Poetry Friday

Happy Almost-the-Fourth!

Donna has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at Mainley Write.

Mock Newbery Club

We are starting a Mock Newbery Club at our school this year.  We have a meeting coming up to introduce books and think about those we'd like to read. I've been working on a Padlet to collect trailers and blurbs on many of the books on our list.  I am hoping it is a resource that helps members choose great books!  Looking forward to our first meeting later this month!

Created with Padlet

Audiobooks I've Loved

I don't tend to enjoy audiobooks but am working to change that. My preference is to read self-help type books as those seem good for shorter spurts while I'm walking or driving. My good friend Stella always recommends great audios that help me reflect on life and set new goals.  And over the past few years, I've read more middle grade fiction too. I have learned how important the narrator is (with  Teri Lesesne's help) and I have learned to use the audible sample to determine quickly whether I'll be able to stick with the audio. I've tried to find narrators I love and then look for new books read by those narrators.  I am getting better at choosing books that are a good match for me to read on audio and I am starting to love my audible account.  I am hoping to build in more time for audiobooks--I realize I have lots of times that I can be listening to a book while doing other things.

I thought I'd share some of the audiobooks I've loved in the past year or two:

Carry On, Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton (NARRATED BY THE AUTHOR)

The Power of Vulnerability by Brene Brown (this one is actually a series of workshops given by the author more than an actual audiobook. Her new book Rising Strong will be available on audio with the author doing the reading. Yippee!!)

The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results ((NARRATOR:Timothy Miller and Clare Hamilton)

The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to Performance and Personal Renewal (NARRATED BY THE AUTHOR)

Middle Grade Fiction

Beholding Bee by Kimberly Newton Fusco (NARRATOR: Ariadne Meyers)

Paper Things by Jennifer Richard Jacobson (NARRATOR: Katie Rudd)

The Blossoming Universe of Violet Diamond by Brenda Woods (NARRATOR: Sisi A. Johnson)

Tell Me by Joan Bauer  (NARRATOR: Cassandra Morris)

Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George  (NARRATOR: Suzy Jackson)

And these are the audiobooks on my TBR "stack" :

Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution that's Transforming Education by Ken Robinson (NARRATED BY THE AUTHOR)

The Art of Work by Jeff Goins  (NARRATED BY THE AUTHOR)

The Truth About Twinkie Pie by Kat Yeh  (NARRATOR: Cassandra Morris)

Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams-Garcia (NARRATOR: Sisi A. Johnson)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

I've read quite a bit over the last week. These are my favorites:-)

Two FABULOUS middle grade novels! LOVE LOVE LOVE both of these. (They do require some tissues though:-)

Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate

Paper Things by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

Three Books about People and History. These were all different but they were all great reads and I learned a great deal from each.

Winnie: The True Story of the Bear Who Inspired Winnie-the-Pooh

Wangari Maathai:  The Woman Who Planted a Million Trees by Frances Prevot

The Case for Loving by Selina Alko

Two Fabulous YA books that require lots and lots of tissues:

Orbiting Jupiter by Gary Schmidt

I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios

Learning and Unlearning

This video is fascinating. Take the 7 minutes to watch it. It is about the way we learn, how hard it is to unlearn something you thought was immutable (like riding a bike), perception, and bias.

I love this quote from the end:

"Truth is truth, no matter what I think about it. So be very careful how you interpret things, because you're looking at the world with a bias whether you think you are or not." -- Destin at SmarterEveryDay

All kinds of perfect, eh?

Poetry Friday -- Hello, Sketchbook! Let's Get Reacquainted!

I got my sketchbook out for the first time in 3 years, and look what I found:

We call them "glads"

because they are;

because they make us so.

They show us

process and stages.

They teach us vulnerability --

reaching, bending, falling

with the weight of what they've become.

And yet,

they are beautiful.

They are glads.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2012

How do I sketch heat?

   oppressive heat

   blanketing heat

How do I sketch a hawk?

   flap, glide, soar

   scree

How do I sketch the trees?

   so many shades of green

   holding still as the storm builds

The sky is easy: violet.

   darkening

   darkening

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2012

Today I made this:

Because of this book (thank you, Amy LV)...

...and because this other book has inspired me to doodle with wild abandon and much happiness...

...and because of this blog post (thank you Kimberley Moran)...

...which has this video embedded (scrub to 1:30 if you just want the Black-Eyed Susan lesson)...


Life is good.
Happy Friday.
Happy Poetry.
Happy Doodling.


Carol has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Carol's Corner.

The July-December roundup schedule is in our sidebar, the code is in the files at the Kidlitosphere Yahoo group, and everything's set and ready to go (and January-June is archived) at Kidlitosphere Central. Let me know if you want me to send you your very own copy of the code. (marylee DOT hahn AT gmail etc etc).

2 New Picture Books

I discovered 2 new picture book this week. I ordered a big stack at the library after All Write and they are starting to come in.

At All Write, I learned about lots of books but one that I was especially excited about was WILD IDEAS:  LET NATURE INSPIRE YOUR THINKING by Elin Kelsey.  I learned about this book from JoEllen McCarthy, the Book Ambassador for The Educator Collaborative in her session with Chris Lehman on Nonfiction.  I always find new books from JoEllen and they are always "must have" titles.  I am excited about adding this book to the classroom library. It is about problems, problem solving and wonder so I can definitely see it being used to start conversations about that. But it is also about animals and so much of what we do in science is animal adaptations, etc.  The authors note at the end tells that all of the quick info in the book came about from scientists studying animal behavior.  This is a quick read. Just a sentence or two on a page but it will start great conversations!

I a a huge Cece Bell fan so I have been awaiting her new book, I YAM A DONKEY (story, pictures and bad grammar by Cece Bell) .  It is a fun book about grammar that I think kids will find quite amusing (I know I found it to be quite funny!).  This is just a fun read that readers of many ages will enjoy.

The Doodle Revolution

The Doodle Revolution
by Sunni Brown (her "Doodlers, unite!" TED talk is here)
Penguin, 2014
review copy from the public library

You could probably read/skim this book at five different times in your life and get five different personal life lessons from it. My big take-away this time around is that doodling is not bad. Doodling is a way to think and learn:

I want to teach my students some doodling tools so that we can doodlearn (yes, I just made that word up!) together.

But what this book gave me for right now (for today and this week and the rest of the summer) was a reminder that I don't have to wait until I'm an amazing artist to have fun with doodling. I learned to doodle new, more expressive stick figures, and use eye positions, noses, mouths and eyebrows to create a variety of more emotive faces:

And I returned to my TED challenge and illustrated notetaking by opening the TED app on my phone, scanning the featured talks, finding one with NOTICE in the title (my One Little Word for 2015) and received this excellent message from the universe:

Tony Fadell: "The first secret of design is...noticing"

My Online Reading Life

I haven't felt like I've been reading a lot lately.  With the projects and things I have going on, I haven't been able to lose myself in a book like I usually do.  But then I read Donalyn Miller's Nerdy Book Club post about reading fast and short and realized that I have been reading a great deal of short texts. I thought I'd share some of my recent favorites.

I am a huge Carry On, Warrior fan and try to read Glennon Doyle Melton's blog daily. I especially loved this recent post and think it speaks to teachers too.
It's Just as Simple and As Hard as This by Glennon Doyle Melton at Momastery

I am a huge fan of theSkimm and I read it daily. But I recently discovered Skimm Guides. These writers help us out if we haven't been keeping up on an issue that seems important. They've written guides to summarize the issues and what is happening with them. They are so helpful. This week, I read the Guide explaining "The Supremes" and all the current work the Supreme Court has ahead.  It was an easy way to catch up and now I feel pretty smart about it!  (If you do not get the daily theSkimm newsletter, I HIGHLY recommend it. You will feel smarter every day because of it!

I laughed out loud at this Buzzed article--How To Know You've Found Your Teaching BFF. How would we survive without these fabulous colleagues who get us through some stressful moments and who make our jobs even more fun!

Bud the Teacher recently moved to a new role and I love the challenge he gave himself. I think we can all benefit from reading it and giving it a try.

Chris Lehmann, principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia always has wise words and asks hard question. His post What If is an important one.

I've been exploring the new Stenhouse book, Well Played online.  I love the preview feature and have been getting to know the book before it is available. I have trouble reading the entire thing on the site but do like the opportunity to read short pieces as I think about how the book can help me as a math teacher.

Wordless News is a site I learned about from Kristin Ziemke during her All Write session. It is a great site I've been exploring--love the concept and am thinking of ways to use it with kids.

Gardening

Summertime is gardening time for me. Those are my beets (first time I've ever planted beets -- can't wait to roast the root and saute the greens) and my basil (aka Pesto Plants). I also have tomatoes, cucumbers, garlic and onions (also the first time for those), rosemary, parsley (mostly for the black swallowtails), and chives. In the community garden where my environmental club has a plot, we have tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, carrots, onions, and beans.

Here are a couple of great books for the gardeners out there:

Jo MacDonald Had a Garden
by Mary Quattlebaum
illustrated by Laura J. Bryant
Dawn Publications, 2012
review copy from the public library

This picture book follows the traditional rhyme (I dare you to read it without singing it!), but substitutes sun, soil, worms, seeds, water, bird, plants, food, treat, and when winter comes, rest.

There is wildlife hidden in the illustrations. In the back, Quattlebaum includes information about the plants and animals and gardening.

EIEIO: How Old MacDonald Got His Farm
by Judy Sierra
illustrated by Matthew Myers
Candlewick Press, 2014
review copy -- gift from a fellow gardener

In this version, Old MacDonald starts with a house and a big back yard -- a yard that takes a lot of mowing. So much mowing that he gets a goat. After the goat, MacDonald gets a chicken. But not just ANY chicken! This one has a diploma, a suitcase monogrammed with LRH, and a plan that includes improving the soil, planting, and selling the harvest to the neighbors! In the end, Old MacDonald has an urban garden with no less than seven raised beds, plants in containers (and an old bathtub), and rows of grapevines and sunflowers. It's a new vision for what a yard can be. EIEIO.