Blue skies, treats from Blackbird Bakery, Bridge to Terabithia at the Paramount...what could be better? How about Katherine Paterson herself coming on stage while the actors are taking their bows, wiping the tears in her eyes, to applaud the characters? Amazing evening. Her talk on the theme that holds her books together was both touching and inspirational. It's always a joy to hear authors speak with such love about the worlds they've created. What a gracious lady. To complete the evening...book signing and pictures with her. She left us with a bit of wonder and the responsibilty to share her words with others. She writes the words, we are to be the flesh that brings those words to life with our students.

Mandy has always held a special place in her heart for Bridge to Terabithia, as she remembers it from 4th grade as one of the first novels a teacher shared as a read aloud. She was delighted to purchase a copy for that teacher and have Katherine Paterson sign it. She's planning on sending it to her with a note telling how special she made that book.
Cheryl purchased Bread and Roses, Too, about a family during the industrial revolution at the turn of the century in America. Owners of textile mills needed laborers, to they went abroad to recruit families to work for very low wages.

 

...from This Place I Know

To You

I think I could walk

through the simmering sand

if I held your hand.

I think I could swim

the skin shivering sea

if you will accompany me.

And run on ragged, windy heights,

climb rugged rocks

and walk on air:

I think I could do anything at all,

if you were there.

A favorite by Karla Kuskin in Georgia Heard's collection This Place I Know. This anthology, assembled in response to the events of September 11, is for anyone who is trying to recover from horrific events.

Snow day, part 2!

We've had the past SIX school days as snow days.  Wow!  Needless to say, I've done lots of cleaning, organizing, & reading.  I took a bagful of books to trade at the used book store today, and only came home with Silly Street by Jeff Foxworthy ($1), Or Give Me Death by Ann Rinaldi ($1.75), & Incantation by Alice Hoffman ($2).  I was happy!  I started Or Give Me Death right away & immediately wished for another snow day so I could finish!  All my other new books I want to read I took to school to share with my classes, and then it snowed (& snowed & snowed...).

Cheryl and I have a busy few weeks coming up filled with author goodness!
Next Wednesday: Kimberly Brubaker Bradley begins the first of five visits to school and works with the 4th & 5th graders
January 29th: King College stage production of Bridge to Terabithia and Katherine Paterson lecture afterwards
March 1 & 2: Sara Holbrook visits 6th, 7th, & 8th graders

Dublin Conference

We love road trips and visiting new places...so Mandy and Cheryl are very excited about the Dublin Literacy Conference (which you can read more about here and here) on February 26! Not only do we get to meet favorite hero authors and illustrators like Wendy Mass, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Brian Pinkney, and Kelly Gallagher, but we get the honor of sharing some things we are doing in our classrooms...just around the corner! We are always looking for innovative teaching strategies to share with our students and can't wait to visit Ohio!

During our presentation we will be sharing a few of the workstations that we incorporate into our middle school language arts classrooms: travel, comics, fairy tale, and bookmaking. These are stations we've developed based on our personal interests and the interests of our students. These are some of their favorite stations to visit and we're looking forward to sharing these bits of our classrooms with everyone. We will be bringing student samples, photographs, & portable stations. We look forward to seeing everyone there!

Please write

I just finished this with my 5th graders today.  We read a few pages everyday before lunch and then they would giggle their way down the hall.  Ms. Wurtz hides a notebook in the room with a note telling the first to find it to "have fun", "talk to each other", & "sign your name."  Well, needless to say, things don't quite work out... at first.  My students really got the humor & I was happy when they pointed out how they could tell which character was writing based on the word choice.  The book ends with an imaginative narrative the students work together to create, & my class commented right away that it reminded them of the writing we've practiced all year for their state writing assessment (just a few short weeks away!!!)  Please Write in This Book was a perfect read for this group!  Just hearing them laugh everytime I said "posterior", yes meaning bottom, made it worth reading.  The book is perfect for sharing about voice, writer's notebooks, & imaginative narratives.  I love Mary Amato's website!  She has lots of neat stuff that I know students will like navigating.
My favorite part of the day?  When one of the boys looked up at me & said, "That would be so cool if you hid a book like that!"  My response?  "How do you know I haven't?"  Because, of course I have!!!!  Cannot WAIT for them to find it!

return

Today was the first day back after Christmas break.  I had fun sharing the books I'd read over break and hearing about my students adventures.  One book I read was Killer Pizza by Greg Taylor.  Definitely a killer book!  My 7th graders asked for it to be their new read aloud & I was more than happy to oblige.  It has a little bit of everything... thriller, suspense, comedy, romance.  I'm anxious to get their take on it.  The prologue completely hooked them! 
I read 14 chapter books over break.  I'm still sorting through them in my head & saving them for another post later this week.
Happy New Year!

Snow day!!

Ahhh, snow days! Time to tackle the "want to read" stack that has been patiently waiting for just the day. Cheryl is in the middle of Ingrid Law's Scumble, her companion book to Savvy. Once again, Law has come through with rich characters like Marisol, Mequite, Rocket, Fish, Gyspy, Fedora, and Ledge. Her way with words is truly unique as the story is told by newly, thirteen year-old Ledge, "If I were invisible, Mom wouldn't know that I'd ruined my clothes skidding to catch the falling jar. I wouldn't have to be Ledge the not-so-supersonic runner, or Ledge the have-to-be perfect kid all the time. I could anyone I wanted to be, because nobody would be watching." Ledge is not happy with his new "savvy" that he has received, or the fact that there is a curious Sarah Jane who is trying to blackmail Ledge with Grandma Dollop's wedding jar. Can't wait to finish.

Mandy was able to finish two books. The first was Sabotaged the third book from Margaret Peterson Haddix's "The Missing" series. The time travel & historical mysteries aspect of this series is what makes it particularly intriguing to Mandy. Althought she enjoyed this third installment, dealing with the Roanoke Colony, the time travel details may bog some readers down. Jonah and Katherine find themselves on yet another journey through "broken" time. It's up to them, Andrea, and Dare (a dog) to fix time. And, of course things don't go smoothly for them!

The second was falling in by Frances O'Roark Dowell. Isabelle Bean has always felt different from everyone around her. On a seemingly ordinary day she opens a seemingly ordinary door and falls into an anything but ordinary world. She soon discovers that the village children flee from The Witch on a regular basis. Along the way Isabelle pairs up with Hen, a local girl. Throughout the story the narrator pauses the narrative to address the reader. It gives some insight into the story and is an interesting twist. Isabelle and Hen soon discover there is more to the story of The Witch and find themselves in the middle of a life-changing turn of events.

Guess what tomorrow is? Another SNOW DAY!!!!