Wandering in WonderLand…

It was just recently that I heard about this event that invites bloggers to share a collection of ten favorite picture books that teachers shouldn’t live without in their classrooms.  Of course, there is never enough time in my days to do all the things I want to do, but I do have good intentions. I started formulating a list of books in my head and rehearsing what I would say about each one. Little did I realize that picking 10 books would be so difficult and how in trying to choose the 10, I would recall tens upon tens upon tens of favorite books.

The wonderful thing about this has been thinking about the books I have read to my classes over the years, the books I’ve read to my own children and of course my favorite childhood books that were read to me. The list could go on and on and even on a different day, I could easily choose different books to be on my list. And since I am not a very good list maker by nature, I have cheated and not really listed exactly 10 books anyway.

This has taken longer than I thought it would and I will not complete the post in time for the August 10th deadline…but some of you know I have trouble with deadlines. So, I invite you to also make your list of books, not for the August: 10 for 10 but for the pure joy of doing it.

The List:

 Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr.   Thank you, Bill Martin for your lyrical words and the many books your have written for children. This was the first book I bought as a beginning teacher and have been sharing it every year since then. My classes have improvised on the text and made our their books, acted out the words and made scenery to fit the words but more importantly, the children learned that they could read by predicting the pattern, use pictures and text as cues and make meaning in what they read. What at gift you’ve given us, Bill Martin.

Elephant and Piggie series by Mo Willems – I know I’m cheating but these books have been the source of joy and the inspiration to read for my kindergarten students. We read them repeatedly in class. The children share them with each other. They “do plays” with them. They read them to their parents and at the end of the school year, yes – they become the readers they knew they could be! Thank you, Mo!

  Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey    There are so many reasons that this is a favorite of mine. When my adult daughter was very small, we would take her blueberry picking and this was a favorite story of hers. My husband and I picked wild blueberries on top of Mt. Cardigan here in NH, one summer and made blueberry jam for Christmas presents.  Many of my children, in the rural community where our school is located, have picked blueberries either in their back yards, along the shore of the lake or at a “pick your own” farm. Reading this book early in the school year gives us all a reason to recall great summer memories and talk about all the foods we enjoy connected to blueberries. We even use it as an excuse to make a batch of blueberry muffins or pancakes. We also hike a small mountain called Blue Job (rhymes with robe) that was named because of all the wild blueberry bushes that grow on the top. Literature helps make connections and complete circles.

  Wait Till the Moon is Full by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Garth Williams     This book had to be on my list because it was my all time favorite book as a child. Even now, I can hear my dad reading the book to me and reminding me about being patient. Patience isn’t a lesson I learned very well but whenever I need this virtue, I do hear the words of the mama raccoon reminding her little one to “wait, wait till the moon is full”.

   The House in the Night  by Susan Marie Swanson, illustrated by Beth Krommes I love the poetry and pattern of the language in this book as well as the detailed and intricate scratchboard illustrations. While it is the perfect bedtime story for a young child, I use it in class for night time studies, color studies, examining details and for sharing small moment stories.

Every Jan Brett book that has been written – oops cheating again! Do I really need to tell you why these books are on the list?

  Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox  I can’t read this book and make it through without shedding a tear or two, but I’ve been told I can cry at anything. This wonderful story about finding a memory leads to class discussions about keeping memories close. Every memory can be a story to tell and writer’s write best when they write what they know.

Peter’s Chair by Ezra Jack Keats  I just LOVE this book. Nothing more, nothing less! Pure simple enjoyment and understanding fills my classroom when I read this book. We talk about our connections, we yearn to read more stories about Peter and we find out how events from our own lives can become the stories we write.

   The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle  Our school year begins with this book displayed on our book shelves and is often one of the first to be shared with the class. The children recognize it as an old favorite. There is something reassuring for them when they find it in their new environment. Perhaps it says – there is something familiar here and kindergarten is an okay place to be. Perhaps the story helps them to know that there is a beautiful butterfly inside each one of them, just waiting for the right time to emerge. I know it helps me know to recognize that each child is hungry to learn and with time will reach their own potential. Whatever it is, I can’t start school without this book.

Strega Nona by Tomie de Paola  I enjoy sharing collections of stories about the same character. Reading Strega Nona to my class leads to the many other Strega stories that Tomie D Paola has written. We can build an understanding of the characters, discuss setting and compare and contrast the various works. We can also have fun with the humor that fills each story. Another reason why I love this book, is my ancestors also came from the region of Calabria in Italy, just like Strega Nona. We all know that reading is about making connections to self and I enjoy modeling this for my students

Thank you, Cathy and Mandy for the inspiration to “make my list”.  I know I should get a head start on next year’s list so I’ll be ready but not right now. There’s plenty of time!!!

And, it’s on: The Great Kinderblog Summer Blogging Challenge begins… now!

Well, actually it began almost a week ago but I’m rarely on time with anything. I’m taking the challenge in hopes this will help me establish a blogging routine. There have many starts but I never get anywhere. In 2009, I planned to follow Steve Dembo’s advise on how to become a better blogger but that became a fleeting thought. So tonight, while on a short vacation trip, I sit in the dark, in a little cabin in Stanhope, PEI, and try again to write.

The guidelines for this first post were set.

Tell us the story of the first group of children for whom you were “Teacher.” Maybe it was at a school, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was a childcare centre, or a daycamp, or a swimming pool or a dance studio or a hockey rink.  Maybe it was in your own home, or their home. Who were they? Who were you? What did it FEEL like? Maybe it was amazing. Maybe it was terrible. Either way, there is a story there. Tell it.

I began my teaching career long ago, in Lebanon, New Hampshire after completing my Master’s degree at UNH. It was kindergarten position within the pubic school but the funding was both local and federal as part of Project Follow Through, an extension of Head Start. Every Follow Through site chose a model and ours was the Responsive Education Model developed by Far West Laboratory. The objectives of the Responsive Education model were to help children develop a healthy self concept as it relates to learning in school and the home and to develop their intellectual ability through problem solving activities and learning how to learn. My classroom was well equipped with materials and manipulatives to create an exploratory and constructive learning environment. I had a full time classroom assistant and a learning booth assistant who worked with children individually and within the classroom. We had weekly in-service and support from a local project director and program advisers. Our program director and advisers had extensive training in the model and helped us develop our expertise. There were weekly classroom visits from my program adviser who coached me in best teaching practice.

Innovation and creativity were supported and encouraged for teachers and children. This was a wonderful place to be and I spent the first 7 years of my career in the program. As a new teacher, I had the support and guidance I needed to develop and confirm my beliefs about teaching and learning. It is because of the early support and mentoring that I stayed with teaching and continue to love what I do. While I get weary and discouraged by the bureaucracy of this institution of school, I never tire of working with the children. It was my first class that taught me how to teach and the many classes which followed continue to teach. They taught me to be real, to learn with them and to take the same risks that they took every day by coming to school.

I learned about the life cycle of monarch butterflies with my first class and every year after that, I honor them by continuing to study this life cycle with my classes. One of the kindergarten teachers at the school helped me find the caterpillars in fields of milkweed and then we set up an environment for them to grow. Over the first weeks of fall and my first weeks as a teacher, I watched and wondered with my students about how a small yellow, white and black caterpillar could change into an orange, black and white butterfly. We drew pictures, recorded observations on tape, photographed changes and wrote about our learning. We watched in awe as the chrysalis formed and were mesmerized when the butterfly emerged 14 days later. Through each stage of of the monarch’s development, changes occurred in me as well as the children. I grew to be a more confident teacher and they grew as learners. We learned to trust each other and to develop as a community. In the end, like the butterfly, we found that we could fly. Together, we could do anything.

Over my many years as a teacher, I continue to look for ways to learn with my students. To me, it is important that they see me as a learner, not the teacher. Each year, I try new things that help me grow, change and develop, just as each fall, new monarch eggs are laid, caterpillars emerge and eventually become butterflies. It is the children who inspire me to do what I do and my first class showed me the way.

My students, the KinderKids have friends in many places. They connect via our classroom blogs and through skype.On December 3, we skyped with Mrs. M and the Gems from Brisbane, Australia to say goodbye. It was the last day of school before their summer vacation. We chatted about our Christmas celebrations and their plans for the holidays. After the call, my class thought it would be fun to have an Aussie Christmas celebration and compare the similarities and differences between our customs.

The children made lists of questions they wanted to investigate, they brainstormed ideas for turning the room into an Australian beach side vacation spot and planned what our day would look like. We learned from books we had received earlier from the Gems, from links we found and through another skype call with Mrs.M.

Tweets, email, photos and skype conversations all contributed to the ways my 5 and 6 year olds found answers to the questions that helped them learn. Since learning should be concrete and hands on for young children, we brought in sand, water and boogie boards for the beach experience. Beach towels, summer clothes and a barbecue lunch added to the environment. It all made for a wonderful day but  more importantly is that my students have made plans to continue learning from the new Gems when their school year starts on January 21. We have that date marked on our calendar because we want to come to   school in the evening to introduce ourselves to the new class!

What topics in your curriculum would be enhanced by learning with others in different parts of the country or the world? What benefits are there for teachers to be connecting with each other? What keeps you from getting started?

My friend Kathy Cassidy wrote:

No one has tagged me for this meme, for which I am grateful. I have been tagged a couple of times for other things, but I have never posted them because I always felt that I would then have to tag others at the end, and that feels too much like a chain letter for me to feel comfortable with it. I decided to break all the rules and do this meme anyway.

If you read this, and haven’t done your own seven things, please do. I won’t tag you, but I’d love to read them.  C’mon.  Break the rules with me.

Thanks, Kathy. I like breaking the rules. Here are my seven things.

1. I made white gold wedding rings for my husband and me which cost about $30.00 . Bill and I were married in 1976. Our honeymoon was 8 summer weeks of traveling across the US in a blue Dodge van (complete with shag carpet) camping and hiking in National Parks. We still wear our wedding rings and will celebrate our 33rd anniversary in June.

2. I’ve never broken a bone and now that I’ve said this, I hope I never do!

3. My dad died at age 60 after a six-month fight with pancreatic cancer. His death was 25 years ago, this month and I still miss him. My dad loved participating in our lives when we were growing up. I wish that he could have seen my children grow up. He knew my daughter for 4 short years and my son for only 1 year. I also wish that he could have known me as I grew as a parent, a professional and a person.

4. I don’t like school but I love to learn.

5. I’m basically shy. Although some folks who know me have a hard time believing this, it is true. I have to work really hard to engage in conversations with people I don’t know, “mingle” at parties and feel comfortable in crowds.

6. My first job ever was when I started teaching.

7. I spent the night on a Czech barge and drank Russian vodka with the crew. Between my sophomore and junior year, I backpacked around Europe with 2 other friends. It was “Europe on $5 a Day”. After traveling down the Danube, we arrived in Vienna and could not find a place to stay that fit our budget. We were approached by a guy who said, “I am a kook. You can stay on my boat.” Turns out he was a cook on the barge and invited us to spend the night on board. We had a great time that evening and slept in an unused room. Before dawn, we felt the barge moving. Our adrenaline levels were high as it was not a good time to be an American in Czechoslovakia. We scrambled to the deck, figuring we were headed to Czechoslovakia. The barge was just repositioning in the harbor and as soon as it stopped we “jumped ship” and hurried out of there.

I decided to join in the fun of taking a picture every day for the duration of 2009. Last year, I enjoyed seeing the work of others as they embarked on this endeavor and looked forward to beginning the project in 2009. Although I began taking the pictures on January 1, 2009, I had not found the group I wanted to join. I had several questions about procedures that were answered by Nedra. Thanks to her, I feel ready to go public.

I joined the EdTech 365/2009 group for a couple of reasons. The membership is not large and I didn’t want to get lost in a crowd. Also, many of the names were familiar to me so I felt that I was among friends. Being an edtech group was another factor. I have something in common with the group, a factor that is a help to me as I try something new.

My photos can be found at Through a Camera Lens .

Okay, so it is a new year. How many times have folks set goals, made a fresh start, or set out on a new beginning just because of the calendar change? So I will try again to be a better blogger. Is this truly something I want to do – well kinda, maybe, sorta!  I’ll go back to Steve Dembo’s 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger and try out his suggestions. I’m sure this could help – actually anything could help. We’ll see… only time will tell.

I have enjoyed watching the ceremony tonight. As China’s athletes come in as the final group to fill the stadium, I can’t help thinking about bringing the theme One World, One Dream. Hope for the Future to classrooms around the world.This will be some type of collaborative project for school children. I’ll be working on this project idea and share it with others when it is ready to go public.

One amazing things for me tonight as I watched the Opening Ceremony, was being able to share it through twitter with my network.

As I begin to look ahead towards a new school year, I hope to make this a more active blog. I still have a few things to write about before the summer ends. It has been an amazing summer of professional development. But that will have to wait for another day. Gary Stager, I will reflect about CMK08!

As anyone can tell from my infrequent posts, I do not have this reflective blogging thing down yet. It is easy for me to maintain a classroom blog but I never find the time for personal reflection through blogging. Here is an attempt to recommit and perhaps less time will pass between this and future posts..

During spring vacation, I spent 3 days hiking and camping in the Grand Canyon with my husband Bill, my friend Deb and her husband Dick. Also with us was Deb and Dick’s son and an archeology grad student. The trip was incredible. We were surrounded by awesome beauty. The views took my breathe away. It was a fantastic experience to share the adventure with friends. The trail was steep and rough. At times it was scary. The last day was hard – just plain old HARD- since we were coming out, going up and up and up some more. The switch backs seemed endless and I felt like I was making no progress. And yet, I did it, slowly, one foot in front of the other, sometimes crawling over rocks, sometimes small steps and much resting. The feeling was unbelievable. I felt that I could handle anything now. Nothing was impossible.

As I walked out on the last day, my head was filled with many thoughts. The Voices! I doubted my ability, I questioned myself (“What were you thinking?” said one voice). This was the hardest thing I’ve done. I couldn’t help but think about things that other people say are hard for them and what I think are easy. I thought about teaching and my own practice. For me, using technology in the classroom is not hard. For others, it is frightfully hard – near impossible. I enjoy bringing new tools into my classroom, to find new ways with technology to do regular things. Some teachers choose to avoid these tools or give up the moment things get rough. Maybe my own lesson learned while hiking the Grand Canyon can apply to these teachers. Take a chance, try using technology in your classroom. It may be hard but take it one step at a time, sometimes teeny, tiny baby steps, sometimes crawling in the tough spots, resting and moving forward. Together with the support of friends, a network of people who understand, the task of using technology and helping children learn in the digital age will not be as hard.

Using technology is not hard. Hiking out of the Grand Canyon is hard – very, very hard!

Everytime I make a new connection with someone  through their blog or  twitter or some other web 2.0 tool,  I am thrilled. These connections establish new friendships, bring new ideas to my classroom work and connect me to places I most likely will not visit in real time. There was a time, in the past, when I was growing up, that I had many opportunities to visit other places. I long for those times and yet, my new friends and connections have filled that void.

My father was in the US Air Force and we traveled a bit. We spent a great amount of time in southern California and Japan.  There were always new friends to meet, and they would share their knowledge of places they had visited. Our homes were filled with items that were purchased in countries and places we had lived. We exchanged stories, tried out new foods and learned about the culture of the land. I have fond memories of my first year in high school at an international school in Tokyo. Americans were a minority in the school and although we all spoke English in class, during breaks, native languages were often spoken. What a wonderful mix of sounds. Often, after school, my Welsh friend, Katherine and I would spend hours in her room, with tea and biscuits, paging through her scrapbooks of the Beatles. . During my college years, my family lived in Denmark and Germany. I was able to visit on holidays and vacations. I had a home base in the summer and together with friends could travel around Europe. Those were the days….

Growing up as I did helped me know that I’m not just a US citizen, but rather a world citizen. My family helped me appreciate other cultures, by inviting people into our home and by exploring the areas wher we lived to gain a better understanding. I still have a fondness for the Japanese culture and it’s influence is evident in my life. I also loved my visits to Farum, Denmark, just outside of Copenhagen. There are so many fond memories of places and people from that time in Denmark.

My life is different now. I went to college, taught for a while, got married, had children, continued teaching and all in the same place – New Hampshire. I’ve been across country twice and have visited different areas of the US but have never traveled the world again. Well – not until I connected online. While some would say it is not the same, I know that it is the best I can have for now. And something else is going on… I can take my kindergarten students to these places around the world. Then, they too, can know about other places they have yet to visit and they too can learn to be citizens of the world.

I want to make a difference and I think, deep down, I want to change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but a small piece of it. I try new things and hope that by learning them, I can pass that knowledge and experience on to others.

This week, I shared the new blog I began for the primary level teachers at my school. I was excited by their willingness to sign up for an edublogs account and I look forward to reading their posts on our blog. In doing so, a tiny bit of my world at school may be forever changed. I hope that I have made a difference in the way we communicate at the school.