Slice of Life: Time for a Stretch Check

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Tuesday Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, Anna, Kathleen, and Deb

                    for hosting this meeting place each Tuesday and nurturing our writing lives.
Fifth Tuesdays are my personal check-in time for my OLW, stretch.  Today I contemplate the changes that bring us the golden days of fall while reminding myself that change requires earnest effort in order to bring much wanted results in this "stretch" acrostic.

    September leaves

   turn from green to gold. Fall 
   reaches forward to 
   earnest endeavors, recognizing change as 
   the catalyst,

   creating cathedrals of 
   holiness.

Celebrate This Week!

                             Join us each weekend for Celebrate This Week with Ruth Ayres.  

 When we pause to celebrate, we find the joy.

  A week filled with moments to celebrate and remember!

1.  Thirteen pounds of paper gone!

Sara joined me on her day off, and we spent part of it decluttering files.  It can be a stressful time.  I courageously gave her entire files to purge and didn't even look through the recycling after she left.  I found the joy this time and chanted, "Goodbye," to each page as I gleefully tossed it into the recycling basket!

2.  Next book?  

I celebrate KCLS, our local library system!  I love that I can request books from my home computer, stop by the holds shelf at the library, and come home with treasures weekly.  No, I won't read all these books, but I do share books with my after-school book club every week.  And we had eighteen students at last week's meeting!

3.  Fall is officially here!

If you haven't checked out the picture book, Ask Me by Bernard Waber and illustrated by Suzy Lee, request it now.  I captured this week's celebration of blue and yellow (with a touch of lingering green) in the Costco parking lot.

 "Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree."
-- Emily Bronte

Slice of Life: I Did It!

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Tuesday Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, Anna, Kathleen, and Deb

                    for hosting this meeting place each Tuesday and nurturing our writing lives.

There are times when I despair of ever learning all I want to know, or even a small bit of what I want to know.  There are huge gaps in my  knowledge of technology which I like to attribute to "being a blogger of a certain age."  I fight with  blogger weekly. The format I see on my compose screen is never how it shows up when I hit the publish button!  

Several years ago I started a summer reading blog for my students, Sweet Summer Reads.  After retirement, I used it occasionally to report on our after school book club activities.  I wanted a new blog, or I needed to rename the old blog.  Neither seemed satisfactory, what I really wanted was to post all my Sweet Summer Reads stuff onto a new blog. So I wandered around, I punched keys to see what was in different sections of the settings, and by serendipity I discovered that it was possible to import everything and still leave the other blog intact.  And then because it showed up a bit differently in the new blog, I played around with some of the possibilities and discovered a new format to use.   I'll share the blog this afternoon with students at our after school book club meeting. Take a peek at Sweet Reads and let me know what you think.  

Most of the time when I have computer questions, I go to my husband, to my kids, to Ryan, or to a workshop at the Apple store, but this time I figured it out all by myself.  Someday I want to schedule a google chat with other blogspot users so I/we can troubleshoot some of my/our common issues.  (For instance, why is the spacing in the last few lines goofed up?)  But for today, I'm happy with the new blog and ready to add some new posts about this year's group (as soon as I get parent permission forms returned).   

Celebrating 100 Weeks!

                             Join us each weekend for  Celebrate This Week with Ruth Ayres.  

 When we pause to celebrate, we find the joy.

  A week filled with moments to celebrate and remember!

I'm thrilled to be here with my friends for this centennial celebration - 100 times we've gathered to Celebrate This Week together.  Thanks, Ruth, for your gentle ways which remind us to celebrate:  to look for hope, to make connections, and to seek the light.  Every.Single.Week.

1.  Writer's Notebooks!
I bumped into this guy at the public library after the first day of school.  
I've known him for a long time, but he's in fourth grade now.
He was focused on finding the perfect pics to decorate his writer's notebook.
His dad was helping him cut them out, and his mom sent me this pic last week.  

2.  Books!
I joined fellow Friends of the Library on three days this past week to volunteer for our fall book sale, the big one.  Imagine my delight when I arrived on Monday,
and they assigned me to unpack children's books. 

Of course, if you put me to work in children's books, chances are I'll buy a few. 
For those of you who know about my decluttering efforts, 
most of these books are gifts.  And books aren't clutter.

3.  Books, Brownies, and Beyond
Our first book club meeting for this school year was on Tuesday with twelve
students in attendance - five returning 7th graders and seven new 6th graders.  We threw name tags into the hat for a drawing at the end.
Winner:  first person to read Sunny Side Up!
                                                                     

4.  Fall Color!

 I stepped out of the library on Wednesday to place a phone call and discovered gorgeous yellow leaves announcing fall's imminent arrival
against a magnificent blue sky. 

Wednesday, a blue and yellow day!

My daily page-a-day calendar featured this John Ruskin quote: 

"Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty."

Slice of Life: If You Give a Book Lover a Topic . . .

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Tuesday Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, Anna, Kathleen, and Deb

                    for hosting this meeting place each Tuesday and nurturing our writing lives.

If you give a book lover a topic to teach, chances are she'll find a way to make a book connection. This past week I was asked by a friend to teach a class at church that she normally teaches (she's recovering from a broken ankle).  Topic of the lesson:  The Elderly in the Church.  I don't know about you, but I was not excited about this lesson topic.  Even though it was filled with great advice for "the elderly" and guidance for the church community on meeting the needs of the elderly, I was less than enthusiastic.  

There's something about the word "elderly" that conjures less than positive connotations.  I asked my husband to help me brainstorm other words or phrases to describe this stage of life.  His responses reveal his dry wit and humor:  seasoned, filled with wisdom, mature, on the last legs, broken in, circling the drain, old silverbacks, pensioners, and walking on the edge of the ice floe.   

Finally, on Sunday morning, I woke up knowing how to approach my topic.  When my husband came downstairs, I was sitting on the floor surrounded by children's books.  I had pulled every book that featured "the seasoned" (isn't that a better phrase than the elderly?) as part of a table display for my lesson.  

Just walking into the classroom and seeing all these stories of life with seasoned family members put a smile on everyone's face.  I concluded the lesson by sharing Mem Fox's Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge. 

Celebrate This Week

                             Join us each weekend for Celebrate This Week with Ruth Ayres.  

 When we pause to celebrate, we find the joy.

  A week filled with moments to celebrate and remember!

1.  Sunsets!

2.  Roses (captured on the sunset walk)!

3.  Smiles on Friday afternoon from administrators 

who in the midst of the first week of school

and a challenging school remodel,

still manage to put students first!

4.  Trunk full of generous donations from
neighbors for Annual Food Drive
to benefit Youth and Family Services!

Thanks, Ruth, for this blessed way to end the week!

Poetry Friday: This Place I Know: Poems of Comfort

                                                                      Head over to Life on the Deckle Edge

for this week's roundup of poetry love.  
Thanks for hosting, Robyn!

I can't think about 9-11 without remembering Georgia Heard's anthology This Place I Know:  Poems of Comfort.  I discovered this book several years ago while pulling books for our month of poetry in my classroom.  In a School Library Journal review, Sally Dow sums up the impact of this book with these words, "In memory of the September 11th tragedy, this book was compiled initially to offer hope and comfort to children who witnessed the event firsthand, but has far broader application, speaking to all people, young and old, who suffer trauma."

You can get a flavor of the book through this preview at Google books, see the poems that are included, view some of the poetry and artwork, and read the note from Georgia Heard that accompanies the book.  Deborah Chandra's poem, "Stars" is included in the preview and concludes with these lines:

". . . But shining through the dark they calmly stayed,

And gently held me in their quiet way.

I felt them watching over me, each one -

And let me cry and cry till I was done."

Well-known children's book illustrators responded to an appeal from Candlewick Press and volunteered their talents to illustrate the poems.  If you've never explored this book of poetry, treat yourself to this gem of a book filled with poems of comfort and beautiful illustrations.  

Slice of Life: First Day of School Rambles

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Tuesday Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, Anna, Kathleen, and Deb

                    for hosting this meeting place each Tuesday and nurturing our writing lives.


I'm retired.  It's my second year of retirement, and today is the first day of school.  Last year, my good friend threw a party for me on the first day of school.  I'm continuing to work on my teaching files today.  I wish I were the kind of person who could pitch it all, but I can't.  I dealt with the books first.  But the paper piles are overwhelming. So I've been slowly sorting, culling, and filling boxes with papers to file (mostly because I rarely got them filed during a school year).  This past week, I consolidated my teaching files to two long lateral file drawers in the garage from several different places.  I've decided that all the papers I want to keep have to fit in those two drawers.  I emptied one box last week and allocated two days (yesterday and today) to emptying the next box.  Things are starting to get tight in the file drawers, so my next step will probably be to purge some of those files before bringing any more boxes from the spare bedroom to the garage.  The end is definitely in sight.  I only have one very full box of poetry stuff, a box of lit circle stuff, and a box of slice of life stuff.  The tough part - those boxes are filled with some of my favorite stuff.  Sigh!

But here's some of the the fun stuff I found this morning in my first 30 minute work session in the garage.

These golden lines from the book Something to Hold  by Katherine Schlick Noe:
"Summer turns the last corner and runs head-on into the long school year.  Suddenly I'm sitting at the kitchen table in a new school dress, picking at pancakes."  
And two pages later:
"I take a deep breath and tell myself.  Today's the first day of school everywhere.  All you have to do is look for somebody standing all alone, smiling.  Better yet, somebody scared spitless.  Go say hi.  Simple as that."  

And these words from a middle school teacher Lou Orfanella in his essay, "Free of Finals":
"As each new school year begins, I feel unsettled until I know the names and personalities of the individual bodies I'll be spending time with every day . . . By the end of the school year, they will have laughed and cried with us.  Loved and hated us.  Obeyed and defied us.  We will have seen them healthy and peaked, bubbling with energy and drained with fatigue.  They often ignore us, but once in a while, they are momentarily moved - or even forever changed - by something we do or say.
Each September, we need to rededicate ourselves to showing our students that they are capable of learning and doing."

And this example of a favorite first day assignment:

We posted the birthday cupcakes on the whiteboard at the beginning of each new month. Summer birthdays were celebrated on their half birthdays.  We sang Happy Birthday and each student chose a new pencil or bookmark from my gift caddy.  I found the template a long time ago in a Mailbox magazine.  Remember those?

And so, another school year begins.  I'll be substituting some of the time.  In fact, I'll be there on Thursday and Friday this week filling in for a friend in the front office.  It's the best way for me to see most of my friends since almost everyone comes into the office at some point during the day.  And my last group of sixth graders are now eighth graders.  Some of them will stop by to say hello too!  Oh, and my book club members from last year will pop in too.  Best way ever to stay connected - run an after school book club!

Celebrate This Week!

                             Join us each weekend for Celebrate This Week with Ruth Ayres.  

 When we pause to celebrate, we find the joy.

  A week filled with moments to celebrate and remember!

1.  Always something new to learn!
I had two opportunities to learn more about the maker scene.

I received an email from my daughter asking me to share this link.  
Click on the video to hear the authentic voices of two girls who are makers.
I'm excited about this initiative that focuses on girls' abilities to create.
I met Andrew Coy (my daughter's brother-in-law), a former teacher,
and director of Digital Harbor Foundation last year.   

Here's Andrew's explanation of the #girlswhomake initiative:

"The driving motivation behind this is to explore various ways to build community and support for young ladies in the broader tech community and within our programs as well. As part of this initiative we want to continually find ways to elevate and highlight strong authentic voices of the girls in our programs. I would love to see this video, and the other media to follow, shared out as wide and far as possible all semester long. I fully believe that we can provide inspiration and motivation to not only the amazing group of girls we will be working with directly at DHF this fall but all across the country through the spreading of their voices."

I opened an email from SLJ (School Library Journal) this week  and discovered 
The Maker Issue.  It's a great resource to learn more about the maker trend, 
described by SLJ as "...wide-ranging, somewhat chaotic, and totally inspiring."

2.  Shameless promotion of  Books, Brownies, and Beyond! 

I popped by the "new family" meeting on Friday to promote our after school book club.  I brought a bin of books, a plate of cookie bars, and an invitation
to new students to join the best club on campus!

3.  Finished Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead!

I think it's my favorite of her books, and I've read all of them.  

It's definitely on my Newbery possibilities list, along with Circus Mirandus, Lost in the Sun, and The War that Saved My Life.  I'll be writing the grant for our Mock Newbery book sets soon.  Let me know what you think belongs on our list.  

4.  Loving the nip in the air and glimpses of fall color!

Have a wonderful three day weekend, and be sure to

pencil in some pleasure on your "to do" list! 

Poetry Friday: "...pleasure is a thing that also needs accomplishing..."

                                                                              Head over to Teacher Dance

for this week's roundup of poetry love.  
Thanks for hosting, Linda!

"Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,

between "green thread"
and "broccoli," you find
that you have penciled "sunlight."

Resting on the page, the word

is beautiful. ..."

Meandering through a file marked poetry, I found "The Word" (click on the title to read the rest of the poem at The Writer's Almanac) by Tony Hoagland, a perfect poem for anyone caught up in the frenzy of the "to do" list.  This poem is especially fitting for my teacher friends who never reach the end of the list, be it beginning of school, mid-year, testing season, or end of the year.  Here's hoping that each of you will "...find the time to sit out in the sun and listen," during this three day weekend. Thanks to The Writer's Almanac for bringing fabulous poetry into my life every day and to my Poetry Friday friends who share poetry love every week.  

Tuesday SOL: Good Books

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Tuesday Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, Anna, Kathleen, and Deb
for hosting this meeting place each Tuesday and nurturing our writing lives.

Slicing about Summer Reads

I reach to turn the calendar page,

but I'm loathe to hide this picture that I savored during August.

I retrieve Book Fiesta! by Pat Mora and illustrated by Rafael Lopez

so I can see more of these exquisite illustrations.

 I revisit this favorite illustration,

perfect for lazy summer evenings.

"Our families tell us stories 

while we listen and play."

I add my latest book finished to my Book Journal

and meander through my summer entries. 

Two chicken books

  Love Ruby Lavender  

Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer

Many wonderful picture books

My top five (so far)

Sleep Like a Tiger

Three Bears in a Boat

This is Sadie

Hank Finds an Egg

Boats for Papa

Thanks to #pb10for10 and #IMWAYR,

my holds shelf at the library stays full. 

I add a basket just for picture books

beside my favorite chair.

Three adult books for my book clubs

The Orphan Train
Go Set a Watchman

The Orchardist

Two novels-in-verse

Coaltown Jesus

Another Day as Emily

Two audio books

Sugar

Echo (still in progress)

And my favorite books of the summer, drumroll please!

Lost in the Sun
Circus Mirandus

The War that Saved my Life

These words taped in the pages of my writer's notebook

sum up this meandering slice and my feelings about books:

good books

They're like the world's

most engaging people

all lined up to meet us ...

to tell us their stories,

explain things we want to know, 

show us places we want to go.

Our favorites ~ they're destined

to be endearingly dog-eared

from love & good use!

As I searched for the source of these words, I was thrilled to 

discover cardthartic and received permission from them to 

share these words I saved from a birthday card.

Island Books, our independent book store, carries their cards, 

but you can find more than 600 cards filled with 

relevant, intelligent, and soulful sentiments on their web site

and discover retailers who carry their cards in your area.  

And now it's time to think about fall reading, and the search for a perfect cozy title

to enjoy while wrapped up in a quilt and sipping a mug of hot chocolate!