Celebrating In A New Way

              Many celebrate each Saturday or Sunday with Ruth Ayres at Discover Play Build and the rest of the wonderful community that celebrates together.  

        From a poet friend's idea, based on Wallace Stevens' 13 Ways of Looking At A Blackbird.

Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Week

1) Within the teaching

and the students,

joy came with discoveries.

2) Decorating the tree

lights happy memories,

old and new.

3) A former student

asked me for some new

book titles.

4) Imi came to visit.

We read Christmas books,

and laughed at a snowy, hairy bear.

5) Warm weather 

invited me out to walk

every day.

Praising Play - Poetry Friday

         Tara Smith hosts us today at A Teaching Life. And she's helping us to end our week so wonderfully with a poem of Mary Oliver's. Thanks Tara!

             Among all the gloomy news and escalating conflicts, I've been reading too about the importance of play for children. There are also articles urging "play" for adults. All of us will benefit when we take time to explore, have fun, be outdoors in nature and laugh! 

           One article from The Washington Post is found here about children's play.  And another story is found here from NPR concerning adult play.

Ready, Set, Go!

It's a “Mother, may I”,

seesaw

day.

Cartwheeling, jumps,

swing and

sway,

four square, kickball

hopscotch

PLAY!

Linda Baie © All Rights Reserved

photo credit: Children dancing in circle bronze statue via photopin (license)

Non-Fiction Creativity

         Thanks to Alyson Beecher's Non-Fiction Picture Book Challenge at her blog, Kidlit Frenzy.   

         Come read to discover everyone's recent non-fiction picture books.

       Tweet - #NFPB15


In both the fever book and the Louis Fuertes bio, both have a firm setting at Cornell University and not too far apart in years either. So interesting.  Within these books: birds and engineers, creative scientists and actions of birds.

  Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary - Gail Jarrow

         It all started, at least this story, in Ithaca, New York, where eventually one in ten citizens and Cornell University students were struck by typhoid fever. Many died, and if it wasn’t for George Soper, a sanitary engineer who managed the recovery of Galveston, Texas after that terrible hurricane that destroyed that city, it might not have slowed as much as it did, eventually. I learned so much in this story of the search and eventual discovery of Typhoid Mary, real name Mary Mallon. In the early 1900’s, people in our country were badly in need of sanitation education. The sewage was draining into the waterways, outhouses were built at the edges of those same waterways, no one cleaned up the garbage. I imagine all of us have read of these times before. The awful statistics: a third of slum children never lived to age five. Each week in the summer, 1,500 of the city’s babies died, many from dysentery caused by drinking contaminated milk and water. Another name who fought for change was a young woman doctor, hired as a health inspector by the city of New York, Josephine Baker.

Another GOOD Little Thing

  

      I'm slicing with the Two Writing Teachers community today. It's always good to read what everyone shares.  Thank you Stacey, Tara, Anna, Betsy, Dana, Kathleen, Beth, and Deb









           I went to the post office today, had two packages to mail and knew I would have a big wait. And wait I did. I was number twenty-four when I entered the line, and there was one counter open. I was there for an hour and a half. So, first I checked all the possible e-mails I could read, then Facebook, then my post today for comments, then read a few posts from others. It's not easy commenting on the phone, so that didn't take much time. People were shuffling, sighing, looking a little grumpy. I nearly posted on FB, but thought "I will not gripe. Others in the world stand for hours for necessary things, like food and water and blankets and medicine. I will not gripe." 
           Instead of an inner whine, I decided to try something I read about once to see if I could change my own feelings and maybe a few others. I started smiling at whomever I could make eye contact with. I chose those a little closer to me so if they smiled back I could say something nice about the weather. (It's unusually warm again, sweater weather.) It didn't take very long, maybe about ten minutes when I felt the mood shift, and then I began talking with the two men I was in between. One said he liked being out and about, did not work on Monday so that was his errand day, and he enjoyed the movement because his work kept him at a desk all day. The other man and I were about the same 

Monday Reading AND a Giveaway

 

          Visit Jen at Teach MentorTexts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who link up. Sheila at Book Journeys began this sharing, and it's now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date..

        This book series of nine books is all about farms, beginning with A Year On The Farm, and now a just released Christmas story, Casey's Bright Red Christmas, all by Holly Dufek and illustrated by Paul E. Nunn. If you or your children or students are interested in farming, this is the series. It reminds me of the Cars movies, where each vehicle has a name and a personality, only this time the vehicles are farm machines: Fern the farmall, Big Red the magnum, Kellie the combine, and more. They take part in the business of farming, perform important jobs, all managed by a girl named Casey and a worm named Tillus, who is in charge of the weather report. My granddaughters six and four sat interested in both stories, asking more questions about how the farm machines worked. New information is always fun. 

        The Christmas story finds Casey working at her farm chores, becoming more and more tired. She doesn't feel good, and there are many chores to do in addition to all the Christmas decorating. Finally, taking a break, she lays her head on the kitchen table and falls asleep. The machines wait and wait, wondering how to decorate and find the perfect tree without her. And that's the surprise because they do manage, helping out because it's needed. The story shows the goodness of friendship, the illustrations are cheerful, and each book has added extras. For example,  A Year On The Farm gives added farm facts, and Casey's Bright Red Christmas gives a sugar cookie recipe.

        

        The publisher sent these books to me for reviewing, and also let me offer a giveaway. If you are interested in receiving Casey's Bright Red Christmas, please let me know in the comments. I'll announce the winner next Monday.

Glory O’Brien’s History of The Future - A.S. King

         This is another story that I’ve put off reading in spite of the love given it in many reviews. I’m glad I finally did read it. Glory has but one friend, Ellie, who lives across the road in a commune with her parents and others. We soon find that in the earliest days of her parents’ marriage, they came to this place with Ellie’s parents as hippie types, artists, against consuming, letting the children raise themselves. Somehow it didn’t work for Glory’s Mother, because she committed suicide when she was four. Glory tells the story of her life as she moves through the days surrounding her high school graduation. She discovers about the family’s past, her self and her future, a worry throughout her life as she’s often wondered if she would be like her mother, and end her life before it really got started. I loved it, enjoyed the strong, real voice of a teen figuring out tough stuff.