The History of My Childhood - Captured By the Purple Ink of Ditto Machines :)

Well, my personal lifetime is now fit for a portion of American history, at least according to the minds at American Girls. Author Megan McDonald, also known for the Judy Moody series, released the set of books which illustrates with words (and pictures) the fictional life of one of the newest American Girl dolls, Julie. This new character's childhood takes places around the year of 1974. As with all American Girl books, I appreciate looking back in the “past” in the non-fiction section at the end of each book’s main feature of a realistic fiction story. Well, one of my students who recently finished reading a book from Megan McDonald entitled Julie Tells Her Story came to ask me some questions which made me realize that I am growing old, such as:

“Black ink wasn’t invented yet? Because it says here that they used purple ditto machines that they had to use by hand, and was that like the printing press in colonial times?”

“And filmstrips? What are those?!?! How did you even watch movies if there were no DVDs? Did you at least have movie theaters? ”

“You mean to tell me that there weren’t computers?!?! Ms. M! What did YOU do? No wonder you love to use your computer sooo much! Life must have been so hard before you had your computer.”

Yes, I’m officially old. Thanks Ms. McDonald, for making my childhood ancient enough to be considered history!” LOL

Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal Bridges Cultures and Tales from Around the World

My class has recently enjoyed welcoming our wonderful student teacher to our classroom as a full-time fixture to our learning lives until mid-May. One of the things that I feel any student teacher needs the most practice in implementing is interactive read aloud (IRA.) I admit that it's the hardest thing for me to hand over to let anyone else teach but me, because I obviously love sharing the wonder and appreciation of children's literature, and it is always a special bonding time of the day with my students. She is doing a very nice job of developing the sophisticated skills that IRA requires of an instructor, and I know practice, practice, practice allows any developing teacher grow with experience and techniques. I still feel that way about myself after over 15 years of educating children! I am a firm believer that I am a life time learner, and that I challenge myself on a daily basis to become more knowledgeable in life.

I had my student teacher do an featured author study of Demi recently to coincide with our Ancient China studies, and we are transitioning into folk tales and legends from around the world. I had the opportunity to do interactive read aloud on Friday. I have missed it so! It's such a special bonding time of our lives. Well, I read Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal to be a perfect bridge from our previous genre study of fairy tales and Chinese influenced writing, to the "journey" around the world with various folk tales and legends. I was tickled pink to see that our school media center had acquired two copies of this Paul Fleischman book, and I wanted to have the perfect opportunity to read it. It just seemed to lend itself as a great book to bridge and expand connectively to other texts with. I placed the book in the read aloud basket for over a week as a purposeful teaser, and I had told the kids that I would get to read it to them. Well, they asked about it everyday - "Is today the day we are going to read that?" ;) They connected the wood block type of illustrating to Snowflake Bentley, and to international variations of stories, like similar concepts explored with our China studies. They got it! :) I had the kids help me label the "places" we traveled on the class globe, and sat the globe next to the book. The book indeed bridged thinking amongst genres, and I look forward to traveling the globe with the students with our upcoming folk tales and legends from around the world!

Thanks to Inspiration from The Landry News By: Andrew Clements, "The Turnursttimes" Student Newspaper Has Gone Online!

I received a lovely email today from one of my parents that I had last year in my second grade class. Her son and a classmate took to becoming writing buddies last year. They clicked as friends, because they enjoyed and appreciated each other's sense of humor and the messages that they had to share as writers. They are now 3rd graders, but have continued to be amazingly self-motivated writers who have been working on a publication they call "The Turnursttimes" (which is quite a tongue twister! :) Their first three issues were hard copies, but they have become technology savvy and environmentally friendly by publishing online, beginning with their fourth issue. Their site is complete with FAQs, a logo, and an email. Impressive! I especially like that they explained their inspiration was from reading The Landry News by Andrew Clements as second graders last year. Reading indeed inspires the stories of real life! I am very proud to have taught and known these two students!

Check out their site, and watch these writers bloom throughout the year!
http://theturnursttimes.googlepages.com/theturnursttimes