Celebrate This Week - June 21, 2014

This year, I am trying to increase my awareness of the many good things that happen, which are frequently overlooked by me.  To help me, I am joining Ruth Ayres's Celebrate This Week.

Is it only me, but do others find it hard to write a Celebrate This Week post on Friday nights, or do you schedule your posts?  Since I like to think of it as a reflection of my week, I want to wait till Friday to write it up.  However, Friday nights tend to be busy and Saturday mornings tend to be filled with errands. I would love to hear how everyone does their posts? 

So, here it is.

Here's what I am thankful for this week...

1. Friends willing to share their expertise. On Friday, I spent nearly 6 hours with my friend Marianne Wallace. She is a biologist turned author/illustrator. I am working on creating a training for teachers on using nonfiction books as mentor texts for writing. During our time together, we pored over a few dozen nonfiction picture books discussing the styles of writing and how we would classify these books and more.  Though I still have to put together the trainings, I feel like I have a much greater awareness of what I need to focus on and what gaps I have with the broader category of children's nonfiction. After I left Marianne, I picked up my friend Alethea (@frootjoos) and we grabbed some dinner and she spent at least 5 hours with me as I learned how to use a new blog platform. She is so patient when I get stuck and struggle to figure out how to do certain things.   I am also thankful for how much she knows when it comes to web-development and that she is willing to share that knowledge with me.

Though both of these projects will be on-going, I am thankful for how much I was able to learn yesterday that will be helpful as I continue work on them.

2. Katherine Applegate is the most amazing author. On Wednesday, Katherine was in town for some other meetings and came to Once Upon a Time in Montrose.  She met with a small group prior to the event in the store and talked about her writing, and winning the Newbery Medal.  We had so much fun with her and she is simply charming.

3. Lost and Found Books and a clean trunk. If any of you have ever had an itinerant position, you will understand what I am talking about.  I work with several schools and before I know it more bags and boxes of stuff end up in my car from different projects, training, and work related things. I seem to never get around with cleaning and organizing it.  This week, when I misplaced a stack of books, I thought it was time to clean out the trunk in hopes of finding them.  The 13-year-old and I emptied the whole trunk and reorganized it. Some stuff ended up in the trash, and other stuff (like the 30 books that were in there) were pulled out and are waiting to be shelved in the house. Good news--not only do I have a clean and organized trunk but I found the missing books.

4. The Sixteen Year Old is officially a driver. I can't take credit for teaching him how to drive.  His mom gets all the kudos and awards for being the patient person while he practiced driving.  However, as a good auntie/god-mom, I am rejoicing on his behalf.

Hope everyone is enjoying the first day of summer and finding ways to celebrate all the little things around them.

Celebrate This Week - May 31, 2014

This year, I am trying to increase my awareness of the many good things that happen, which are frequently overlooked by me.  To help me, I am joining Ruth Ayres'

Celebrate This Week

.

Here's what I am thankful for this week... 

1.  My friend's first of two surgeries went well.

- I have shared in some other Slice of Life posts about my friend who has undergone some very difficult surgeries this year.  For the past few months, things were settling back to normal.  Recently, he was told that he was going to need a couple of surgeries.  The first of the two was this past Wednesday.  The surgery went well and his family celebrated that he came home on Friday evening. This week he will have the second surgery. We are continuing to pray that all goes well and also for his wife and children. It's been stressful for them all though they have been hanging in there surprisingly well.

2.  The 2013-2014 school year came to an end. -

This is the first year that we have finished school before June 1st (and also the first time we started so early in August).  It was an odd year for me in some ways but also wonderful in others.  I still have six more days before I am officially off for the summer so still a lot to do but I know it will be here quickly.

3.  End of the Year conversations with teachers.  -

On Friday, I stopped by several classrooms to chat with teachers that I have been working with. We had some wonderful chats about the work we started this year and the work we hope to continue the next year. I am looking forward to some possible conversations over lunch this summer in between everyone's planned vacation trips. 

4.

Summer Vacation and Summer Learning

-

I talked about my summer goals in my Slice Post this past week.  I am so excited about the various goals and activities that I have for this summer.

Celebrate This Week - May 24, 2014

This year, I am trying to increase my awareness of the many good things that happen, which are frequently overlooked by me.  To help me, I am joining Ruth Ayres'

Celebrate This Week

.

Here's what I am thankful for this week...

My typical

Celebrate This Week

focuses on five things that I want to celebrate.  As I thought about this past week, I decided that I wanted to celebrate one thing.

Over the past few months, I have regularly referred to a class of first graders that I have been working with.  Yesterday was my last time to see them for this school year.  I am going to really miss these 24 kiddos.  I am thankful for how the teacher and students welcomed me into their learning community.  When I come on campus, and I run into one of the students in the hallway (outdoor walkways in CA), I get huge grins and big hugs.

As part of what I have been working on with them, we have done a lot of writing. And having two adults in the room, has also allowed more time to conference with students about their writing. Students have grown as writers during this time.  While reading one student's reflection writing, I realized that he had gone from barely writing one line to now writing six or seven sentences.  He is also willing to ask for help, and by that I don't mean that he wants me to dictate what he should write, but instead, we dialogue about options and ideas for what he can write. Also, his drawings show an amazing amount of understanding about what we have read.

I am also celebrating those students who have started to write even when there are no sentence starters or the word they are looking for isn't on the word wall.  I praise their courage and willingness to take a risk.

And, I am celebrating those students who trusted me enough to dialogue about what challenges them most when facing a blank piece of paper and asked to write something down.  When they get even a couple of sentences down on paper, we celebrate their words.

Though I may not be working directly with these students next year, I want to work with this teacher again.  I believe we can do more to encourage authentic writing and that even our English Language Learners can become confident writers. For this, I celebrate teaching partnerships.

Celebrate This Week - May 17, 2014

This year, I am trying to increase my awareness of the many good things that happen, which are frequently overlooked by me.  To help me, I am joining Ruth Ayres'

Celebrate This Week

.

Here's what I am thankful for this week, and well last week too...

I missed being able to do a

Celebrate This Week

post last Saturday.  As a result, I am sharing my celebrations from the past two weeks.

1. 

Debut Author Launch Parties

- In Southern California, I am fortunate to meet and get to know and interact with a number of Children's and Young Adult authors.  Recently, I was invited to attend the Book Launch Parties for Tracy Holczer (

The Secret Hum of a Daisy

) and Catherine Linka (

A Girl Called Fearless

). Both of these authors are super nice and their books are amazing.  I was thankful for the opportunity to celebrate their books with them and their friends.

Tracy Holczer does a dramatic reading of The Secret Hum of a Daisy.

Catherine Linka talks about her book, A Girl Called Fearless.

2. 

End of the Year School Open House

- Not this past week, but the week before, I had the chance to attend Open House at several of our elementary schools. I love going and watching children and parents visit classrooms and celebrate learning with their teachers.  It is certainly a time when teachers get to shine and show off all the wonderful things that they have been doing with their students.

Art from one first grade classroom.

3.

Screening of

The Fault in our Stars

- Earlier this week, I received an email from my Penguin Book Rep asking if I would like to attend a special screening of the movie version of

The Fault in our Stars

. I jumped at the chance to go with several other book buddies. It is one of those rare times where the movie adaptation of the book is well done, and I was glad for the opportunity to see it with friends. The movie releases on June 6, 2014.  Even if you have not read the book, you should still go see it, and then read the book afterwards. 

4.

Cross Country Collaborations

- Social Media may seem strange to those who do not understand it but for me it has opened up some amazing doors to collaborate with colleagues across the country.  Those collaborations have resulted in new friendships, great discussions, and opportunities to speak at conferences such as the American Library Association Annual Convention (June 2014) and the National Council of Teachers Annual Convention (November 2014). I will be sharing more about this in future blog posts.

5. 

Local Collaborations

- Alethea (

@frootjoos

) and I had dinner last night with our friend, Non (

@subjectplusverb

).  Last night, we talked about various book and literacy projects that we were engaged in and the possibility of collaborating on future ones. One of the things, we talked about was what we loved to spend time doing.  I suspect that Alethea, Non, and I will never be on some fast-track to becoming billionaires, but our priorities were certainly in the right place.  I, especially, loved hearing Non talk about those things that were most important to him, such as, the time spent building his relationship with his wife, or doing projects or volunteer work that were meaningful and made a difference. I am so thankful for those that I have encountered in this journey called life that understand what is really important, and are willing to celebrate that with others. 

Slice of Life - Celebrate This Week - 3/22/14

Slice of Life is hosted by

Two Writing Teachers

on Tuesdays.  For the

month of March

, I am participating in the March Challenge by posting a slice daily.

This year, I am trying to increase my awareness of the many good things that happen, which are frequently overlooked by me.  To help me, I am joining Ruth Ayres'

Celebrate This Week

.

Here's what I am thankful for this week...

1. 

Spring Break

- Though it is almost over, it has really been a pretty perfect week.  I enjoyed hanging out and putzing around.  I could sleep in or stay up late and no need to dress up all week.

Homemade Poptart from Nickle Diner in Los Angeles

2.

Hanging out with Friends

- Last Sunday morning, I had a chance to visit with Teresa Bunner (

@rdngteach

) while she was in Los Angeles for the ASCD conference. We had breakfast at a little place in Los Angeles and even had homemade poptarts. Yum!  Additionally, I got to have lunch later in the week with some of my local teacher buddies that I do not see often enough.

3.

Movies and Friends

- I seldom see movies in the theater and I even more seldom see them on release day or during the release weekend.  Last week, I kicked it off by going to see the

Veronica Mars

movie with some friends.  It was a blast to watch it with other folks who knew the characters and were just as eager to see it.  I finished the week with going to see

Divergent

with a different set of friends.  I love my book community and how we not only share favorite books but movies and more.

4.

Skyping with Cathy Potter's students

-

Cathy Potter

is a school librarian in Maine.  This past week, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet via Skype with some of her 5th graders to answer questions about the Schneider Family Book Award. What a great group of students and some really good questions. 

5.

Cleaning and Sorting

- Though I took my time with closet cleaning and other sorting projects, things are slowing shaping up.  I was excited to be able to pull together about 200 books that will be welcome additions to classrooms and libraries in my District. Additionally, I found a gift card that I had misplaced (yes, now I can get those new running shoes I wanted), and a sweater that I was looking for.  Sadly, I still seem to be missing a couple of pillowcases and a bunch of socks.  What is it about the dryer that seems to cause things to disappear?

What are you celebrating this week?