear the story Dotty, but here's her expression when I told her we might get to hear Chicken Butt:

I know I'm supposed to try and teach Hadley that the word "butt," or anything having to do with said word is not humorous. But I come from a long line of butt joke loving folk, and it's simply against my nature. To tell Hadley and Harper there is no humor in the word "butt" would be turning my back against my kinfolk. So I took them to the lady who also seems to find humor in this word, as well as the fact that wearing a knitted chicken butt on her head is truly hysterical.

Jesse was taking pictures on Saturday, and didn't get a shot of the chicken butt hat, however, he did get this one:

Before we got to hear the read-alouds, we had a chance to explore the library a bit. The girls loved the fun chairs and the tables to read books, do puzzles, and color.

Going to the Tenleytown Library was a special treat for all of us, but probably mostly for me. I don't think I have many profound words to say about the importance of libraries except that when I'm in one, I'm happy. It reminds me of being in Kindergarten again with all those possibilities. Last week, after having a surprise root canal, the first thing I did after being dismissed from the dentist was go to the library. It wasn't on my list of things to do, but walking through the aisles and breathing in the pages of books is a great anecdote to having the taste of novacaine in my mouth. I checked out several "how to make your own jewelry" books. They've all since been returned, because, who am I kidding? I'll end up in the ER if I try and make my own jewelry.

Oh, but the possibilities in a library!

And to hear Erica Perl read from her stories, and share that with my girls is a big deal to me, too. Hers was one of the first classes I took at The Writer's Center in Bethesda. I was in my first trimester with Harper, and for awhile we were pretty sure I was miscarrying. I was scared, and sick, and exhausted, but I wrote a little story about a girl who loved maps and I got to share it with the class. That was scary and exhilirating, but having a chance to write and share, and talk about words took my mind off of being pregnant for awhile. C.S. Lewis wrote, "....and whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills, as I have found out long ago." I am thankful that I had a chance to learn from a real author who creates characters like Dotty, and Bernice the Hippo, and a stockboy with the nickname "The Nail".

Plus, we've added to our growing list of butt jokes.

Going Owling

2011-02-03T15:10:00.000-08:00

One afternoon this week, the girls and I hung out with the book Owl Moon by Jane Yolen. This seems like a good book to read in the winter, but I also picked it because last week Hadley spotted a hawk outside our condo and was quite intrigued. She was very disappointed when the bird flew away and kept calling for it to come back.

This book was a little difficult for Harper to concentrate on. At one point she did this and said, "It's time to color Diego, Mama."

But we got through the book, and afterwords we did some painting. I wanted the girls to try and create a winter scene by using dark crayons on white paper, and then painting over it with dark water colors. I showed them this picture:

Here's what they came up with:

They weren't super interested, but that's OK. Maybe next time. What they did like was the next activity. We went owling.

We went in the house because it was raining and cold outside. I don't think the girls would've minded, so it was me that was the party pooper. But we did load up our backpacks with flashlights, binoculars, and calculators, because, you know, it's good to have a calculator.

We turned off the lights in our place and did our best owl calling.

I think Jane Yolen should re-write the story and add, "When you go owling you need to make sure you look through your binoculars the right way, otherwise you won't see a darn thing."

That doesn't sound so poetic, thought.

Book Poems

2011-02-01T03:24:00.000-08:00

In the fall of last year, I tried to devote one post a week to writing that a group of 8th graders at Goshen Middle School send to me. Lisa, the teacher I am working on this project with, has sent me three packages of different kinds of their writing and each package is better then the first. The students started with letters about books they were reading, and then moved on to a project called "snapshots." They are striking paragraphs jammed packed with detail that bring the reader into the story immediately. I loved those.

The most recent batch of work that Lisa sent me is something called "book poems." These are poems that the students wrote describing their experience reading a specific book. These are so good I'm having trouble picking one to spotlight. So today I'm going to spotlight three. These poems highlight the books Olivia, No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, and The Cat in the Hat. The poems grabbed my attention because I think they're well written, but also, because these are books that my girls and I read together all the time. If anyone has any doubt whether stories stick to young children, these poems are proof that even after years of not reading them, we are attached to the characters we meet in these books.

The first one is by Olivia.

Olivia's books
My name swims
around and around
in my head
when I read
those books.

She can't decide
what to wear.
I can never decide
what to wear.

Her room is a mess
my room is a mess.

She has annoying siblings
I have an annoying sibling.

Long ago
I used to think,
"Am I reading about myself?"

The second poem is by Teryn.
Us
Thing 1 and Thing 2
Always romping around,
makers of mischief
inseperable
these two.

Knocking over
and
shouting outloud

I am Thing 1 and you are
Thing 2.

The third poem put tears in my eyes. It is written by Mikaela.
Monkeys Jumpin' on the Bed
You are the caring mother who says,
"No more monkeys jumpin' on the bed!"
We are the monkeys who just won't listen.
One by one
we make mistakes and fall off the bed.

You tell us to stop, but we just say,
"No, No, No!"

When the last one of us falls,
we finally stop.
You got your wish.
There are no more monkeys jumpin' on the bed.

We might not of known it then,
but we know it now.
When you said, "No more monkeys jumpin' on the bed"
you said it because you didn't want your
little monkeys fallin' off
the bed and hittin' their head.

Not By The Hair of My Chinny Chin Chin!

2011-01-30T18:57:00.000-08:00

Hadley and Harper love The Three Little Pigs. I don't know why exactly. Are they getting to the age where things like wolves are scary and exciting in that giddy sort of way? At any rate, we read the story a lot around these here parts.

Last week, I thought it would be fun to have the girls act out the story using puppets. They practically know the story by heart anyway, so I thought this would be a fun activity to do. We made puppets out of paper and plastic spoons, but after reading this post, I think I'm ready to try and venture out into more crafty aspirations. (Especially since the post is about the book If You Give a Moose a Muffin my favorite of the "If You Give A......" books. Go ahead, check out the link. I'll wait.)

For today's post, we worked with paper and spoons.

A little coloring....

The finished product:

The one with the blue overalls on is the "sober" pig according to Hadley. In the story, the third little pig is a sober pig. Hadley wanted to know what that means, and I explained that the third pig found it important to work hard. She really latched onto this, and talked about being sober for several days after that. While I'm glad she picked up a vocabulary word, I'm a little concerned she's talking about being sober at preschool.

The big bad wolf. He even scared the sober pig.

He scared me a little bit, too.

The wolf is getting ready to blow down the tower of blocks.

The girls seemed to enjoy giving their pigs voices, and acting out the story. They've been playing with the pigs a lot the last several days.

We even took them to Panera for dinner with us one night.

It was hard to eat my Bacon Turkey Bravo when these guys were staring at me, I'll tell you that much.

Another Snow Day

2011-01-23T18:42:00.000-08:00

It seems appropriate to read books about cold weather and snow for this time of year, so today the girls and I took a look at The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. And since there was some snow on the ground, it seemed appropriate to go outside in it. You know, since Peter did.

Keats doesn't write about how long it took Peter to put on his snow pants, mittens, hat, and boots on. I'm assuming this is because it's not poetic. In our home, it takes a good 30 minutes to get Hadley and Harper in their snow gear. And that doesn't count the conversation I have with Harper about why she needs to wear her snow gear in the first place. I was sweating bricks by the time we got outside, and was happy for the cold that smacked me in the face.

The girls enjoyed the outside as well, and they played with sticks and made snow angels just like Peter.

Look at Harper's face. She's like, "This is the lamest snow angel ever."

In the story, Peter brings a snowball into the house and is saddened to find that it melted. A real low point in the story, if you ask me. It reminds me of the time I learned I was going to travel to school in a carpool. I thought I would be picked up in a car with a pool attached to it. You can imagine my disappointment. Anyway, Hadley put some snow in a bowl and brought it inside and watched to see how long it took to melt.

Hadley wrote down the time we checked the bowl of snow: 11:00, 11:13, 11:45, 12: 15, and 12:57. (It seems that perhaps I need to help Hadley with her number writing.) I wrote down what she said when she took a look at the snow.

Look at me using math again. This is the second post in a row! Of course, I didn't come up with this idea myself, (although the observation sheet was my idea). Ms Raines who wrote More Story Stretchers helped me out a l'il bit.

Before you know it, we'll be solving for x.

January Book Club

2011-01-21T12:46:00.000-08:00

I've been starting my day reading from a book by Madeleine L'Engle called Glimpses of Grace. They are clips of her writing for each day of the year. Today's reading was titled, "Refuse Not The Questions." I thought this part in the reading applied to why I like to read and do Book Club with my girls:

"In our fear of the unprovable we mustn't forget that they can learn from The Tempest as well as social studies; that they can learn from Aesop as well as the new math; that The Ugly Duckling need not be discarded in favor of driver education. There is a violent kind of truth in the most primitive myths, a truth we need today, because probably the most important thing those first storytellers did for listeners back in the dim past in their tales of gods and giants and fabulous beasts was to affirm that the gods are not irrational, that there is structure and meaning in the universe, that God is responsible to his creation."

When I plan my little Book Clubs, I think about doing some story comprehension, or maybe some word recognition, but what I really hope for is that the kids who come over to read a story, hang out with that "violent kind of truth," and maybe take it home with them.

This morning, we read The Snow Day by Komako Sakai. Not to be confused with The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, although both stories take place in a city. My favorite picture in Sakai's story is the picture with the main character standing on his balcony in his apartment building watching the snow fall. It reminded me of the last page in Keats' story, when the main character calls for his friend "across the hall." I love it when authors take urban settings and show that childhood happens here, too.

The girls started out creating a "winter scene" like the ones in the book. They drew pictures on blue sheets of cardstock.

I encouraged the kids to draw buildings, houses, trees, etc. for their snowy scene.

Harper's drawing Diego.

After they drew their pictures, they used shaving cream and paint brushes to make the pictures "snowy."

In the story, the mother didn't want her child to go outside while it was still snowing, so they played card games together instead. To coordinate with this part in the story, I planned a kind of snowflake matching game that the girls could play next. I taped ten snowflakes on the wall with a different number of dots on each flake. Then the girls took a snowflake with a number 1-10 from a bag I was holding The object of the game was to match the number with the correct number of dots on the snowflake.

That's about as advanced math as you'll get out of me.

The last part of the story, the child and mother go outside in the snow just before bedtime. Sadly, it wasn't snowing this morning, otherwise I thought that would've been the thing to do. Instead, we dressed up snowmen in hats and scarves as if they were the ones going outside.

I like the title of L'Engle's reading today. "Refuse Not The Questions" seems appropriate thinking for spending one's day with little kids. And while the level of conversation was as profound as one would expect when talking with 2-4 year olds, I think everyone enjoyed the story. On whatever level we were on.

Jessica by Kevin Henkes

2011-01-18T10:42:00.000-08:00

When I can (read: when I get myself organized to plan them), I like to do little activities with Hadley and Harper to go along with the books we read together. The gap between their two years seems to be closing, and they can do a lot of the same things which makes it fun.

Recently, we read Jessica by Kevin Henkes. This is a charming story about a little girl named Ruthie who has an imaginary friend named Jessica. (I think this book pairs well with Dotty by Erica Perl.) When I told the girls we were going to read the story, Hadley's first question was: "Who's that guy?" She was pointing to the picture of the author on a page of the book.

"That's Kevin Henkes." I told her.

"I don't think I know Kevin." she said.

I made a mental note to learn more about the authors of the stories we read, and also, to teach Hadley the importance of calling adults "Mr/Mrs/Ms."

Anyway, the girls loved the story, and afterwords we did some activities from a workbook called More Story Stretchers by Shirley C. Raines and Robert J. Canady. The first one we did was take turns working on a picture, because in the book Ruthie and her imaginary friend Jessica create a picture together. The idea behind this is for children to "take turns and to respond to each other's" drawing.

Harper went first:

And then Hadley:

Look how happy Harper was to let Hadley take a turn!

And in this picture, I'd like to write that Hadley is saying, "Good job, Harper!" But what's really happening here is I'm taking a picture while telling Hadley, with much authority, that "Harper can draw whatever she wants to on that guy. Leave her alone and let her take her turn!"

But we got the picture done.

The girls even let me have a try.

Hadley says, "Mama, how 'bout you do the shoes?"

"OK!" I say and grab a marker.

"Mama, do you want to do stripes on the shoes?" Hadley suggests.

"Uhhhh, sure."

"How 'bout pink?" she adds.

"I thought I got to do the shoes!" I start to whine.

"Yea, you can. I'll hand you the pink marker when you're ready."

Hadley gets the concept of sharing and letting people do their thing. She really gets it.

Next, we took out our letter blocks and tried to spell our names like Jessica and Ruthie do in the book. Harper was more interested in making a tower and knocking it down, but Hadley really liked this activity.

She got this far with her name, but got frustrated because she couldn't find a "D" or an "E" with the same kind of pattern. So she decided to start over.

Ahhhhhh, much better.

Apparently, it was just fine for me to have a different pattern for my name. Sheesh. The things we sacrifice for our children.

The Lion and the Mouse

2011-01-11T11:10:00.000-08:00

Hadley asked me the other day what "investigate" means. I told her it means to look into something, or to check something out. I told her when you investigate something, you are figuring something out, kind of like a detective. I don't know if this explanation was satisfying to her or not. When we are talking to Hadley about anything she generally has a blank stare on her face and I don't know whether she's really listening. Then three days later, she'll bring up what we were talking about almost word per word. In the case of her query into what "investigate" means, she looked at me while I told her and then went back to playing.

I brought home Jerry Pinkney's The Lion and the Mouse from the library a few days ago, and I thought that before we took a look at it, I'd remind Hadley that she asked me what "investigate" means. I told her that she could figure out the story in this book by just looking at the pictures, since there are few words. The pictures in the book are startling. I feel like I'm caught in the net with the lion, or scurrying around trying to break its strings with the mouse. I thought that since the pictures do such a good job of telling the story, Hadley would think it was fun to "read" the story by herself.

This wasn't the case, however. Hadley wanted me to tell her what was going on. So over the past few days, we've been sitting down together and looking at The Lion and the Mouse. Harper likes the story, too. She calls it, "the sad lion story."

Yesterday, the girls had to put their rainboots on before we read the story. I'm not sure if that's because Hadley was imagining she was in the jungle with the lion and the mouse, or if rainboots were simply what you needed to wear at that moment. Nevertheless, the rainboots were put on.

We read to the girls before they go to bed. Last night, I told Hadley to pick out three stories, and then I went to another room to put something away. When I came back, she was sitting on the couch reading The Lion and the Mouse by herself.

She was saying things like, "Oh no! The lion's stuck in the net! What's going to happen?" And, "Here comes the mouse! Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!" A lot of what she said was exactly what I had said as I was telling the story, but after awhile, as she seemed to become more comfortable with the story, her own voice came creeping out.

I sat next to Hadley as she read the story, and I thought that she and I are a lot like the lion and the mouse. We don't always know how to communicate with one another, and we have different roles in the world we share. A lot of times, these roles clash and we have to figure out what to do about that. But I also think that, when one of us gets tangled up, we have a way of setting each other free.

Book Wrap Up 2010

2011-01-08T15:36:00.000-08:00

This is a post about the books the girls and I checked out of the library in 2010. I think we read a lot during the year, but the ones that we own, we tend to read over and over again. So I don't keep a list of those titles, but I do keep a list on the girls' bedroom wall of all the books that they've checked out of the library.

Checking books out of the library with Hadley and Harper is what I would imagine what looking for a wedding dress during a Filene's Basement sale is like. I just kind of grab things. This is because I need to keep an eye on what the girls are doing. It's hard for me to page through carefully before I decide whether we'll bring a book home. Our library has a big fish tank, and large magnetic letters to play with, and a cozy spot with great climbing chairs around a coffee table that the girls hang out at. They read books at the library, sure, but it's also a chance to roam.

So I'm not always sure of what I'm going to get when we come home and dump out our bag of books. Which is for me, part of the fun. It reminds me of what I used to do when I came home from the library when I was a kid. Something about a big stack of books has always made me happy.

This year, we met some great characters in the books we checked out. We liked Shakeeta from The New Girl and Me by Jacqui Robbins (Hadley soon wanted an iquana after reading this story). Both Hadley and Harper loved Bernice the pygmy hippo from Ninety-Three in My Family by Erica Perl. Hadley had lots of questions about how one might take care of a pygmy hippo if one were to have one as a pet. And we got to know Sophie in Snip, Snip Snow by Nancy Poydar pretty well, too. We checked this book out a couple of days before the big snow storm this year and ended up renewing the book due to not being able to get to the library on time to return it.

My favorite library book of the year was In A Blue Room by Jim Averback. I could read this one over and over again. I love how the mother in the story uses something from the five senses to lull her child to sleep - flowers, a soft blanket, a cup of tea. I also love the poetry of the story. My only regret is that Harper was too young to hear this one. As I re-read it yesterday, the child in the book loving all things blue has real significance for me now as this is true of Harper today. So I will have to make sure we either own this book or I check it out of the library again so Harper can see that there is another person who loves the color blue as much as she does.

One of Hadley's favorites books from the library this year was Go Bugs Go! by Jessica Spanyol. Bugs with names like Jo-Jo, Clemence, and Giorgia move around in cars, trains, and planes, and get themselves in all kinds of trouble. There are about 300 hundred little pictures on every page, with funny dialogue between Jo-Jo and company. It reads a lot like what Hadley and Harper sound like when they are playing so I can see why she liked it.

We read a lot of great books this year, and I look forward to what we'll check out in 2011. I was able to grab a copy of Jerry Pinkney's The Lion and the Mouse yesterday when I was at the library, so I am excited to see what the girls think of this one.

I'll end with a little video of Hadley reading Pete the Cat ("Notes from Naptime" readers, I apologize for the repeat). This wasn't a book from the library, but it was a favorite of 2010. The girls got it as a gift this year from their Aunt Kellee and Uncle Geoff. Just like the books I check out from the library, the books we get as gifts are always surprises, too. Sometimes it's because I don't know the stories, but other times it's because I don't know how much the girls will enjoy the story. In Pete's case, he was a true winner this year.

Books Read From the Library in 2010:
Oh No! Gotta Go #2! by Susan Middleton Elya
Truck by Donald Crews
The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow
Say It! by Charlotte Zolotow
Probably Pistachio by Stuart J. Murphy
Crictor Tomi Ungerer
Baseball Hour by Carol Nevius
White Snow Bright Snow by Alvin Tresselt
Ninety - Three in My Family by Erica Perl
My Very Big Little World by Peter H. Reynolds
One Beanby Ann Rockwell
Watermelon Day by Kathi Appelt
Mama's Coming Home by Kate Banks
Trainstop by Barbara Lenmen
In A Blue Room Jim Averbeck
Go Bugs Go! by Jessica Spanyol
Previously by Allan Ahlberg
Snip, Snip, Snow! by Nancy Poydar
Wake up, Wilson Street by Abigail Thomas
Oh, Look! by Patricia Polacco
The New Girl and Me by Jacqui Robbins
Swimming Sal by Carol Molski
New Shoes for Silvia by Johanna Hurwitz
The Secret of the First One Up by iris Armo
Franklin's Neighborhood by Paulette Bourgeois and Brenda Clark
The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson
Elephants Never Forget by Anushka Ravishanka
Geraldine's Big Snow by Holly Keller
Fancy Nancy's Fancy Words from A-Z by Jane O'Connor
Summer's End by Maribeth Boelts
The Toolbox by Anne and Harlow Rockwell

Just In Time For Christmas

2010-12-17T18:39:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if I've fully expressed my desire to be crafty. I might have alluded to it in certain posts, but oh! how I would love to make things that are pretty with my own hands instead of buying them at Target. When I attempt to create something, it usually turns out into a mildly dangerous disaster. However, today I can safely say that I have made something that I am proud of, and that combines all of the things I am interested in save for coffee.

Last week, for my 35th birthday (holy cow, THIRTY FIVE?!?!?!), my sisters-in-law (in-laws? in-law? is there a plural?) gave me a printing kit. It came with an instructional handbook, a set of stencils, two sponges, and two tools that I'm still not sure what do with after careful study. I was so excited to use this! However, when my husband came home from work, and I showed him with glee what I got from his sisters, he kind of winced out, "Ooooooo.....do you think you can do that?"

If that wasn't a challenge, I don't know what is.

So here's what I came up with. I wanted to get my cousin, who is almost 13, a little something for Christmas when we see her family next week. Since I used to be a middle school teacher, I tend to want to give books to people in my family who are in the tween years. I picked Sharon Creech's Absolutely Normal Chaos. I love just about anything by Sharon Creech, but I think this one is one of my favorites. It could be that I read it outloud to two different classes and they found it so enthralling it was hard for me to do anything else other then read it to them. Or it could be that one of my former students told me once that she'd never read anything that she connected with until she read this book. Or it could just be because it's a darn good story. At any rate, I picked it out for my cousin because I think it's a fine book, and I don't think you can go wrong with a Sharon Creech story.

I realize that's not the crafty part. I'm getting to it.

Recently on the Mother Reader blog, she wrote a delightful post on ways to wrap a book. (Anyone still thinking about what to give as gifts, there are great ideas on this entry.) I said to myself, "Callie? Why don't you go ahead and make a purse to put Absolutely Normal Chaos in? It'll be grand."

So I did. I took myself to Micheal's and used my 40% off coupon to get three prewashed canvas purses (I bought three because I knew I would make a mistake), and two colors of fabric paint. (The old Callie would've just looked for any old paint to use, but the new Callie read the instructions in the pamphlet. They specifically said "fabric paint for fabric projects." Who knew?)

I spread all my materials on our table and as I did, Hadley came up and sat down cautiously. Even she was nervous for me. She said, "Momma, I'm gonna just sit here and watch you and make sure you do it right." Thanks for the vote of confidence, kid. I should've reminded her that I was the one who birthed her 9lb 10oz butt without any help from her, thank you very much.

But you know what? I made myself a little bag. It turned out so good, I made two more.

But that wasn't enough. I was on a roll! I thought to myself, "Callie? Why stop there? Since Absolutely Normal Chaos is a journal of sorts, let's say we make Inga a journal to go with the book?"

So that's what I did.

I cut up several pieces of paper, drew some little designs, and then put a subject on each page. One page asks Inga what her favorite songs are. Another one prompts her to write about her favorite Christmas memories. The best part was that Hadley and Harper saw what I was doing and wanted to make a page for Inga, too. You can see their work in the above picture, and here they are working hard on their journal pages:

Since I gave Inga different topics to write about, I thought I'd have the girls answer some of the same questions. I wrote down their answers on the journal sheets they made. Hadley's favorite book? Pete the Cat. "He's a riot!" she adds. What does Hadley want to be when she grows up? "The leader on the sled." Harper's favorite book? "The blue book." Don't ask me which book that is, because I don't know. I do know that the child will not have anything to do with anything unless it's blue. What does Harper want to be when she grows up? "Toys." And really, who doesn't?

Here's my little creation in its finished form:

I think it's time I try to learn to knit again.

Wednesday Snapshot - Tubing

2010-12-08T15:40:00.000-08:00

Have you ever heard anyone describe what it's like to go tubing? Or have you ever described a tubing experience yourself? Have you noticed how scary and violent it sounds? It's so much fun, but I'm surprised that I think being yanked behind a boat going really fast while I bump around uncontrollably and hold on for dear life is fun. That's what I was thinking when I read Philip's piece on tubing. After I finished reading it, I wanted to know whether he had a good time or not. I'm pretty sure he would say he had a great time. But it sounds awful.

My lungs are burning as I gasp for air. I can't see quite how high I am, the spray of water blinds me, but I can feel gravity tugging at me. I feel helpless as I see the white water rushing up towards me and I brace myself for impact.
"Smack!"
I land on the water, clutching onto the tube. My muscles are straining as I struggle to cling on. My body slides to the right and I try to gain balance as I hit a huge wave. Panic floods my mind and I hope that I will be OK.
The fall is unexpected. I see the wave. I see the driver's smile as he floors the boat. My hands are tearing free from the handles and I'm airborn.
"Splash!"
The icy cold water swallows me up. I feel my life jacket tugging me up, I'm glad that it's over and I can finally relax.

Philip is a student in Lisa Herschberger's class at Goshen Middle School.

The First Night by B.G. Hennessy

2010-12-07T11:39:00.000-08:00

This fall I read The Hunger Games series and I think that I would say the experience was brutal. I'm still processing the books, and I don't know if I'll be able to re-read them again in order to form a well thought out opinion, but I believe they will stick with me for some time.

One part that sticks with me the most, is the trick (or skill perhaps) that Katniss, the main character, uses when she becomes overwhelmed with what has happened in her life. When she isn't sure what or who to believe, she starts running simple facts through her mind: what her name is, who her parents are, how old she is, etc. This seems to calm her down, and it helps her to analyze more complicated thoughts where the facts might be more murky.

I have considered this idea as the girls and I have been reading several Christmastime stories over the last week and a half. One book that I think we ought to own, does a startlingly beautiful job of telling the facts of Jesus' birth while giving the story mystery and peace at the same time. The First Night by B.G. Hennessy and painted by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher, might seem easy to get through during a first read. Each page has a simple sentence relaying a concept about the night Jesus was born. "At the edge of an old and crowded town there was a field." Or, "There was a mother, a father, and a baby. The baby lay on a bed made of hay." The pictures on the other side of page illuminate and help us process what is being read. Paired together, the story brings wonder and a sense of expectation to the reader.

Hadley asked me the other day, "Momma, when does Jesus not be a baby anymore?" We had been taking a look at several versions of the Christmas story earlier that morning, and I think Hadley was processing who Jesus is. Why is this baby important? Why are we reading about this baby's birth? What will this baby do? I don't know if it was so much that Hadley was being critical of Jesus' infant state, but that she is expectant now of what Jesus' role in her life is.

I think that's why Hadley talks more about Santa. Hadley knows what Santa's role in her life is. That's easy. And in the stories we have about Santa, she sees him doing stuff. I suppose it's easier for me to talk about Santa with her because there isn't a lot of confusion. Santa brings presents. Done. Jesus, though? He came to save us from our sins? That's a little more complicated. But with The First Night, the girls and I can read the story and begin to process the importance of what we believe about Jesus' birth.

Which brings me back to The Hunger Games. The stuff in those books is terrifying. I don't know if I have ever been so scared reading a book in my life. But some of the stuff in the Bible is quite scary, too. For me, at least, it's easy to get overwhelmed with the fear and confusion of what is going on. The same is true of the Christmas story. That's why I like Katniss' tactic of starting with something simple, working her way through that, and then moving on to the next thing. I think that is what we're doing when the girls and I are reading The First Night.

My favorite line in the book is, "And in that warm, dark stable his life began." It's the last line in the book. Mary is holding Jesus as he sleeps; his hand is curled up by his cheek, his mouth in an "o." I like that this is where the story ends. I like that this seemingly simple sentence - a baby's life beginning in a stable - leaves me wondering and expectant. It's not that I don't want to think about what's to come, or what brought all this to occur in the first place, but like Katniss in The Hunger Games, I think it's good to be at peace with the "simple" facts before moving on to the ones that get confusing and scary.

Wednesday Snapshot

2010-12-01T06:53:00.000-08:00

On Wednesdays I have the pleasure of showcasing what a group of 8th grade students are working on in Lisa Herschberger's English class in Goshen, Indiana. We started by writing back and forth to each other about the books we are reading, but now the students are working on something called a "snapshot." It's a short piece that attemtps to give the reader a picture of a moment in that writer's life. I'm inspired after reading what the kids write, so I try and write a snapshot along with them in my post.

Today, we're talking about sports. Brady writes a suspenseful piece about a basketball shot that never was. It's a fun read. You'll be rooting for him as you read it, and laughing with him at the end.

"Here we go," I think to myself as Peter inbounds the ball. We are playing Northside, and there's seven seconds to go in the half. I sprint up court; I'm counting the seconds. The defender smells of sweat. His hand shoots out to try and take the ball. I cross over and keep on going, not much time left. The sweat is running down my face and into my mouth. My eyes are stinging from sweat and weariness. Three seconds. I have just passed half court. Another defender comes to take my ball, but he is too late. I jump and shoot it. The ball flies through the air, it is an orange blur.
Then everybody on our team, including the parents, busts out laughing, even some people from the other team. The ball landed in the bars that hold up the basketball hoop; about ten feet above the hoop. I say, "Sorry, next time I won't jump."

I look up at my dad to see that he is shaking his head and laughing, too.

Brady, my friend, my heart goes out to you. I've been there many times. Here's my snapshot:

I knocked my front tooth out playing softball when I was in fourth grade. My team, The Hornets, were tied with the other team whose name I can't remember. When it was my turn at bat, my teammates started cheering, "Callie! Callie! Callie!" What do they call the players that clean up in innings? Garbage men? Sweepers? Grocery clerks? Yea, well, that was me. I was a slugger. You could count on me to bring in runs. So it was no surprise when I hit one way out past center field.

The crowd went nuts and I took off running, winking at my parents as I rounded first base. It was going to be an easy home run, or so I thought. As I rounded third base and headed for home, the center fielder threw the ball to the second baseman, who threw it to the catcher. The ball was midway to the catcher as I ran to the plate. I knew I was going to have to slide if I stood a chance, so I took my last steps and flew into the air, headfirst into home. At the same time, the catcher jumped to make the catch, and we collided. My face hit her plastic knee pad and my tooth cracked right off. Lucky for me, though, our collision knocked the catcher off balance and she lost sight of the ball and fell over. I, on the other hand, landed safely at home, winning the game for the team.

None of that is true. I did get my tooth knocked out, and it was during a softball game, but I wasn't playing. I was sitting in the dugout writing my name in the dirt with my shoe. I did have my batting helmet on, however. When I realized what was happening, I jumped and cheered with the rest of my teammates even though I was kind of annoyed I didn't get a chance to finish writing my name in the dirt. Katie, the superstar of the day, ran into the dugout after jumping on home plate, and was bombarded with congratulations. I went to say "Great job" or whatever it is you say in these circumstances. For all I know it's, "Batter up!" Somehow I tripped and fell head first into Katie's batting helmet, thus cracking my front tooth. I should've just finished writing my name in the dirt.

If you'd like to try your hand at a snapshot, leave a comment on this post with your blog link so I can refer to it on next Wednesday's post.

Christmas and Wintertime Stories

2010-11-29T10:49:00.000-08:00

We've started decorating for Christmas around here. Hadley and Harper are more than willing to help me decorate which can be fun but also makes for what I am realizing will be a permanent amount of glitter over everything.

One of the things that I am doing this year is reading several Christmas stories to the girls. I thought it'd be fun to read one each day in December. I set up a little countdown to Christmas banner:

and hung it on one of our counters.

Then I pulled all our Christmas books and put them in a festive bucket.

I found some at the library, too.

Hadley was very excited to begin reading last night. She even put on her special Christmas pajamas.

Ho. Ho. Ho.

Wednesday Letter - Snapshots

2010-11-17T15:52:00.000-08:00

On Wednesdays, I have the opportunity to share work from a group of 8th graders at Goshen Middle School, in Goshen, Indiana. Lisa Herschberger, a great friend and someone I used to teach with, is their teacher and she and I have the pleasure of talking about reading and writing with this group of kids. This week, I want to share a project that they were working on called "snapshots." Reading through them, it looks as though the kids took a magnifying glass to an important moment, or special memory in their lives: meeting a best friend, spending time in a favorite place, even getting in a car accident. The pieces are outstanding. Today, I'd like to share Teryn's. When she wrote to me introducing herself, she told me she likes to read and write. After you read her snapshot, you will see why.

The Barn

The sweet fragrance of hay reached my nostrils as I inhaled deeply. Chickens clucked softly as they pecked at the soft earth no doubt in search of bugs. A soft gust of wind blew around me, whipping my dark hair wildly about my face, blowing the slight scent of horse to me. I turned to survey the interior and my heart skipped a beat. There, standing in the light of the doorway was a sleek black mare, her milk chocolate brown eyes soft. I made eye contact as I approached her slowly. She stamped her large strong hooves and snorted softly. She could crush my skull in an instant but I wasn't fearful, just aware.

"Shh-it's OK pretty girl, I won't hurt you,"I whispered in a soft voice. I slowly stretched out my hand to stroke her soft, warm, velvety nose and I grinned.

"That's a good girl." I said and jumped about a mile as a small calico cat twined itself between my ankles, purring rather loudly. I smiled. I loved it there in the barn.

I was inspired by Teryn's writing, and thought I'd try my hand at a snapshot of my own.

A Windy Day

We could hear the wind rattling the walls of our condo all day today. I didn't think much of it until we were getting ready to take Hadley to ballet lessons. She and I were having a clipped conversation regarding the kind of clothing she should wear outside.

"No, Mom. I am NOT wearing sweatpants over my pink tights."

Hadley is very proud of her pink tights as she is the rest of her ballet attire: a pink leotard with a glittery heart in the center, a pink tulle skirt, and pink ballet slippers. She owns this outfit when she wears it. She wasn't going to wear sweatpants.

The three of us walked down the stairs of our building - Hadley in front leaping down the stairs in true ballerina style, Harper bringing up the rear holding her toy sheep and cow - we looked liked a page out of a Fancy Nancy book.

When we got to the bottom of the stairs, and I opened the door to the outside, the three of us gasped at the wind's signature: gold, red, and orange leaves were all over the ground. We couldn't even see the sidewalk or the grass. Hadley crunched her way into the leaves, picking up one or two, and then stopped and looked up at the trees.

"Mama! The wind blew the leaves off the trees!"

"I know," I said, noticing that her tone suggested the wind did the leaves a favor.

"They're ready for winter!" she exclaimed. Her eyes were huge and she was smiling.

And then she began to run.

"That tree's ready for winter! And so is that one! Ooo! All those trees over there are ready for winter!" She was running and pointing and yelling, and she was so happy.

Harper and I watched her run down the sidewalk in her ballet clothes pointing and screaming - a pink firecracker against the deep colors of autumn. Harper started to run, too. The sheep and the cow she violently insisted she take along thunked on the leaves, forgotten. I picked them up and stuffed them in my bag and began to run after my girls. And then I was running with them; pointing out trees that are ready for winter and kicking up crunchy leaves with my shoes.

Thanksgiving Themed Book Club

2010-11-15T07:24:00.000-08:00

On Friday the group came over and we read Feast for Ten by Cathryn Falwell. I love this book. It's a counting book, but it tells the story of a family preparing a meal for "ten hungry folks." My kids love to count, and they love number books, but I have to be honest, looking at numbers over and over again can get boooooring! So I appreciate when an author tells a story around the concept of counting.

Another mom was kind enough to take pictures while I read to the girls.

One of these kids is not paying attention......

I love this one. I didn't know I still had my "teacher face" but leave it to Harper to make me bust it out.

It was effective, too. You can tell Harper's terrified.

After we read the story, I had the girls take a look at the last picture where the family is sitting around the table sharing a meal. I asked the girls what kinds of foods they noticed that were in the picture.

After we studied the picture for a bit, I told the girls they were going to create their own groceries lists for feast they'd like to make. They each got a piece of paper, and glued pictures of food on it.

Here are Hadley and Harper's finished lists:

Harper thought Pledge or some kind of "dust be gone" product would be a key ingredient in her feast.

Next, we made turkeys.

I realize they look more like teepees here, but what you're looking at is the turkey tail. The girls made faces and glued them on the opposite side, and then glued legs on the bottom.

Look at Hadley giving me a courtesy smile.

We ended by doing a little "I am thankful for" project. I told the group that one thing people do around Thanksgiving is talk about what they're thankful for. We started by making lists of things in our lives that make us happy.

After they came up with a list of things, they glued them to a plate, and decorated it.
Looking at this next picture, I realize it looks as though this child is falling. One might conclude that I was too concerned with taking a picture, and so chose to take the picture then help this child. The real story is that I'm not what you'd call a camera whiz. I pretty much point and click and hope for the best. It turned out that she was in the middle of laying down while I took the picture, however, I liked her project so I wanted to show it off.

Here's another one:

Here's Hadley's:

She didn't want to decorate her plate, but she came up with some good things (Goofy, chocolate milk).
I got this idea from Becky Higgins' Blog. We didn't do the exact same thing, but I loved the idea and wanted to try it with my book club gals.

Book Club isn't book club without a snack, and for this one we had delicious pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. The mom who brought them over couldn't get them out of the container fast enough. They were a huge hit.

While we're on the subject of being thankful, I'd like to say that I'm thankful I get a chance to do this. It can be crazy and loud, and book club doesn't always go how I planned it. I wonder sometimes if it's more of an annoyance then something fun for my girls and company. But after everyone left, and I cleaned up, Harper was taking a nap and Hadley and I were coloring together. She said, "Mom? Book Club is awesome." I am thankful for that.

Review - Sesame Street ebooks

2010-11-12T12:32:00.000-08:00

During one of our lunchbreaks when I was a teacher, one of my friends asked a group of us whether we thought listening to a book on tape could be considered reading. Someone made the observation that listening to a book on tape is listening, so it isn't necessarily reading. This seems to be a fair statement, but after we nodded our heads in agreeement, we started to discuss all the books we listened to, and how much we enjoyed them. I listened to books on tape during my trip to and from school, a 45 minute ride that gave me plenty of time to step into Garrison Keiller's Lake Wobegon, or listen to another chapter of Judy Blume's Summer Sisters . There were times when I didn't want to get out of the car because I was wrapped up in what was going on in the story.

It might not be reading, but I think that we can still take away lessons from stories we listen to, as well as enjoy and relate to them. So when I was asked to review Sesame Street ebooks, I immediately thought of my lunchtime conversation with my other teacher friends. I would have my oldest daughter, Hadley, take a look at these books on our computer, but it wouldn't be the same as when she and I are reading a book together. But that is OK. These books provide valuable lessons for Hadley, and by letting her use them, I believe I'm giving her another kind of reading experience.

Here are some of my observations about the books Hadley looked at:

Hadley started with the book Get Your Grouchies Out: Feeling Happy. As the words are read, they light up on the screen. I noticed Hadley following along, whereas, when we read to her, she is looking at the pictures. After all the words were spoken, Hadley took a minute to look at the picture, and then she'd click an arrow to turn to the next page. When we read to her, unless she asks a question or makes a comment, we turn to the next page. The Sesame Street ebooks give her the independence to look at the words and the pictures, then turn the page at her own pace.

Get Your Grouchies Out: Feeling Happy is a vocabulary book read by Bob, a Sesame Street character on the show. Hadley learned about words like "overjoyed," "elated," and "ecstatic." Bob read a sentence that helped Hadley understand what the meaning was. I think Hadley's favorite was the page with Cookie Monster on it. He's saying he's ecstatic when he has a full plate of cookies. She also liked learning "feliz" because it is a Spanish word. Hadley loves learning Spanish words.

Hadley also took a look at My First Instrument and Big Block Party. These are both longer stories, but Hadley paid attention the entire time. I like that these ebooks focus on telling the story by focusing how to read a book. The words are highlighted, Hadley can turn the pages, the story is read outloud. None of the characters jump around on the page, or disappear with the click of a mouse. There are no pop up bubbles or blinking lights. I like this. I like that nothing takes away from the reading of the story.

The other thing I found impressive about these ebooks is that there are different kinds of them. There are vocabulary books, stories (like My First Instrument), and there are interactive books too. Hadley liked Eat Your Colors which helped her pick out meals for Grover, Cookie Monster, and Elmo. This book helps Hadley learn about eating a variety of foods. It also helps her understand what a "sometimes" food is: like cookies or donuts. I'm not sure she appreciated this lesson so much.

In Eat Your Colors, several Sesame Street characters are on a page with plates that need to be filled, and Hadley needed to figure out what was missing on their plate, and bring it to that character.

She would click on the correct fruit or vegetable etc., and drag it to the empty circles. Hadley liked figuring out what each character should be eating throughout the book.

Watching Hadley read these ebooks reminded me of when I was a little girl, and my parents gave me a Cinderella read along for a birthday or Christmas present. While listening to a record, I would follow Cinderella through her scary, fabulous adventure listenting for the "ding" to tell me to turn the pages. Was it the same as reading with my parents? No. Nobody can replace my dad reading Uncle Remus stories to me and my brother. However, sitting in my room and listening to a story gave me the opportunity to enter into it by myself; something that I believe is an important part of understanding and enjoying a story. I'm glad these ebooks give Hadley a chance to do the same.

Birthday Game and Birthday Books

2010-11-09T07:55:00.000-08:00

Because I have this need to be crafty, I wanted to make something for Hadley's 4th birthday. I thought it would be fun to make some kind of game with a few books that Hadley enjoyed over this past year. So I created the "Fancy Nancy, Frances, and Franklin Game."

Basically, you try and answer a question about Frances, Fancy Nancy, or Franklin, and if you answer correctly you get to move a couple of spaces. Nothing too complicated.

Here's Hadley trying to decide which piece she wants to be. You can choose from a picture of chocolate syrup, an apple, salt a pepper shakers, or a carton of milk. Do I have to say what Hadley chooses every time?

Here are a few questions (that Hadley is pretty good at answering): Why can't Fancy Nancy go to Bree's birthday party? Why doesn't Franklin want an x-ray? What does Frances buy Gloria for her birthday?

Hadley seems to enjoy playing, and it's a fun way to remember some of her favorite books from the previous year.

Today my other daughter, Harper, turns 2, but I didn't make her a birthday game. We did, however read Happy Birthday, Gorilla by Ruth Bornstein, and Hippos Go Berserk by Sandra Boynton. Both fine party books, if you ask me. Last night, Jesse read A Birthday for Frances by Russell Hoban to Hadley after she said, "I think I need to open Harper's presents for her because she won't know how to do it." We told her she should let Harper give it a try first to which she replied, "OK, she can pull off one side, but I'll do the rest."

Round as a Mooncake letters arrive

2010-11-08T16:50:00.000-08:00

Recently, I wrote a post about a little project Hadley and I did with the story Round as a Mooncake. We sent out letters to friends in different areas, and in the last couple of weeks they have graciously replied. Hadley was delighted.

We got out our United States puzzle, and I printed out outlines of the states that the letters came from.

We got letters from Minnesota:
My friend's daugther, who is in Kindergarten, cut all these shapes out! Impressive!

Another one from Minnesota:

My friend who made a "Book of Shapes" for Hadley is a former preschool teacher, and gives me lots of ideas for my Book Club. Personally, I think she should start her own blog, but she just had a baby so I won't badger her. I will say that I've known her since we were 5, and not only did we go to the same preschool together, but she was one of the only people I wasn't afraid to talk to at school. And we sat next to each other when we graduated from high school, so it's neat for me to see my daughter looking at pictures of her daughter after all those years of growing up together. My friends are dope, right Lisa?

We got a letter from Chicago:

Hadley was so excited to recieve this one because she just loves this little girl. Here she is looking at a picture of she and Hadley at the National Zoo last year.

We got letters from Michigan:

I love these because they're hand drawn.

Our last letter is from Texas:

This is one of Hadley's very first friends. We met him and his mom at our local library for storytime, and he recently moved away. Hadley was over the moon when she got a letter and pictures from him.

What I liked so much about Round as a Mooncake is that while it is a book of shapes, Roseanne Thong weaved this concept into a story of a child noticing her surroundings and feeling good about them. As Hadley got each letter, she had a chance to see her friends, and take interest in their surroundings. And she had all sorts of questions for the children who sent her letters who she hadn't met. She wanted to know how I know their moms, and it gave me a chance to tell her some stories about my friends, too. So while the concept of learning about shapes might've been simple, the idea of noticing one's surroundings, being interested in them, and feeling happy about one's environment is a little more difficult. I appreciate that I could introduce this idea to Hadley through a story. I also appreciate the friends who helped me out with it.

Wednesday Letter - Wings

2010-11-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

Wednesday Letter - Tunnels

2010-10-27T14:34:00.000-07:00

Why I Write

2010-10-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

Last week I learned that it was National Day on Writing. Carmela Martino, who writes on the blog Teaching Authors encouraged her readers to think about why we write. I thought this would be a good exercise for me, and here's what I came up with:

We have a rocking chair in our daughters' room. It sits in the corner next to a window. I've sat there at all hours holding one of my girls, nursing them, burping them, reading them stories, looking out the window and noticing the trees, watching cars drive down the alley.

What's interesting about this chair is that no matter what shape my daughters or I are in, we are comfortable here. I spent hours - probably days - nursing Hadley in this chair. In the middle of the night, when she awoke hungry, I'd stumble into her room in a blur, pick her up and sit down while she nursed. I rocked and watched her, asleep and eating, her hand reaching for my nose. I was tired and overwhelmed, but sitting there rocking, I was content.

When I was pregnant with my second daughter, Harper, Hadley and I read stories together in this chair before she went to sleep. Despite my growing belly, somehow we were cozy together reading about hippos going berserk or the dog named Harry that was sickingly dirty.

We read stories to Harper in this chair before nap and bedtime too. Someimes, if she sees I'm getting her bottle ready, she will grab her bear and walk into her room, lay her head down on the seat of the rocker, and begin humming as she moves the chair back and forth.

I know how she feels. No matter what is going on in the day - how stressed out or frazzled I am - I sit in that chair with one of my children on my lap and begin to rock, and I am calm. I might still be overwhelmed, I might be exhausted, but I am content.

I say to my husband through sobs or fury sometimes, "There's no place in this house that is mine! I lay down in bed and there's a glue stick in it, or I sit down on the couch and have to jump back up because I've sat on a toy truck!" I think what I mean is I can't find a place to collect myself, to remember who I am; to figure out who I am. Except that now, when I think about this rocking chair, and the peace it's brought despite the sometimes storm of motherhood, I realize that this is where I collect myself. This corner, feeling the weight of my daughters on my lap and against my chest as I rock, is where I remember who I am.

This is why I write. I've thought about this chair for awhile now, but wasn't sure of it's significance in my life until I sat down to write about it. Writing helps me to understand; to figure things out. I write to tell a story. I write to make people laugh. I write to try and communicate how in love with Hadley and Harper I am. I write because a lot of times I can't say outloud what I'm feeling or thinking adequately. I think I'm much more clever and witty when I write.

Sara Lewis Holmes wrote a post on writing mantras - phrases that motivate authors to keep writing. She used a quote from Auden as one: "Clear thinking about mixed feelings." I think that sums it up best for me. When I'm confused, or sad, or happy, I write. And I think the product is even better when all those feelings come out in what I'm trying to express. Like rocking in the chair in my daughters' room, pushing my pen across the page brings me contentment, clarity, and peace. That is why I write.

Book Club Does Halloween

2010-10-25T18:08:00.000-07:00

For book club last week, the group and I read a book called Spooky Spooky Spooky! by Cathy MacLennan. We read through the story once, commenting on things like, "horrible howling cats" and "slithery slugs," and then we made owls to accompany our second reading.

I asked the girls to put their owls in front of their faces and say, "Spooky, spooky, spooky!" when we read it in the story. Here they are practicing:

It's scary, right?

After our owl craft, we went on a "Halloween Trick or Treat Hunt." Each of the girls got a plastic bag and looked around the house for stickers, bundles of colored pencils, and "fancy" rings that (were supposed to) light up!

After our treasure hunt, we made jack-o-laterns. Well, we colored a pumpkin and then glued eyes, a nose and mouth onto it. I was a little nervous leading a group of toddlers in a "carve your own pumpkin activity."

At least, some of us glued two eyes, a mouth and a nose on our pumpkins. Others decided to put Dora stickers on it. It's all good.

To finish our time together, we ate pumpkin spice muffins and drank apple juice.

I love this time of year, and I love the variety of stories that go with it. Another fun blog that's got several good looking Halloween books is Katie's Literature Lounge. Defintely worth a stop.

No English by Jacqueline Jules

2010-10-18T18:22:00.000-07:00

Hadley takes ballet lessons once a week with about seven or eight other preschool girls. They mostly prance around the gym flapping their arms wildly, but they get to wear leotards, and ballet shoes, something Hadley thinks is fantastic. Hadley's leotard even has a small rhinestone heart in the center. And sometimes, if the girls are good, the teacher hands them each a fancy wand and they run around the gym holding them high in complete glee.

There is one little girl in Hadley's class that doesn't speak much English. Before the class started one week, Hadley struck up a conversation with her. Her mother leaned toward me and explained in the best English she could, that her daughter was still learning English. I smiled and said "OK," and turned towards Hadley hoping she wouldn't lose interest in the girl because she wasn't talking back to Hadley.

The little girl was holding a purse with Dora on it, and Hadley said, "I really like your purse. My sister Harper loves backpacks but I think I like purses better." The girl opened the purse up and showed Hadley what was in it. She had a little doll that was similar to one we had - a prize from a kid's meal. Hadley said, "We have that same girl. Harper calls her a 'little buddy.'" Hadley giggled. The little girl looked at her and smiled.

Before long, the teacher began class, and Hadley and her new friend were jumping and leaping as only three year olds with pink leotards and ballet shoes can do. At that moment, that was all the conversation they needed.

No English by Jacqueline Jules explores the topic of children interacting with one another when they speak different languages. Blanca, a new girl from Argentina, enters Mrs. Bertams's second grade class, and her classmate Diane wonders how to talk to her since Blanca doesn't speak English yet.

At first Diane doesn't think it's fair that Blanca gets to draw pictures while she has to practice her spelling words. And after Diane understands that Blanca can't speak much English, she tries to help her, but through a failed conversation, Blanca thinks Diane is trying to steal her jump rope.

However, the two find a way to communicate, and become friendly. In fact, they become so friendly that they end up giggling uncontrollably in class, and are sent to the princpal's office. I found that, while I was nervous for Blanca and Diane as they sat and talked with Mr. Cowell, I was more happy for the girls because they found a friend in one another.

It reminded me of an incident I had in high school with my best friend. We were speaking the same language, but because high school girls play mind games the way they do, you almost need an English/High School Girl Speak Manual to survive. Anyway, through a series of unfortunate misunderstandings, we found ourselves in a fight in the hallway, and we were sent to the office.

We sat in the waiting room next to each other crying. We sat for a long time and eventually our sniffles became mumbles, which eventually became sentences, and at some point we found ourselves giggling like Blanca and Diane. My best friend looked at me and said, "We don't need to be here." She stood and walked out of the princpal's office, and I quickly (and a little nervously) followed her. By the time we got to our lockers we were laughing so hard my stomach hurt.

I look at the picture of Diane and Blanca holding hands in Mr. Cowell's office, and I think of Hadley and the little girl in ballet class. I also think of my best friend and I, and our silly fight. What's great about Diane and Blanca, Hadley and her new friend, and me and my best friend, is that our friendships are stronger then the words we can't always express. What I like about No English is that Diane and Blanca found a way to be friends despite the language barrier. Even though there were times when it was difficult or uncomfortable, Diane and Blanca stuck it out and as Diane says at the end of the book, they have a better understanding of each other: Blanca doesn't say, "'No English,' anymore. But she does still count in Spanish, 'uno,dos, tres....' We count along with her."

"In a Way We Understand Best" Miriam in the Desert by Jacqueline Jules

2010-10-17T18:17:00.000-07:00

Hadley has been in Sunday School for two years now at our church, and since she's started, we've been talking more about God. Where is God? Who is God? What is Heaven? How do we get there? Does God have a mustache?

I enjoy these conversations Hadley and I have about God, but I worry I don't answer her questions in a satisfying way. Where is God? Would she understand if I said I see Him in her little fingers and blue eyes? Or would that freak her out? Where is Heaven? If I told her I am not exactly sure where Heaven is but I thought maybe I was at its doorstep the first time I held her in my arms, can she appreciate that? Or would she prefer a description of a place where you play at a park all day and eat M and Ms and drink chocolate milk?

The best way I know to discuss issues such as faith with Hadley is through stories. Hadley likes a good story, and I have learned that our conversations become much richer when we delve into the pictures, characters, and plot. One book that has given Hadley and I an opportunity to think and talk about God is Miriam in the Desert by Jacqueline Jules. This is the story of Miriam and Bezalel as they walk through the desert after leaving Egypt. We've been reading it for the better part of a week now.

The first thing Hadley notices about stories is the pictures. While we were reading Miriam in the Desert, she would comment frequently on the people in each picture. I think the illustrator, Natascia Ugliano, did a great job of creating emotion in the people's faces, and one thing that I loved the most about this book, and that Hadley picked up on, was that people's faces were different when they were experiencing a gift from God, or hearing His voice.

For example, when the group wakes to find something that looks like "shining pearls" on the ground, and they eat it, Hadley notices that some people look worried, and some look happy. She didn't understand why everyone wasn't feeling the same way. Through reading the story out loud, Hadley and I learned that the people had different reactions to what they were eating. Some thought it tasted like honey, some like bread. "The flavor is special in each person's mouth," Miriam tells Bezalel.
"So not everyone liked it?" Hadley asked me.
"Well, I think they all liked it, it's just that they all had different reactions to having food suddenly when before there was none," I tell her.

My favorite part in this story is the part where God speaks to everyone from the mountain. I wonder if Hadley could tell this is an important part in the story by the change in the pictures. Instead of the color orange that dominates the background, for three or four pages, the colors are blues and purples. The people are much smaller, too, giving a sense of awe at what is about to happen.

When God speaks to the group, everyone had a different reaction as well. Hadley and I stop for awhile at this page with several people looking at one another, discussing what just happened. Hadley comments that they look afraid. When I read the words on the page, we learn that some thought the voice was a strong voice. Others heard the voice in a whisper. Miriam tells the group that "God speaks to each one of us in the way we understand best."

I love this sentence, and for me, it is an important concept that I want to teach both Hadley and Harper. Sometimes the girls and I will read Miriam in the Desert and we'll talk about Moses. Sometimes we'll read it and we'll talk about the cloud that leads them during the day, or the fire that leads them at night. Through this story I can help the girls learn about the Ten Commandments, and Bezalel, who Miriam told him, "God has made you an artist." And each time we read the story, we have a chance to listen to God speaking to us, in a "way we understand best." I'm thankful Miriam in the Desert helped Hadley and I begin to do just that.

Wednesday Letter- The Hunger Games

2010-10-13T19:23:00.000-07:00

This week, I have letters from two students who wrote about The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I chose to post these letters this week because I am currently reading the trilogy by Collins. I can't put the books down, but they are probably the most horrifying stories I think I've ever read.

I don't want to write too much because I want to let the students speak. I didn't edit anything that they wrote, so what you are reading is what they wrote.

One is written by Philip, who likes to write (although not so much in his free time), and specifically, likes to edit and make his writing "more colorful." "I really feel proud of myself when I write about a personal experience and a bored friend can really imagine him/herself being there and they start laughing. That's when I really know that my piece is good." Me too, Philip. Me too.

Dear Callie,
I am looking forward to reading Letters from Rapunzel, because it sounds like a really good book. It kind of reminds me of one of those diary books from the 17 and 18 hundreds. I've read a couple of them but I don't recall the names.

I am currently reading a realistic fiction book called The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. At first I didn't really want to read it because it sounded all too fake, but when lots of my friends continued recommending it to me, I just had to give in. My sister and I decided to start it on the same day and unfortunately she's way ahead of me.

The Hunger Games is about a girl named Katniss, whose sister is chosen to participate in the hunger games, but Katniss just has to volunteer to take her place because her sister is way younger than her and she has absolutely no fighting skills. While on the other hand Katniss is really good with the bow because of all her hunting experiences. She and her new partner Peeta have to compete with 22 other tributes, or warriors, to stay alive. Katniss swears to her sister that she will win the hunger games and on the inside she wants to let the Capitol know that she is not there for their entertainment.

I really believe that Katniss stands a good chance in winning the hunger games because she is very quick and accurate with the bow and Peeta is good with knives, fire, and camouflage. Together they make the perfect team, deadly....yet invisible. Peeta is so skillful at camoulflage that Katniss, at one point in the story, thinks that, "his face and arms are so artfully disguised as to be invisible."

I really like how Katniss and Peeta both risk their lives for one another, and how they pretend to be in love to be the favorite tributes of the gamblers in the Capitol. I am amazed at how well the author describes the futuristic inventions such as the medicinces, weird animals, and even simple things like awesome showers and electric currents that straighten your hair.

The main thing that I am learning from reading this book is to never give up, even if you're in the worst situation imaginable, because if you try hard enough, something good will come out of it. Katniss was about to die when the girl that was about to kill her was killed and so she got to run away. This really encourages me to never give up and even sometimes go the extra mile to reach my goal.

The next letter is written by Adrienne. Adrienne is a busy student who loves basketball, cross country, and track. She is also in choir and a part of the National Junior Honor Society. Reading is one of her favorite parts about English, and she particularly likes "Reading Wednesday" which to me sounds fabulous.

Dear Callie,
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon sounds like a very interesting and wonderful book. I can't wait to get started on it, and put it on my "reading wish list." I loved how you described the book in the summary. It made me get this great picture in my head, and a feeling for what the book is about, without even reading it. For example, when you said, "The most beautiful part of the story is when Minli has to cross the bridge alone because the dragon is too big." That sentene showed me what the book is about in terms of emotion, because I know I was sad when I read that part of your letter.

The book I want to talk to you about is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. The genre is science fiction. I had heard about this book many, many times and I thought I would give it a try. So I asked my friend Natalie Hetler (in my English class) for her copy because it was all checked out. After I read the book I understood why.

It starts out about a girl named Katniss Everdeen, and she lives in the poor town of district 12. There are eleven other districts including hers that are also a part of the traditional, hunger games. Katniss lives with her sister prim, and her mother, and as the hunger games started coming around they got nervous. The hunger games go like this, the capitol draws two names from each district every year. The only names that are put in the drawing are boys and girls from ages 12- 18. Then each year everyone comes to town for the reaping, which is the drawing of the names. Know you can imagine, just waiting there, praying your name won’t be called, because if it is you are sentenced to go out in the middle of nowhere, and fight to the death with 21 other people. Yes, that’s what the hunger games are. They put you out in some horrible place and expect you to stay alive without any food or supplies, and at the same time try to kill 21 other opponents. Odds are when you’re a young teenage girl like Katniss, trying to fight in who knows where, your going to be a little uneasy. I know I was sometimes.

This brings me to another part of the book. As you can tell, or are probably guessing, Katniss has to be in the hunger games. Remember when I said two names have to be drawn from the reaping? Well Katniss’s “right hand man” or partner, is Peeta Mellark. (He’s a boy, if you couldn’t tell.) All throughout the book Peeta and Katniss have a “pretend love” for each other. In the story Peeta says “Well, there is this one girl. I’ve had a crush on her ever since I can remember. But I’m pretty sure she didn’t know I was alive until the reaping”. Then Peeta leads the audience on and makes them believe he loves Katniss. The only reason he does that is because before the games you are interviewed for sponsors. Sponsors are people who send you food and supplies during the games because they believe you can win, and they want you to stay alive. So Peeta decided to make the interview interesting, and say that he loves Katniss on live television in front of everyone. But that’s not half of the drama, and the story unravels into a scheming plot that leads to romance, suspense, sadness, action, and many more.

I loved this book because I felt like I was going on the journey with Katniss. Suzanne Collins made it seem like I was playing in the hunger games too. I remember one time before school, I was reading the book on the bus, and I recollect getting into the book so much that I forgot where I was, and where I was going. Then when I got to school it felt surreal because I was in another world, another time, with Katniss Everdeen. For example when Katniss said,

“Once I’m on my feet, I realize escape might not be simple.

Panic begins to set in. I can’t stay here. Flight is essential. But I can’t let my fear show. “

The short sentences in this paragraph build the suspense, and that’s what makes this story so great. The way she explains her thoughts makes it seem like she’s talking to you, and interacting with you through the book.

I think that Philip, Adrienne, and I would all agree that The Hunger Games is a book that leaves a lot to think and talk about.

Round as a Mooncake

2010-10-12T07:39:00.000-07:00

Since my last post dealt with a book by Grace Lin, I thought I'd do another post with a book that she illustrated that Hadley likes. This one is called Round as a Mooncake by Roseanne Thong, and was given to Hadley from my sister-in-law, Shani.

In the story, a little girl walks through her home and neighborhood and notices things that are shaped like circles, squares, and rectangles. The thing that I like about this book of shapes is that it not only reinforces the concept of shapes, but it introduces another culture to Hadley as well. For example, when we are reading about squares, we learn about a name chop, a wood or stone stamp carved with a person's Chinese name, something that Hadley found fascinating. At the same time, the little girl notices that her mobile phone is shaped like a rectangle.

I thought a fun project to do with this book would be to notice things in our home that are shaped like circles, squares, and rectangles. Actually, there are three points during the story where the little girl asks her readers where they might see these shapes in their homes. So we stopped at each point and when the girls looked around for shapes, I took pictures of what they noticed.

Circles.

Squares (sort of).

And rectangles.

After we took several pictures, I printed them out and had Hadley tape them to a piece of butcher paper. I had a box for circles, squares, and rectangles, and she put them in the correct box.

We hung the picture on a wall in our playroom, but I wanted to do more with the book then this. I really wanted to find a way to intergrate shapes into our own heritage. But all I could think to do was make baklava or grape leaves, and cut slices of Gouda into rectangles. I must be running low on the creativity scale because I know there's more I could do to teach Hadley about her Dutch and Greek heritage, but I was tired that day.

So we did this instead:

I typed a letter to several of my friends' children. In the letter, we explain a little bit about Round as a Mooncake, and then ask the recipient to send her a picture of something in his or her house that is shaped like a circle, square, or rectangle. I thought that Hadley would think it's neat to add to her poster of shapes she started. Plus, I think she'll get a kick out of seeing where each of the pictures came from. She loves looking at maps, and she'll think it's cool that she got a letter from Colorado (you know who you are) or Texas (you know who you are).

I had Hadley write the child's name at the top of the letter, and sign her name at the bottom, and then we sent them off in the mail.

I'm excited to see what we get back.

Wednesday Letter - Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

2010-10-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

On Wednesdays, my posts will focus on my correspondence with a group of eighth graders and their teacher, Lisa Herschberger, who teaches English at Goshen Middle School in Goshen, Indiana. We will be writing about the books we are reading, and Lisa and I hope to model how to talk about a story in more ways then just summarizing what happened. We hope to post our letters to and from each other, as well as letters from the students.

Dear Lisa,

Mysterious Benedict Society is going on my "to read" list, but I want to read it with Hadley and Harper because I want to have the same experience you had reading it with Katie. To be "together in our own world" because of a story sounds lovely. It reminds me of a few years back when you, me, and Sarah read Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. Do you still have your jeans? I suppose that story is for another time.

The other reason Mysterious Benedict Society is going on my "to read" list is because I loved that the book explores the idea that there is more then one kind of intelligence, that it "comes in many different packages" as you wrote. And the idea that all the kids had to work together to move forward is so important. It seems like an ideal place to learn - where you figure out what you are good at and then help others to complete a task.

The book I want to talk about today is called Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. This is a book that I read for a book club that I'm in. We meet in Arlington, Virginia once a month and discuss children's literature. On this last meeting, the organizer of the group actually called Grace Lin and we got to talk to her about the book. It was so exciting!

The first thing that struck me before I even began reading Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is that the pages felt different then other books I've read. They were thicker. Also, there are 10 beautiful illustrations throughout the story, plus illustrations at the top of each chapter, and they're in color. For some reason, the layout of the book made me feel like I was about to read something very important and special.

The hardest part of talking about a book for me is writing a quick summary. I don't know if I'll write what's really important about the plot, or if I'll write what I remember and get it wrong, or leave a vital part out, etc. But basically Minli, the main character in the story, lives in a fruitless land and works very hard in the fields all day. She loves listening to stories her father tells her, but Minli's mother thinks the stories are useless. What good is a story if it doesn't put food on the table? For me, this was a huge theme in the book. Why are stories so important even when they don't bring us wealth? Anyway, Minli wants to do something to help her family's situation, and believes that if she can find the Old Man of the Moon and ask him why her family is poor, then she can help her mother be happy. Minli learned about the Old Man of the Moon through one of her father's stories, and this is where she got the idea. So Minli sets off on a wild adventure, and I followed along wide eyed.

There is so much I liked about this book, I'm not sure where to start. I liked that along Minli's travels, she would meet people that would explain something to her through a fairy tale. So while we are reading about Minlli, the story would break and we'd read about "The Story of the Paper of Happiness" or "The Story of the Dragon Gate." I liked this because I guess it felt like reading two books, but it also reinforced the idea that we tell (and create) stories to make sense of the way life is.

Along the way, Minli meets a dragon who becomes my favorite character. This is the sweetest dragon I've ever met, and he and Minli become best friends. The dragon can't fly, and wants to know why so Minli tells him to come along with her to ask the Old Man of the Moon. Probably the most beautiful part of the story is the part where Minli has to cross a long bridge and the dragon can't come with her because he's too big to cross it. So Minli goes by herself to see the Old Man of the Moon, and when she meets him she learns that she can only ask him one question. She must decide whether to ask why her family is poor, or why the dragon can't fly. I won't tell you what happens but I could read this part of the book over and over again.

While I'm writing this letter, I'm thinking about the story behind the book. Grace Lin's first husband died of cancer while she was writing Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. I think I remember hearing at some point in my book club that he told her to write this story and talk about all the places he wouldn't be able to go. I'm wondering now whether the dragon in the book represents Grace Lin's husband in some way. The dragon helped Minli get to a certain point in her journey, but couldn't go as far as Minli so he stays behind. In another scene, when the dragon brings Minli home to her parents, he stops at one point because of something he sees. The dragon acts differently after this point, and Minli wonders what is going on with him. After awhile he asks Minli if she can get to her village by herself because "for some reason, I feel as if I do not want to leave here....Strangely, I feel like I am home."

As hard as this is to wrap my head around, I'm wondering if this is Grace Lin's way of somehow "letting go" of her first husband. Minli loves the dragon, and the dragon loves Minli. But both of them have other places they need to be. I was so sad when Minli and the dragon parted, but it made sense that they couldn't travel together any more. And we see that both of them are very happy in the end of the story. It's not as though they've moved on and forgotten one another, rather, they are where they are and who they are because of one another.

I hear a lot that people like to read to leave what's going on in their world behind. I understand the appeal to this, but I like to enter a world through a book and take something back with me. As I wrote in the beginning of the letter, I think that stories are great ways to learn about your own life, and make meaning of the world around you. I know that idea was reinforced for me in Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.

When I was reading your students' letters to me, I learned that several of them liked to draw and also like to write and read fantasy. I think they would really enjoy this book, especially the artists in your class. The pictures are amazing. Of course, so is the story.

Sincerely,
Callie

Star of the Day Brings In Potty Humor

2010-10-05T11:43:00.000-07:00

Hadley came home last week from preschool and told me that she gets to be "Star of the Day" on Tuesday. Sure enough, in her school bag was a cute tote with the words "Star of the Day" in glittery bubble paint. Attached to the tote was a note that said the Star of the Day gets to bring a book to school that s/he would like to share.

If I had to guess which book Hadley would want to share, I would've said a Frances book, or Fancy Nancy, or maybe Franklin. She also loves the alphabet, so maybe she would've thought Chicka Chicka Boom! Boom! or The Sleepy Little Alphabet would've been good to share with her classmates. Hadley didn't choose these, though. The book Hadley wanted to share with her classmates was Potty Animals.

Hadley told me on Thursday this was the book she wanted to share, but over the weekend, and most of Monday I tried to talk with her about the other great books she owns that maybe she'd like to bring instead. Nope. Potty Animals was the book she was going to take.

I'm a huge fan of Potty Animals. I bought the book specifically after Hadley was potty trained because I realized that while she had the "going to the bathroom" thing down, the other rules of etiquette were lacking. Instead of me throwing a fit because she doesn't see why playing "fishing pole" with toilet paper half in/half out of the toilet is totally disgusting, I figured having her read about animals who have the same habits might be more effective. And it worked! These animals did the same things Hadley did, and they (and Hadley) learned that their habits were not appropriate, in a way that doesn't make me half gag - half scream, "You did WHAT in there?!?!"

So it's a great book, but I was just nervous that the teacher might think it's not appropriate. But it didn't matter because Hadley was bringing this book to school.

On Monday morning Hadley woke up before her sister and she and I sat on the playroom floor and read books for awhile. After a few books, Hadley decided that we should put them in piles of "funny" and "not funny."

So that's what we did.

Olivia is funny. Painting on the walls? Funny! Trying on every piece of clothing before deciding on an outfit? Funny! Green Eggs and Ham is funny too. Who wouldn't chuckle when being presented with eggs and ham that are green? Great stuff. Potty Animals is at the bottom of the funny pile. On the other side you will see Franklin Goes to the Hospital. Definetely not funny. Fancy Nancy Bonjour Butterfly was also in the not funny pile because Nancy couldn't go to Bree's birthday party and instead had to go to her grandparents 50th anniversary party.

We had a dilemma with The Sleep Little Alphabet. Hadley didn't think the book was that funny except for this part:

What's not hilarious about taking off one's underpants and throwing it in the air? I tried to tell Hadley that because of this page alone, the book should be in the funny pile. But it didn't make the cut. It was sent to the "not funny" pile.

As we read the books, and sorted them, I realized that Hadley wanted to bring in a story that is funny. It wasn't that she didn't like the "not funny" stories. In fact, when we got to Frances, a decidedly "not funny" (although I beg to differ) book, Hadley said, "Ooooooo, Frances! I better stand up for this one!" Apparently Frances deserves the utmost respect while reading her stories. But Hadley wanted to bring in a story that would make other people laugh. When I pick her up from school, the first thing Hadley does is tell me who she made laugh that day. So Potty Animals was brought with the intention of making people laugh.

I wrote a note to the teacher and taped it to the book with a mild apology. I said I hoped it wouldn't cause too many problems, but that Hadley was quite excited to share this book with her classmates. When I picked her up from school Hadley's teacher looked at me and said, "Great book!" I said, "Really?" She said, "Yea! We need to be reminded of washing hands and things like that." Washing hands, fine. It was the "things like that" I was nervous about.

Driving away, Hadley said that a little friend of hers, didn't laugh at Potty Animals. I said, "Well, you didn't laugh the first time we read it together either. Sometimes you have to read things a few times to understand why they're funny. Not everyone can appreciate the humor in someone tinkling on his or her shoes."

The World Needs People Like Ida and Melinda

2010-10-01T10:46:00.000-07:00

The night before Hadley started preschool, we read Dotty by Erica S. Perl together. I ordered it special for Hadley because after reading about it on Erica's blog, I thought it would be the perfect fit for my girl with the huge imagination.

Hadley and I meet Ida, who goes to school with her new lunch box and her pal Dotty. I can't do Dotty justice by trying to describe what she looks like. I will just say that the illustrator, Julia Denos, made Hadley gasp with glee when she first saw Dotty on the page.

Dotty is Ida's imaginary friend, and follows Ida around on a leash. When Ida goes to school, she learns that her other classmates have imaginary friends too, however, as the school year continues, and "the green finally returns," Ida finds that Dotty is the only one around.

In one part, Ida is sitting on a swing, Dotty's leash in hand, when Katya, one of her classmates, comes to sit next to her. She begins to tease Ida about Dotty in that subtle way that girls do, and in a scene that took our breath away, Dotty shoves Katya to the ground.

When I read a book that I love, it's hard to know what to emphasize.There is so much I love about Dotty. I love the pictures. I love the part where Katya and Ida write apology notes to each other, and in their own handwriting, they creatively find a way to say they're sorry without really being sorry. I love Ms Raymond's role in the story. She asks Ida who Dotty is, and in a terribly emotional scene, Ida can't tell her. Ms Raymond is the teacher I hoped I always was. She doesn't push Ida for information, but instead, asks Ida if she would mind explaining to Dotty that shoving is inappropriate behavior for the classroom. And then Ms Raymond pulls a leash out of her desk and hands it to Ida. "Oh, I'm sorry. That one's mine." She then gives Ida Dotty's leash. In the last scene, Ms Raymond walks out with Gert, a kind of giraffe/antelope hybrid, and says to her pal, "..no snacking on the way home. You know it spoils your dinner."

Around the same time Hadley and I were reading Dotty, another book, Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, came under attack. A loud mouth who I'm sure hasn't read the book, decided that the story isn't appropriate and I believe went so far as to call it "soft porn." I was upset about this judgement, as ridiculous as it is, because I love Speak. And while I haven't been through what Melinda has been through, the story left a mark on me. Like Dotty, I could palpably remember what it feels like to grow up.

The reason I write both about Dotty and Speak in the same post is because when I read that Speak was under attack, I thought, "So if they take that one off the shelves, who draws the line at other books?" Even though Dotty is a different situation, for me, my throat gets tight when I read it because like Halse, Perl is writing about something that is real. I never want my girls to go through what Melinda did, but to miss out on seeing Melinda find her voice again would be a tragedy. And what a lovely thing to have a story like Dotty so Hadley and eventually Harper learn that if you want to have an imaginary friend, by all means, have one! Don't let the Katya's of the world tell you any differently. Do I want my girls to know pain? No. Will they? Yes. And I believe that by reading stories like Dotty and Speak they can hold the hands of Ida and Melinda while they themselves grow up.

In the book Shouts and Whispers, edited by Jennifer L. Holberg, Katherine Paterson quotes Flannery O'Connor in an essay called "Image and Imagination." O'Connor says, "Fiction is about everything human and we are made of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty than you shouldn't write fiction." Katherine Paterson goes on to ask, "....is fiction possible where there is no fall? I don't think that it is. Isn't it the broken image, the damaged image of God in humankind, that is the stuff of fiction, whether we're speaking of Peter Rabbit or Anna Karenina?" Barbara Brown Taylor writes in an essay called "Way Beyond Belief" that words create a "....memory of having felt deeply alive for a moment - or profoundly sad - or so close to the pulsing truth of things that all the hair on your arms stood up." Why is all this important? Because I believe that reading stories teaches us how to live. I want my girls to know how to live, even when bad things happen.

I'm finishing up this post while Hadley is pulling a stuffed animal around on a leash. The leash is actually a couple of hair ribbons I tied together and clipped to the animal's ear. I can hear her talking to him, or her (the gender changes on a daily basis). She's telling him that it's time to go for a walk. "Maybe we'll find a park later, but I'm not sure you can swing by yourself. You can watch me swing or take a nap while I play." Hadley's been pulling different animals around on homemade leashes since she's read Dotty, and when I watch her do this, I see that Erica S. Perl opened Hadley's world up a little more, and gave her another way to use her imagination. And for that, I am very thankful.

Wednesday Letter - The Mysterious Benedict Society

2010-09-29T05:07:00.000-07:00

On Wednesdays, my posts will focus on my correspondence with a group of eighth graders and their teacher, Lisa Herschberger, who teaches English at Goshen Middle School in Goshen, Indiana. We will be writing about the books we are reading, and Lisa and I hope to model how to talk about a story in more ways then just summarizing what happened. We hope to post our letters to and from each other, as well as letters from the students.

Dear Callie,

I was so excited to get your letter. I enjoyed reading the poem by Sara Lewis Holmes, as well as the excerpt from her blog. The part about eating cupcakes and painting her toes was a great example of “showing” instead of “telling” the reader an idea. We’ve been studying that in class, so it was a good reminder for us.

Letters from Rapunzel sounds like a fantastic book, and I have added it to my list of books I want to read. When you mentioned that you love to read books in letter form, I thought of Letters from Rifka, by Karen Hesse, which is one of my favorite historical fiction novels. I loved it because the letter form helped me connect with the character, even though she was from a different time period. It’s been a long time since I read it, so I won’t go into detail here, but I highly recommend it!

The book I want to talk about today is The Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee Stewart. I had heard about this book from a few of my students last year and added it to my “Someday” list because I was really intrigued. When my daughter brought the book home from school one day a few weeks ago, I decided to read it along with her.

The Mysterious Benedict Society is one of the most unique books I have ever read. It’s about a boy named Reynie Muldoon, who responds to an ad in the newspaper recruiting “gifted children looking for special opportunities”. He is asked to complete a series of tests and challenges to see if he qualifies for this “opportunity”. Reynie passes the tests, along with three other kids. The four are sent to see Mr. Benedict, who informs them that he needs them for an important mission: to go undercover to the “Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened” and foil the plan of the evil Mr. Curtain, who is plotting to take control of society. During their quest, the kids are presented with a series of puzzles and mysteries to solve. One of the things I like about this story is that I was able to try to solve these right along with the characters. I love brain-teasers, and this story was full of them.

This book reminded me of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl, with its quirky, mysterious characters. For instance, one of the characters, who administers the test to the kids, is called the “Pencil Lady”, because she is tall and skinny and wears a yellow dress, making her look like a pencil. She gives mysterious non-answers when she’s asked a question, just like Willy Wonka in the Chocolate Factory. At one point, when Reynie asks her if she is lying to him, she answers, “That’s a perfectly reasonable question, Reynard. A perfectly reasonable question.” But she doesn’t answer him, which just adds to the mystery.

I also enjoy the subtle word play that is used throughout the story. I appreciate that the author respects his audience enough to trust that we will “get” the underlying jokes. At one point, the Pencil Lady tells the kids, to their horror, that “if any child is caught cheating, then he or she will be executed . . .”, only to later reassure them that she meant to say they would be “escorted from the building.” As another example of word play, one of the settings is “Nomansan Island”. This highlights one of the themes of the story: the fact that ‘no man’s an island’ . . . all four of the main characters must use their individual strengths together as a team in order to have any hope of solving the mystery, or even of surviving.

That brings me to what I like the best about this book. It explores the idea that intelligence comes in many different packages. The characters have very different strengths, and none of them would be able to complete the mission without the help of the others. One of them has a great memory for facts; another can perform almost any physical feat; still another is great at solving puzzles and “thinking outside the box”. They are all smart in their own way. It takes them a while to figure that out, but once they do, the results are astounding. This reminds me of a favorite quote of mine, by Albert Einstein: "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” I need to look for the unique gifts of my students, even if I have to dig a little sometimes. I wish every parent and teacher would do that!

I think a lot of middle school students – boys and girls – could really enjoy this book. As I was reading, I was asking myself which of the characters I could best identify with and which ones I would probably like the best. My answers kept changing as I was reading, which makes me think that a lot of different kids could relate to the story. It is a great mix of mystery, humor, and even a little science fiction. Many times as we were reading side by side, my daughter or I would laugh out loud or say, “I can’t believe that just happened!” and then go on to talk about our thoughts. My husband would ask what we were talking about, and we couldn’t explain it – we were together in our own world, with our shared understandings. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Thanks for reading my long letter. I tend to have trouble stopping myself once I start talking about a book I love. I’m looking forward to hearing about what you’re reading next!

Sincerely,

Lisa

Washington DC Doesn't Know It, But It's Fall!

2010-09-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

My book club this morning focused on Linda Glaser's story It's Fall!, a lovely story about the observations a young child makes as he's playing outside. I think the illustrations in the book are quite impressive. The artist, Susan Swan, used cut and hand painted paper to create the pictures. This method seems to really make the pictures pop out of the page. I almost felt cold while reading the story.

Almost.

As I'm typing this on the second day of Autumn, it is 97 degrees in the Washington DC area. We didn't get the memo that it's time to put away the flip flops and turn off the A/C. But that didn't stop my little book club from enjoying the book and doing a few activities to go along with it.

First, we talked about what seasons are. Hadley right away described a time when it snows and we get really cold. Another member of the group brought up the Fourth of July. We talked about the differences in weather in these two times of year, and I told them we go through four seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. I told the group that I would be reading a story about Autumn because that's the season we are in, despite how blasted hot it is outside. (Sorry. I think that's the last time I'll say something about the weather.)

So we read the story, and because one of the things it focused on was the changing of the leaves, we made 3-D trees.

I cut paper plates in half for the tree part, then had the kids dip a cotton ball in water, swirl it in some paint (we tried to encourage the kids to use "fall colors"), and dab it on the plate. For the trunk, I cut two slits in toilet paper rolls, and slid the "tree" part in the slits.

I think they turned out pretty cute. Of course, Hadley and Harper were using them later to fan themselves due to the extreme heat, so I guess they could be used as fans as well. (Sorry. Maybe that will be the last comment about the weather.)

After our tree project, we went outside on a little nature walk to see if we could find some of the things that were mentioned in the book we read. I gave each of the girls a bag, and they walked all over collecting pinecones, leaves, and a few acorns.

After we collected several items, we sat down outside and decorated some pinecones. We painted them with glue, and dusted glitter over them. Sort of Christmas - y, I know, but I get confused in the extreme heat. (Sorry. That's probably the last comment about the weather. Except if I make another one.)

We also did some leaf rubbings with the leaves we collected.

We finished our time together with a festive snack of cinnamon applesauce, and homemade cookies in the shape of trees and pumpkins. These were made by a very generous mother and the kids thoroughly enjoyed them!

Wednesday Letter - Letters from Rapunzel

2010-09-21T14:50:00.000-07:00

On Wednesdays, my posts will focus on my correspondence with a group of eighth graders and their teacher, Lisa Herschberger, who teaches English at Goshen Middle School in Goshen, Indiana. We will be writing about the books we are reading, and Lisa and I hope to model how to talk about a story in more ways then just summarizing what happened. We hope to post our letters to and from each other, as well as letters from the students.

Dear Lisa,

For my first letter, I want to write about a book called Letters from Rapunzel by Sara Lewis Holmes. I wanted to read this story for a few reasons. First, I read Ms Holmes' blog, and I like her writing a lot. The other day she wrote a post explaining why she hadn't been blogging lately. Instead of saying something like, "I haven't been blogging because I've been living my life.", she talks about making root beer float cupcakes and painting her toes "every color from Russian Navy to Diva of Geneva." What a lovely picture. I wonder if she ate the cupcakes while she was painting her toes?

I also love Ms Holmes poetry. Here is a poem of hers that creeped up on me, softly spoke to me for awhile, and left too soon, taking a part of me with it.

The Bones of January

I love the plainness of January

when I have taken down my Christmas

finery, and in the shock

of my home stripped bare, I see

the corners of my rooms

again. And outside, all is

stark, gray, glorious

with no false beauty to help me

pretend that I am satisfied.

In January, I kneel beside my children’s

sleeping faces, and let them break

the leafless branches

that cage my chest.

And outside, all is

undone. Roots rend

the earth like bones.

How did this happen?

That all should be taken

down–

and that love,

love should be plain

as January?

---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

Letters from Rapunzel arrived at my door last week, and I was excited to get started because I love books that are made up of letters. I think the first book I read on my own was Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary, and I stuck with it because I felt like I was reading someone's personal letters. I guess that makes me sound like a snoop, but really, I think letter writing is fantastic. What a lovely thing to sit down with a favorite pen, some nice stationary, and the confidence to know that the person you are writing wants to hear from you.

Cadence is the main character in the story, and she writes letters to Post Office Box #5667, signing them all "Rapunzel." She calls herself Rapunzel because she is trapped. Not so much like Rapunzel in the fairy tale, but she finds herself in an after-school homework club that feels a lot like the tower Rapunzel was trapped in. She has to spend time here now because her father is no longer at home in the afternoons to pop popcorn, drink root beer, and write poetry while she works on homework. Cadence believes he is under an evil spell and when she finds a portion of a letter he wrote to P.O. Box #5667, she decides to write letters to the person at this PO Box too, in hopes of finding out more about her father.

I liked this book a lot. First, I liked the observations Cadence makes. In one of her letters, she says that she prefers hand writing her letters to typing them. "Somehow they'd feel different if I were typing them. Why is that?" I like to hand write better then typing, too. I seem to think more carefully when I write my words out.

I also like Cadence's thoughts on Rapunzel and the other fairy tales like "Princess and the Pea" and "Cinderella." In one letter she wonders why Rapunzel never gets any older, but her hair keeps growing. Cadence notes that hair grows about six inches each year. "In the pictures, Rapunzel's hair is always about ten feet long, which would mean she'd have been in the tower about eighteen years (assuming her hair's already a foot long when the witch locks her in at thirteen years). She never gets any older in that tower, but her hair does! How weird is that?" Cadence also renames the title of a few fairy tales and I think they're so funny. She calls Cinderella, "The Complete Chronicles of Cinderella, from Fireplace to Fame, and All the Juicy Details in Between." My favorite is the tale of Goldilocks - "The True Tale of Goldilocks; and Her Adventures with Three Nameless Bears and Assorted Bowls of Porridge."

I think what I like the most about this book is Cadence's journey "into the woods." Cadence writes that "whenever one of us (she or her dad) is scared to try something new, we dare each other to go 'into the woods'", to a place where things might be scary or sad. I might be wrong, but I think I remember that in some fairy tales, the woods served as a place where the main characters shouldn't go. It's where bad things happen; things we shouldn't know about. But Cadence writes about going into the woods despite being scared or sad, because she wants to know the truth about what is going on with her father. In one scene when she learns what's happened with him, and she is truly in the thick of "the woods," surrounded by fear and sadness, she remembers something her dad wrote once: "You must be willing to have your heart broken in order to live." Cadence says that despite having her heart broken, she would do everything she did again. "Because otherwise I'd just be a silly princess, waiting for rescue."

I think Letters from Rapunzel is a great book for any of your eighth grade girls to read. Cadence is a strong, witty character and someone who I would want to be friends with if I were an eighth grade girl. If I were in the after school homework program with her, I would try to sit next to her, and after slyly passing a piece of bubble gum to her, I'd ask if she'd want to write a story together. Or maybe just talk about poetry for a little while.

I am looking forward to hearing about what you and your students are reading!

Sincerely,

Callie

Where I'm From

2010-09-19T04:52:00.000-07:00

I stopped by The Book Chook yesterday and tried my hand at the writing prompt she had on her post. It was fun and I ended up on her post. Check it out! (Follow the link in this post.)

Doesn't Everybody Like A Story?

2010-09-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

I got scolded once for reading outloud to my middle school students. I was told that they should be reading for themselves, and my reading to them was simply enabling them. I nodded my head and probably said something like "Thanks for your input", but it didn't stop me. I loved to read out loud to my kids. I remember once during a unit on Walk Two Moons the class and I could barely get through the scene where Sal's grandpa keeps taking those "darn snakes" out of his car to fix the "car-bust-er-ator." The kids were giggling so much, and I couldn't keep a straight face either. Or when, in the book Holes we meet the Warden for the first time. The anxiety was almost palpable.

The beauty of reading outloud, for me anyway, was that once I hooked the kids it didn't matter what was going on during the day with them. I could pick up the book we were reading and the room would grow silent. "Shut up! She's gonna read!" I loved that no matter who it was: shy girl, popular girl, bully, sports nut, they all lost themselves when the story started.

I thought about that tonight when Hadley and I read our stories together before she went to bed.

We talked a lot about Foo Foo the Snoo, and crocodile collars this evening. We practiced reading with one eye shut, and talked a little bit about why the Cat in the Hat is in the book I Can Read With My Eyes Shut. Before we started reading, Hadley wasn't super excited about going to sleep. We had a little argument and it was a disruption, but once we started to read stories she and I got to share a few moments being in another world.

I love the scene in "You've Got Mail" where Meg Ryan says, "Once you read a story it becomes a part of you." Is it identifying with a character? Is it being in another place for awhile? Is it the ability to see your problems or life in a different light? Whatever it is about reading, I agree. The stories become part of us. And reading them with friends, children, students, etc. seems to form a tight bond too. I am thankful that no matter what has happened during the day, Hadley, and now Harper will have stories read to them before they go to bed. I love sitting with them, pointing out objects with Harper, or discussing what, exactly, a "snoo" is with Hadley. I know the stories they read are becoming part of them. I hope they help us to remain a part of each other as well.

Summer's End

2010-09-07T12:03:00.000-07:00

There is a great section in our library with seasonal books that I like to look through when I have a chance (read: I'm not running around after my kids stating over and over, "You need to be quiet in a library! Sshhh!! Sshhh! SSHHH!!!!!"). A few weeks ago I perused the fall section and found Summer's End by Maribeth Boelts. It is now my official "favorite book of Summer 2010," and perhaps will be one of my favorites of the year.

My instinct was to find books about starting school since Hadley will be in preschool this year. However, Hadley isn't anxious at all about going to school. If there is anything she's concerned about it is that she won't be able to return to school, or that she won't stay in school for as long as she likes. I didn't want to read a book to her that might focus on someone being nervous about school, but I do like to read stories that mark time, and Summer's End describes the end of summer beautifully. "The locusts are back, buzzing, and Great-Grandpa says that it means six weeks until the frost comes, and that means summer is almost over, and that means school is almost here." It always seemed that when the locusts came around it was August, the hottest part of summer, and I remember thinking as I heard them buzz that school would be starting soon. And even though the main character, Jill, is not particularly looking forward to starting school, she marks the end of summer and the preparations she makes for school in a peaceful, nostalgic way.

Jill mourns the fact that she has to wear new shoes, "black ones with the gold streaks of lightning" and would rather run around with her "summer-tough" feet. Her new school clothes are uncomfortable, and she's not looking forward to making sure she is careful in them. She gets a haircut and school supplies and has to clean her room before school starts. She tidies up but keeps things she's collected over the summer like shells from the beach and "a snakeskin that the boa constrictor at the petting zoo shed." I stop for a second and ask Hadley what she will remember about her summer. She tells me, "Going to the Blue Mountains." She's talking about the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I agree that was a fun time. I ask her if there is anything else and she says, "Fishing with Grandpa and eating ice-cream."

On the last day of summer, Jill has her friends over and they "swim until the pool is full of grass, and have a war, and play three innings, and eat a root beer popsicle, and by then it is only noon. We sit on the porch and slap at flies and watch how carefully the man across the street mows his lawn. There is nothing left to do." So they begin talking about school. I love how the author subtly writes that Jill and her buddies are getting bored. It reminds me of how I felt at the end of every school year in high school and college. I would be so excited to "just have a job" and no school work, but by the end of the summer I would be itching to use my new pens, and mark up my new notebooks. Even though there is anxiety about what the year would bring, there is excitement, too. And I like how Summer's End shows this.

Jill's little sister is a little apprehensive on the first day of school, so Jill tells her all the neat things her teacher will do with her that year. When they get to school, the girls see their groups of friends and dash over towards them. Jill tells us that she runs "just as fast and as sure as my lightning shoes can carry me."

Habit

2010-09-01T05:59:00.000-07:00

Several months ago I read a blog post by a mother who took her children outside one afternoon with a stack of books. She laid a blanket down, and the children spent the afternoon reading. She posted a picture that I can't get out of my head. She'd taken a shot of her coffee cup, which was a beautiful teal and in it the coffee looked delicious. The coffee had just been poured because it still had the bubbles in it, so I knew it was fresh. Next to her coffee was something that looked like a knitting project she'd been working on. And of course, there was a book next to that. Lovely picture. (I know it's a big no-no not to link back to a person's blog, but I can't remember what blog it was. But woman with the teal coffee cup, the knitting, and the reading children: your picture was pretty cool.)

I looked at the picture and thought, "Hey! I want to do that with my kids!" I mean, I don't knit. But I love coffee and I love to read. So why not give it a try? One afternoon after the girls woke up, I packed a little bag of books for them, and some reading for me and we headed outside. It didn't work too well. The girls wanted to play and I wanted to read. They ended up running around while I read Vogue (I figured I should bring out something light since I wasn't sure how much attention I could give to my reading).

I tried again after I read a post about a "Book-nic" in Booklights. Basically, instead of food, you put books on a blanket and read them. The day I planned to have a "Book-nic" it was sweltering hot and I didn't want to sit outside, so I set it up inside. This time, I took out not only reading books, but activity books I thought the girls would like to work on. My sister-in-law, Shani, gave Hadley a book called The Scribble Book by Herve Tullet that is so much fun so I assumed it would be a hit. And I took out a Sesame Street Sticker Book that Harper has enjoyed from time to time, too. I figured having a variety of literature would work well. Oh, and I made snacks. Snacks go with everything, right?

My "Book-nic" didn't really work out so well. Hadley kept asking to watch TV, and Harper ended up putting stickers all over her legs and arms. Neither of them was in a reading mood, I guess.

That's Hadley underneath the blanket.

Harper was into the Elmo's Big Lift and Look Book (another winner from Auntie Shani).

I tried, but it wasn't the warm-cup-of-coffee-peaceful-reading-afternoon I was hoping for.

However, I have noticed that the girls do choose to read during the day from time to time. We read to them every day before bed and naptime, and I love that, but I also love that they like to pick up books and take a look at them by themselves.

Perhaps it's the modeling of reading that is important and not so much the activity. That's fine, but I'm still dreaming of an afternoon of reading quietly with my girls and drinking a nice cup of coffee. Maybe that'll happen when I learn how to knit.

The Best Laid Plans

2010-08-14T13:45:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, what you plan doesn't always go the way you think it will go. As a former teacher and now as a mother, I understand this. There was the time in '99 when I planned an activity that I thought would take 45 minutes and it took 5, and I wasn't sure what to do with the remaining time. One of my students picked up on this and asked, "Is this what we are supposed to be doing for the rest of the time?" I told him that yes, it was all we were going to be doing. He replied with an, "Alllllllrighhhht!!!!!" It went downhill from there.

Or there was the time in '07 when Jesse and I were determined to make excellent time on our drive from DC to the midwest for Christmas. We buckled Hadley in the carseat, armed with plenty of snacks, books, and juice. She promplty threw up 3 or 4 times in the first hour we had been driving. Thinking she had Swine Flu, SARS, or whatever the sickness du jour it was, we turned around and went home, only to get back in the car 8 hours later.

So the conclusion is that there are times when you're in the middle of an activity and you think, "Hmmmm, this could've gone better." When I write "you" I mean me.

Such was the case with my Book Club yesterday. I planned activities around the book, In the Small, Small Pond by Denise Fleming. First, we'd read the book, then made these cute little frogs.

This child, right here? She's a trouble maker. Don't be fooled by what you might think is someone carefully coloring. That's about the only marker that got on paper. She drew on her pants, and all over the floor. Don't even get me started on what happened when we got out the glue sticks. At one point a mother said, "Harper, that's not lipstick."

After the frogs, I gave each child a large piece of paper and told them they were going to create their own pond. I cut out pictures of ducks, racoons, dragonflies, fish, and turtles (all things mentioned in the story), and asked them to color them and place them on their pond picture. After this, I thought we'd read the story again and using the frog that we made, we'd move him (or her, I'm all about equal opportunity) from one animal to the next as the story was told.

This child right here? The one with the green shirt on? She was all, "I'm not doing this. I don't like to color." Who brings these kids? And then, when we read the story again she was all upset because she couldn't move her frog to the different animals because she didn't color or glue any.

We played frog bingo, and that seemed to be fun for the group. I printed out a bunch of frogs and put numbers on them then called out several as the kids wrote an "X" on the correct number.

I think the activities were good, but it was chaotic. And my girls were the contributors of it. Harper ranted and screamed, because, forbid it that I should pay attention to anyone other then her, and to show me how annoyed she was she glued her lips together. And Hadley decided to go on a color strike. It's alright. Next time (September 24-sign up mommies! I know you will after this post.) I'll be more prepared.

There is one thing that happened that I think you can't pull off no matter how prepared you are. I told the group to watch the frog in the story (because the story is told from the frog's point of view). They looked for him in each picture, and one of the little girls noticed that on one page he looked "serious." We stopped and took a look at the frog and pondered what might make him look serious. His eyes? What was going on in the picture? I loved that she noticed that.

This is why I love talking about books - even with 3-5 year olds. To hear what people observe, appreciate, found funny or touching about a story is one of my favorite things. I think reading the story was the best part of the morning. And really, it should be.

To Make Less Tense

2010-08-09T15:47:00.000-07:00

This was hung on one of the walls in a home where my family and I were staying last week. We were on a little vacation in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I took a picture of it because it's good for me to remember what the definition of "relax" is. Of course, knowing the definition and actually doing it are two different things.

One thing I did to aide in my relaxation was bring along a Sarah Dessen book. I first read one of her books a few years ago when I was pregnant with my first daughter, Hadley. I had a terrible cold and was afraid to take anything for it (due to the pregnancy), so to try to keep my mind off of being sick, I picked up This Lullaby and had no problem entering the young adult world. I like Sarah Dessen books because I can pick out characters that remind me of friends I had when I was in high school. I also like that she captures the pleasant moments of growing up even in the midst of teenage drama, however real or serious the drama is. The other thing I enjoy about her books is that the adults in them are more then one dimension. They have their own story to tell and while they're not perfect, she shows, empathetically, that they love their children.

Anyway, the book I took along was Along for the Ride. The main character, Auden, doesn't sleep at night. This started when she realized her parents began to fight when she and her brother went to sleep. So to try and prevent them from fighting, she wouldn't go to sleep. Her parents end up splitting up, but Auden still can't sleep at night, and decides that while she can't control relationships - friends, parents, boyfriends, etc. - she can control academics. So she throws herself into that world. I think she understands she's missing out on experiences, like having a best friend, but she decides it's safer to invest in academics then it is to invest in making friends.

I read these YA books now with my girls in mind. It used to be that I'd enter into the teenage world and wax nostalgic about my own high school life. I still do that, but if a story resonates with me, I'll file it away and hope that perhaps one day Hadley and Harper will enjoy and learn from the stories they read.

For example, I hope they don't have the problem of not being able to sleep, especially because they're trying to find something that is controllable or reliable. But if they struggle with something, I hope they can take a story like Along for the Ride and see that even though making friends, having boyfriends, finding your way in the world is scary, it's also quite exciting.

Auden becomes friends with a girl named Maggie, someone who Auden assumes is shallow and only cares about fashion and boys. But Maggie is smart and funny, and I think Auden likes her effervescence. The point where Maggie and Auden become friends, Auden is having a rough time with her mom and Maggie sits with her for a bit. Auden says, "It was all new to me, from that second on. But clearly, she'd been there before. It was obvious in the easy way she shrugged off her bag, letting it fall with a thump onto the sand, before sitting down beside me. She didn't pull me close for a big bonding hug, or offer up some saccharine words of comfort, both of which would have sent me running for sure. Instead, she gave me nothing but her company, realizing even before I did that this, in fact, was just what I needed."

I can't relate to Auden's issues with her parents, but I understand her feelings of being hurt and hesitant to make friends. Maggie reminded me of my best friend in high school. When I met her junior high, I was confused about how to go about making friends. The ones I'd had the past 12 years didn't seem super interested in hanging out with me anymore (they were proabably going through the same middle school stuff most of us go through), so when Celena walked up to me one afternoon at lunch I remember being flustered and unsure of what to say. But it wasn't long before she and I were laughing together and being worried about saying something stupid, or whether I was cool enough for her became a distant memory.

If Hadley or Harper ever read Along for the Ride, I am sure they'll get wrapped up in the love story between Auden and Eli. It's sweet, and if they must hang out with boys, I hope that they find interesting ones to spend their time with. I thought Eli was interesting. And while I won't blame them for getting swept away with the love story, I hope they can relate to the friendship Auden and Maggie have as well. Learning how to relax is very hard, and so is making a great friend. But once you learn how to do it, once you find another kindred spirit, life becomes quite pleasant.

A Post About the Time I Declared My Love for Snape to (almost) Strangers

2010-07-28T17:03:00.000-07:00

Last night I got some advice about blogging, and one of the things that was suggested I do is write a post explaining a little bit about myself. This is difficult for me to do for a couple of reasons. The first one is, I don't like to do it. When I have to do this, I can only think about things that would scare people. Like the fact that I get really annoyed that the lines on college ruled paper are not as narrow as they used to be. (I've measured them.)

The second reason I don't like to do this is that I can't believe that anyone really cares. If you come here at all, you are thinking about books, not about learning that I cried in the movie "Ghost Dad." Starring Bill Cosby.

However, I might've found a way to address both my love of stories with my apprehension to share. So here goes.

Last night, we were invited over to a new friend's house for dinner. She is my new blogger friend who happens to live nearby. I recently joined the DC KidLit Book Club, which she started, so I knew if all else failed, we'd be able to talk about books.

Oh my goodness, did I have fun. She showed me an autographed copy of Jerry Pinkney's The Lion and the Mouse. This year's Caldecott Winner. It's signed not only by Pinkney, but I believe his publisher or agent as well. "Because," she told me, "I believe everyone has value." So she tries to get as many signatures on a book as possible.

She told me she went to Brandeis, and then said that she always gets three responses: "I've heard of it," "Never heard of it," or, "You must be Jewish." I told her that's what everyone says to me too, when they hear I went to Calvin. Except that the last sentence is usually "You must be Christian Reformed." I should've added Dutch to the statement as well. "But," I added quickly, "that's where Gary Schmidt teaches." And then the topic turned to his book Trouble. We both agreed that was our favorite of his books. "He was robbed of the Newberry," she said. I agreed wholeheartedly.

When we sat down for dinner the discussion turned to Harry Potter. This woman is a Harry Potter whiz. Ask her anything about the books, and she can give you not only an answer, but a great anecdote to go along with it. I was recalling the time I was reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in a coffee shop and I was so worked up when Dumbledore died that someone came over and asked me if I was OK. This sparked a discussion on how sad this scene was, but how perfect, too. We all agreed it had to be done and continued to discuss the roles Snape and Malfoy played in this scene, as well. I then said, loudly, "I love Snape! I've loved him from the beginning!" My new friend turned her head and started to laugh, and it was at this point that I realized I probably would've been better off asking whether anyone knew where to buy some appropriately lined college-ruled paper.

But that's what happens when I start talking about books to people who seem to enjoy them as much as I do. I think Meg Ryan in "You've Got Mail" said something like "When you love a book it becomes a part of who you are", and chick flick movie or not, I agree.

It was a great night. I even left with copies of Just Me and My Little Sister by Mercer Mayer and Bear Wants more by Karma Wilson (illustrated by Jane Chapman). I know these will be well read by the H's in months to come.

I don't think I can write down 100 things about myself, and I certainly can't write down a list of all the books I wrote, which blogger conferences I've attended, or what my Twitter handle is. But I can say that I love books, and I love to write. It's nice to meet someone else who does, too.

Now if I could find some nice college ruled paper, life would be splendid.

**You can check out the blogs Wizards Wireless and Booklights to see her in action. I particularly like her posts in "Booklights" about what a librarian does. I think my mom would like the one about trying to find a book that has "a hippo holding a lemon."**

Remembering

2010-07-25T15:27:00.000-07:00

Hadley never wants to read Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox. I suggest we read it every couple of weeks, and when I pull it off the shelf she shakes her head and says, "I don't want to read that one." She won't tell me why.

However, I think the book is excellent, so every now and then I insist we read it. I usually hide it in between a Fancy Nancy and a Frances story. That way she's kind of lost in the world of accesorizing or thinking about Chompo Bars by the time I get to the first page of Fox's story.

The story is about Wilfrid Gordon trying to help his friend, Miss Nancy, find her memory. In order to do this, he needs to know what a memory is in the first place. So he asks around and he gets answers such as, "something from long ago," or "something that makes you cry," and "something as precious as gold." Once he's collected some ideas about what a memory is, he puts together a basket of objects and brings them to Miss Nancy in hopes she will find her memory.

This is my favorite part - Miss Nancy looks at each of the objects Wilfrid Gordon brings to her and says, "'What a dear, strange child to bring me all these wonderful things,'....Then she started to remember."

Perhaps this is why Hadley doesn't like this book. Because when I get to this part, sometimes my voice starts to crack. I might start reading more slowly, or quietly, or I'll stare at the pictures where Miss Nancy is remembering an event in her life from long ago. Hadley doesn't want me to get all sentimental. "Just read the story, Mom" is what I'm pretty sure she's thinking.

The other night we read Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge together and when we got to the part where he is trying to figure out what a memory is, I asked Hadley if she could think of a memory that went with the prompt in the book. Mrs. Jordan tells Wifrid Gordon that a memory is "something warm."
"Can you think of something that is warm?" I asked her.
"Yea, coal."
"Yes, coal is pretty warm." I replied.

Mr. Tippit told Wilfrid Gordon that a memory is something "that makes you cry." I asked Hadley if she could think of a memory like that and she said, "Sometimes I get sad."

When I got to Mr Drysdale's answer, "something as precious as gold", Hadley asked Jesse, "Do you have a memory of something that is precious as gold, Daddy?"
"I do." he said.
"What is it?" Hadley asked.
"The day you were born."

Hadley might never enjoy this story, but I like to read it because I like to see Miss Nancy get a little of her memory back, and I like to hear what it is that she remembers. The memories are painful and funny and sweet, and I like to think that by remembering some events in her life, she is remembering a little bit about who she is. That's how I see it anyway.

I went through a pretty long phase of insisting that a certain character in a horror movie (that I should've never watched in the first place at a birthday party sleepover) was going to kill me if I fell asleep. I don't even want to write his name down now because it freaks me out. I have sympathy for those in the Harry Potter books who don't want to utter Voldermort's name.   Anyway, my parents could count on me coming into their room at some point in the night asking if I could sleep with them. On one night, my mom walked me back to my room and sat with me for a bit. I told her I just couldn't stop thinking about this guy. He was so scary. She said, "Try and think about something good. Try to think about something you like to do."

So I thought about riding my bike. And ice-skating. And singing songs on the radio with a pretend microphone. I thought about my homeroom teacher whom I adored. She wore high heels but didn't pound them on the floor while she walked around. Her footsteps were quiet and soothing. I would practice walking like her when I played school.

This guy I was so scared of eventually stopped dominating my thoughts at night, but I still tend to think of scary things now and then.  However, I do what my mom says and think about something good. Something I like to do.  A lot of the memories that I like to think about come with pain, or hard work, or tears. They are still nice memories, and each of them tells me a little bit about myself.

I can't explain all this to Hadley right now, but I know she has memories of her own, and I know she'll recall them when she needs to.  And if she doesn't want to read Mem Fox's book, I'll read her a Frances story and we'll talk about how hard it is to wait for our birthdays. We'll discuss how many months until she turns 4, and I"ll tell her that yes, tomorrow when she wakes up, she will still be 3 and 1/2. Or we'll read Fancy Nancy, Bonjour Butterfly and we'll talk about the time we went to the Butterfly Garden and saw all the butterflies. We'll also probably talk about how butterflies start off as caterpillars, and Hadley will bring up the time Harper stepped on a caterpillar and how sad that was.

I'll walk with Hadley and remind her of these events in her life until she can do that for herself. I'll watch and help her and her sister figure out who they are as they grow. I hope that I can provide good stories to read along the way.

A Day at the Beach

2010-07-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

Well, it wasn't really a day at the beach, but this morning we had another book club and I made it into a beach day because we read The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow. This is a book I would definetely want to own. The pictures are lovely, but the writing, in my opinion, stands on its own. Zolotow uses words like "swishswashing" to describe the sounds of the waves, and writes, "the cold water makes your skin feel like peppermint...." If I were still teaching, I'd use this story as an example of great description using all five senses.

Before we read the book, I asked the kids what they knew about the beach. They threw out words as fast as I could write them, and we compiled a list of what we know about the beach. I tried to get the kids to think of color, texture, sound, things to do, etc.

After I read the story to them, the kids each got a bag and I told them they are going on a "beach hunt." They needed to find seashells that I hid around our home and put them in the bag (I just printed out pictures of seashells and taped them all over our place).

(Don't know why this picture is flipped, sorry!)

Once the group found several seashells, I gave them each an empty "beach scene" (a brown grocery bag with a piece of blue construction paper glued to it) and told them to glue their shells on the beach and create a picture with whatever else they wanted to draw.

Here's Hadley's finished product:

I realize the shells are just a wee bit out of proprotion to the "ocean" and the sand. Oh well. Math has never been my thing.

After we made our pictures, we all went down and played at the water table for a bit.

Once we all got nice and hot, we went inside to have popsicles and drink juice. At least for me, book club is turning out to be a lot of fun!

Monsters

2010-07-19T15:57:00.000-07:00

Today I want to talk about wild things and where they are. When I became a mother, I realized that they are everywhere. They're on the road. They live next door. They're in my house. I don't know exactly what to do about them, or how to come to terms with the fact that my daughters kind of like the wild things.

So I turned to the source for answers: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. I was nervous about reading this story to Hadley because the monsters are so scary! Especially the part with the Wild Rumpus! Just the word "rumpus" sounds scary to me. And the pictures during this part take up the entire page. It's as if Hadley and I are part of this world of Max's. There are no words on the page; nothing to focus on but the Wild Rumpus.

It reminds me of these parties we used to have in high school. They took place in the woods. If that's not a setting for a short story, I don't know what is. Anyway, you'd be sitting in class on a Friday and someone would say, "Party in the woods tonight." And you'd get a little tingle of fear and excitement. Should I go? Who else will be there? What should I wear? What if it gets busted? Where, exactly in 'the woods' is it? Oh yes, fear and excitement indeed.

We'd park in the parking lot of McDonalds and run across a huge intersection. How this wasn't a tip off for kids doing something they weren't supposed to be doing I'm not sure. Once we entered the woods, we walked down (what I think I remember was) a long path. You couldn't hear much, but you knew something was coming, and it was going to be pretty wild.

I look at Hadley out of the corner of my eye while I'm reading Where the Wild Things Are and I see how enthralled she is at this scene with the monsters. She wants to join in. I don't blame her - there's something thrilling about the Wild Rumpus. The stomping of the feet. The laughing too hard. The chance to be someone different for a bit.

The more I read the story, the more I like that Max tries out life with the wild things. He has fun with them. Great fun. But when the party ends, and he smells something delicious, he wants to go home.

And I hope that, like Max, Hadley knows how to get back on her boat and sail home when it's time. I'll always have her dinner waiting for her.

And it will still be hot.

**On a side note, a HUGE thank you to A Fuse #8 Production for the kind things that were written about my blog. There was definetely a Wild Rumpus going on when I saw my blog mentioned in your post. And for a little bit, I got to feel like a "real" writer.**

First "Sit A While" Book Club

2010-07-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things to do when I was teaching was Book Club. I hoped it was a chance for students to sit together and just talk about the book they were reading. Today, I hosted a Book Club at my house and we read Watermelon Day by Kathi Appelt. This is a charming story about a girl who waits and watches a watermelon grow and ripen so she can eat it.

Hadley was quite excited about this activity. Partly because she saw me making cookies and green and red frosting, and partly because she got to wear a name tag.

The child likes stories, but I guess sugar and name tags were more exciting.

We read the story together, and except for Harper who was saying things like "The End!" and trying to slam the book closed, the three girls seemed to be interested. The pictures in the book are great, and I love the description throughout the story. The main character, Jesse, tastes the watermelon after a long wait and thinks that it's as "sweet as the summer rain."

Since I was a Middle School teacher, I came up with activities that would get the kids to discuss the story they were reading. However, I didn't think that was going to be appropriate for 3-5 year olds. It was just a hunch I had. So I came up with some other ideas:

First, we had a craft that had the kids gluing pieces of a watermelon together.

Then we went outside and played kickball. In the story, Jesse's family invites others over for "Watermelon Day," and while they're waiting for the watermelon they play softball. I was nervous about doing softball as the activity for two reasons. First, if anyone is going to teach people how to play softball, it really shouldn't be me. Second, I thought maybe softball would be too complicated. With kickball you basically tell the kids to kick the ball and run. So that's what we did.

Then after kickball, we came inside to eat watermelon and decorate sugar cookies to try and make them look like watermelon.

Note that Harper decided to just go ahead and eat her cookie without frosting it first. Why wait, really? The other three girls seemed to enjoy frosting their cookies, and eating the frosting as well. There was a bit of double dipping goin' on. I won't lie.

When it was time to go, I made a little "to go" bag of cookies so the kids could have the extras. It seemed like the right thing to do in case the activities were a complete bust. At least you could walk away with cookies.

I thought it was a lot of fun, and the girls made some new friends.

Plus, it was the perfect day for watermelon.

Olivia Day

2010-07-14T18:42:00.000-07:00

I decided that today would be a day to celebrate one of my favorite characters since I had my girls: Olivia. I just love Olivia. I think she's hysterical. And clever. I'd love for my girls to make a friend like Olivia.

I signed Hadley and Harper up for a music class that we go to on Wednesday mornings, so before we left for it, I thought reading Olivia Forms a Band would be appropriate. Hadley liked the pages where Olivia is playing her instruments and the words are all over the page: "PING, KLING, STRUUUM, CLANG, THUMP, THUMP, BWAP!

Both girls got pretty quiet when the family begins to watch the fireworks. Up until these pages, the colors are classic Olivia colors: white, black, red, and a little blue. But these pages are dark with beautiful yellows and oranges for the firecrackers. They seem to sparkle, and it's hard not to feel like you're watching the fireworks yourself (or, at least remembering quite clearly past fireworks shows).

The pages Hadley wanted to focus on, however, were the pages where Olivia decided to put on lipstick. We read those over several times. Hadley wanted to know exactly what Olivia was doing, and why that made her mom so mad. It seems that Hadley has a fascination with the naughty things kids do. She understands what Olivia did was wrong, but she sees that beautiful smile on Olivia when she puts on her lipstick, and also understands that sometimes something that is naughty is great fun. It's hard for me not to get a thrill when I see Hadley studying Olivia's actions. Hadley does the same thing in the book Olivia when Olivia paints the walls of her home and gets a time out. She knows this is wrong, and yet, it looks so darn fun! It's almost worth a time out.

I secrectly enjoy that Hadley "gets" Olivia. It's not that I want her to do bad things, but I like that she sees the thrill in what Olivia's doing. It reminds me of a time in college when my friend Alison and I were trying to study at the library. We were sitting right next to a copier, and apparently that was the night that everyone wanted to make copies of their entire textbook. We were getting so distracted by the noise that we put an "Out of Order" sign on the machine. Of course, this caused even more of a distraction because every time a student would walk up to the copier with their 5,872 page book they wanted to copy, they'd huff and puff when they saw it was out of order, and Alison and I would get the giggles. It got so we would look forward to the next student that would come to the copier. I think Olivia would've been in on that with us.

Anyway, we went to music class and then later in the afternoon I suggested we paint the scene where Olivia paints on the wall (I taped posterboard to a window so Hadley got the "feel" of perhaps painting on the wall).

But Hadley was more interested in trying to re-create this scene:

She looks great, doesn't she?

I let girls have at it and here's what they came up with:

I tried to encourage Hadley to not mix the colors up so they make black. She said, "Everyone has a favorite color, Mom. Mine is black." Well, then. There you have it.

Harper gave it a shot, too, but was more interested in trying to destroy what Hadley was working on. She kept saying, "Harper's turn!" and trying to paint on Hadley's picture. I'm afraid Harper's going to be the kid that gets kids like Olivia into worse trouble then they might already be in. I can see her saying, "Sure, painting on the wall is cool, but you know what would be even cooler? Painting your mom's plants and the bedspread in her bedroom!"

Either way, I'm thankful for stories with Olivia in it.

If I Had to Choose a Favorite Bug....

2010-07-11T16:15:00.000-07:00

It's not that I hate bees, wasps, hornets, or anything that has the ability to sting. I'm simply out of my mind terrified of them. This happened almost two years ago, and I still get breathless thinking about it. That's partly because these fellows still get in somehow, and it always happens while the girls are taking a nap. All is calm, I am getting ready to enjoy some peace and quiet, but I hear a buzz, and sure enough there is a wasp crawling around on the window.
I react the same way every time (which is about once a week). First, I gasp and then say, "OhmygoodnessohcrapohmygoodnessohcrapohmygoodnesswhatamIgoingtodo?" Then I go get a shoe, and text Jesse to tell him there is ANOTHER wasp on our window. The third step takes forever. I just stand there staring at it and feeling like I'm going to faint. A tiny voice tells me that this wasp that I'm looking at is not that big, but I don't believe it. To me, it's enormous. It's Animal in the Muppet Movie when he grows so big he busts out of the building that he's playing the drums in.
Sometimes I take a break from staring at it and text Jesse again to give him an update. "Can't kill it." or "It's so scary!" or "Can you come home and kill it?" (I have the luxury of knowing the wasp will be right where it is because once they get into our place, they don't fly. They just walk up and down the same window.) But it always ends in me having to get closer and closer, then slowly raising my shoe covered hand to eventually crush it. I hate every part of this, but killing it is the worst. Afterwords I feel sick. I have to sit down. I gave birth to an almost 10 pound baby and minutes later got into a heated conversation with the nurse trying to convince her that "I can totally stand up and walk to the recovery room," but something that weighs less then my wedding ring gives me pause.

But it's summer now so I have to deal with wasps and other kinds of bugs. It's probably a good thing; facing your fears and all that. If a wasp was on our window and I was all by myself, I'd probably just leave and have Jesse deal with it when he got home. Because that's the kind of wimp that I am.

The only bug that does not in any way freak me out is the firefly. I love these guys. Who doesn't like sitting outside on a summer night and watching lightening bugs? They don't come flying around, buzzing in your ear. They don't want a piece of what you're eating. They just fly around lighting up the evening.
That's why, when we saw them for the first time this summer, and Hadley freaked out (a skill she learned from her mother), I was the first to calm her down. "No, no, Hadley. These are the good guys. These bugs are really cool!" And so we stayed outside and watched them do their thing. We tried to catch a few so Hadley and Harper could see them up close. We "oooed and ahhhed" along with the girls. And then I started wondering if there were any books on fireflies.

I found The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle that we've been reading at home recently. Like all of Carle's books, the pictures are great and the story captivates both Hadley and Harper. I, however, am a little sad throughout the entire story until the firefly finds his friends. I like the last page where he and his friends seem to be having a little party in the night sky. I thought it would be fun to re-create this last scene with the girls, plus, it gave me an excuse to use the ridiculous amount of glitter I recently purchased at Micheal's.

Here's my night sky:

I traced a bunch of "bodies" for the bugs, along with wings and heads for Hadley and Harper to put together.

I showed Hadley how to put together the first one. She probably could've figured it out, but I really wanted to use the glitter. From Hadley's face, you can tell she did, too.

And then I let her give it a try (Harper wasn't too interested at this point).

After we made several, we put them on our night sky.

The finished product:

These guys are hanging in the room that the wasps come in, sort of as an example of the kind of behavior I expect from any bug. No buzzing. No flying in my face. No stinging. If you can't abide by these rules, I'll need to get my shoe. That's just the way it is.

Yea? or Yeah?

2010-06-10T15:36:00.000-07:00

I was in a bookstore recently and I overheard a couple of conversations that have stuck with me. One was between a patron and one of the store managers. The customer was wondering about a certain book and how closely it followed the movie. He told the employee, "I want to make sure this book is exactly like the movie." The employee told him that she wasn't sure how closely the book followed the movie because, "the book was written first, and I haven't seen the movie, I've only read the book." I was walking towards the cafe, so I didn't stick around to learn whether the customer bought the book.

When I got to the cafe, I sat down next to two teenage girls. This was accidentally on purpose. They saw me walking towards them before I realized what I was doing, and I didn't want to change my route once we acknowledged what was happening because I figured they'd know I would be changing it to avoid sitting next to them. So I sat down and tried to look as though I had no interest whatsoever in what they were doing.

The girls were texting and talking. Or maybe they were checking Facebook and talking. I'm not sure. They both had a phone in their hand and were thumbing away on it while talking to each other. At one point, one girl asked the other, "Are you going to tell him you'll go?" The other girl said yes, she would. Then the first girl said, "OK then I will, too." After a minute she said, "Are you going to say, 'yeah' with an 'h' or leave it off?"

Oh boy.

I am not so foolish as to think that either of my girls wouldn't ever use a bookstore to look for a book that is "exactly like the movie" or sit at the cafe with one of their friends and discuss how the other is going to respond to a boy. We were in the bookstore yesterday and Hadley and Harper picked out a book for themselves - Hadley chose a Handy Manny book, and Harper chose a Sesame Street book - inspired by TV. And when I was younger, I was not a reader. I liked listening to stories, and I liked telling and writing stories, but I didn't like reading them.

It wasn't until I had a summer job shelving books in a library that I began to think I might be interested in reading them. It started out as a way to pass the time. I'd hide behind one of the shelves in the back of the library and read the back cover of a book I was supposed to shelve. If it looked interesting, I'd start reading it and end up taking it home after my shift was over. As ashamed as I am to admit this, one of the first books I took home that summer was The Princess Bride. I began reading instead of shelving it because I liked the movie so much. I also liked the cover of the book. It looked just like the copy the Grandfather brought to Fred Savage in the movie. While I was reading it I felt smart because it looked like a classic. There were no pictures on the front, just weathered cloth with unassuming gold letters that spelled out the title.

Dear Mr. Henshaw was next. I took that one home because it wasn't technically a story - it was a bunch of letters. I loved reading books that were a series of letters. I wonder if Sharon Creech's Absolutely Normal Chaos was around when I was shelving books. I would've loved that one.

But I had other interests, and while reading wasn't at the top of my to-do lists, it was slowly making its way into my life. The conversations I listened in on in the bookstore bothered me, but I think I also need to be prepared for when my girls may be more interested in other things besides reading. Just in case that happens, I'll document it here so they know that for awhile, they liked to read stories.

So Hadley can remember that in the beginning of the summer of 2010, she was only interested in reading "flappy books" (the books that aren't hardcover). So Harper knows that it was impossible to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar or Pat the Bunny because she would stick her fingers where there were holes in the pages and scream in delight for someone to grab them. So the girls know that after nap time, one of the first things they did was read books together.

Three for Three

2010-05-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

When I check books out of library for the girls, I try to keep them for three weeks and read them several times so they get to know the story. While we read, there is usually something that we'll see that we didn't notice the previous time we read the story. It's also a chance to solidfy any concepts the girls might be shuffling around in their brains.

For Harper, a new book isn't always interesting until she sees something familar about it. We have recently been reading Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? by Dr. Suess and she wasn't too keen on this book until she saw a butterfly on of the pages. Once there was something in the book she recognized - or liked - she was OK with reading the rest of the story.

The books I am going to return to the library after their three week stay in our home, are My Very Big Little World by Peter H. Reynolds, Mama's Coming Home by Kate Banks, and my favorite of the three, In A Blue Room by Jim Averbeck. Hadley never comes out and says she likes any of the stories we read, but I assume that when she picks out the same stories before naptime and bedtime, that she is pretty intrigued with them. This was the case with these three stories.

Jim Averbeck uses poetry and the five senses to lull a wound up little girl to sleep. Alice is bouncing on her bed past bedtime, telling her mother she will only sleep in a blue room. Her mother brings in lilacs and lilywhites to smell, orange tea in a brown cup to taste, an extra soft quilt to touch, and lullaby bells to listen to. As the book progresses, Alice grows more calm, but it's only when her mother clicks off the bedroom light and Alice sees that her room turns blue from the moon, that she falls asleep.

In A Blue Room is such a peaceful book, and I always saved that one for the last because Hadley grew calm as the story progressed as well. I'm not sure how poetry and pictures do that, but I'm thankful for it.

I think what Hadley liked about My Very Big Little World was the way Peter Reynolds captured a little girl's voice in the story. The narrator, Sugarloaf, says and does things that Hadley would say or do. Sugarloaf tells us that her dad drives to work in a big truck. She notes that she is smaller then the truck, but she will grow. However, the truck will not. This is logic that Hadley can appreciate and understand.

Hadley also liked that Sugarloaf has a favorite color (orange) and draws all of her pictures in that color. Hadley does the same thing, only the color is black. She loves making black with her crayons, markers, or paints.

I picked out Mama's Coming Home because we own another one of Kate Banks books, and I love it. It's called And If the Moon Could Talk, and I would suspect that if I were to read that along side In A Blue Room, I would be in a peaceful sleep before Hadley could say, "You forgot to finish the story!" Mama's Coming Home is also poetry, but it has an exciting tone to it because Mama's coming home! Kate Banks manages to illustrate the craziness of one parent trying to get home during rush hour, and another trying to make dinner and manage the children. I think the chaos is lost on Hadley, but she enjoyed the rhythm of the poem and liked looking at all the pictures throughout the book.

I think my favorite part of each of these books, and probably my favorite part of any story Hadley and Harper enjoy, is that it gives us a chance to look at an aspect of the world together through an author's eyes. I love sharing that with them.

Catch the Wave

2010-05-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

Hadley loves the book Wave by Suzy Lee. I don't know why for sure, but I think it has to do with the interaction the girl in the book has with the ocean. Even though there are no words, throughout the story it is clear that the girl and the water are having a conversation.

I think Hadley's favorite part is the part when the girl sticks her tongue out at the wave that is swiftly sailing towards her. I like when the wave leaves behind all the seashells after it crashed into the shore. It seems like a nice ending to a playful game between two friends.

Yesterday I set out a few pieces of blue construction paper and let Hadley make her own "waves" using shaving cream. Here's what she came up with:

I drew the birds, but Hadley was quick to point out that these were not birds. "They don't have any faces, Mama."