It’s my favorite time of the year! Cybils time is here! This will be my third year participating in the Cybils process and my second year as a second round judge for the Easy Reader/Early Chapter book category. I will be following the nominations closely, on the look out for many new favorites. I will […]
Read moreI always love Back to School Night. And last night’s was no exception. We met Katherine’s first grade teacher who is a man, who shares my literacy beliefs, who plays tags with the kids during recess and who believes young children need to move around a lot in the classroom. We met Caroline’s fourth grade […]
Read moreI love it when a book that get tons of hype really deserves the hype it has gotten. Oh, No! by Candace Fleming, is just such book. I have been hearing lots about it and have to admit the rather drab colors on the cover didn’t give me much hope. And yes, I do know all […]
Read moreYes. You are seeing correctly. There is a picture of a My Little Pony I Can Read book on my blog. Now. I am still in my right mind. I do still dislike My Little Pony (just cause) and I Can Read books (for their faulty leveling) but this book led to a reading breakthrough […]
Read moreA first grader and a fourth grader walked out of our door this morning and we took the same picture we take every year. I kept looking at the picture and re-taking it. Something just didn’t seem right about it. The angle, the zoom, the lighting. I finally realized it wasn’t my camera. The girls […]
Read moreAt the beginning of the summer, we began training our puppy in earnest. I told our wonderful trainer that by the time the girls went back to school, I wanted a dog that was a joy to have in our family. We are making great progress but it appears that we aren’t quite there yet. […]
Read moreYesterday, I ranted a bit about required reading and how my girls, as readers, take issue with it. They read all the time and are annoyed when they have to record their minutes read or list the titles of the books they enjoyed. They just want to enjoy their books. They want to do the […]
Read moreI’ve been thinking a lot about required reading these days. Perhaps, because I have been chasing my girls around the house with these paper fish, saying “When are you doing to do you fish!?” The fish came home on the last day of school with a letter from our principal that read in part; “Each […]
Read moreMay these final days of summer, bring you great indulgences…
Read moreI feel like we are starting school later than the rest of the world. The girls do not start school until next Thursday and that will be for half a day. Part of me feels like summer is dragging and dragging and dragging. And then part of me, the part that reigns over spontaneous rice […]
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