Robert's Snow - Week 5 Round-Up

Today we wrap up the fifth incredible week of Blogging for the Cure. Here are the snowflakes that were highlighted this week, along with their fabulous creators. Below you will find a few of my favorites, along with links to all the features.

• Paul Brewer at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
• Timothy Bush at Here in the Bonny Glen
• Yangsook Choi at What Adrienne Thinks About That
• Cynthia Decker at The Silver Lining
• Mary Newell Depalma at Wild Rose Reader
• Jane Dippold at Just Like the Nut
• Jane Dyer at Whimsy Books

• Wendy Edelson at What Adrienne Thinks About That
• Peter Emmerich at Loree Griffin Burns: A Life in Books
• Leanne Franson at Just Like the Nut
• Akemi Gutierrez at AmoXcalli and Cuentecitos
• Mary Haverfield at Your Neighborhood Librarian
• Annette Heiberg at Lisa's Little Corner of the Internet
  

• Laura Jacques at cynthialord's Journal
• Lisa Kopelke at Lisa's Little Corner of the Internet
• Cecily Lang at Kate's Book Blog
• Giles Laroche at Book, Book, Book
• Salley Mavor at ChatRabbit
• Greg Newbold at The Longstockings
• John Nez at ChatRabbit

• Philomena O'Neill at Jo's Journal
• Annie Patterson at Check It Out
• Elizabeth Sayles at AmoXcalli and Cuentecitos
• Teri Sloat at The Miss Rumphius Effect
• Maggie Swanson at Chicken Spaghetti

• Joan Waites at Chicken Spaghetti
• Lee White at Please Come Flying
• Mike Wohnoutka at laurasalas
• Liza Woodruff at Check It Out
• Wade Zahares at Wild Rose Reader
• Aaron Zenz at Jo's Journal

The auctions begin tomorrow, so if you need a recap of the snowflakes highlighted during the last five weeks, you can find them here.

• Week 1 Round-Up
• Week 2 Round-Up
• Week 3 Round-Up
• Week 4 Round-Up

Please be sure to visit the Robert's Snow site to learn more about this event. While you are there, be sure to view all the snowflakes up for auction. Each and every one is a unique and amazing work of art. You can find the links to each of the three auction sites here as well.

• Auction 1 - November 19-23
• Auction 2 - November 26-30
• Auction 3 - December 3-7

Don't forget that 100 percent of the proceeds from this online auction will benefit sarcoma research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and that all but $25 of the winning bid is tax deductible. Happy bidding, all!

Poetry Stretch Results - Renga

This week's stretch was a collective effort. Here is the renga created by the bloggers who stopped by to leave a stanza.

leaves blush then drift
down with acorns tumbling
toward quiet slumber

blankets of clouds pile
at the orange edges of the sky

cool dark sighs
from east to west
in a slow blink

dusk reveals the bones of trees
washed in cool, cleansing mist

squirrels scatter and gather
then scramble and climb
to chatter and screech

bending bare boughs
waking Old Man Winter

snowflakes drift slowly
to the ground, covering it
with a blanket of white

when the sky sits also white,
the horizon vanishes betwixt the two

one black crow
flies low against the white
crossing the circle

leaving wide silences
to listen with great charity

a tree bakes
in a mid-day thaw
and dreams of summer

It's not too late if you want to join in. Read the rules here and then leave your stanza in the comments.

Reading Level of TMRE

Well, crap! Now I know why I'm having so much trouble writing for kids. Me thinks I've been writing for academics way too long! Or, as William's teacher would say, I'm good at writing fat sentences.

Thanks to educating alice for the link.

For Word Nerds and Other Do-Gooders

Don't blame me if you get hooked. I got this from Brooklyn Arden.

For each word you define correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated through the United Nations to help end world hunger.

Poetry Friday - The Fire of Drift-Wood

Last week when my sister came to visit, we sat around the fire and talked. When my brother comes to visit next week, I hope to do the same. Thinking about fireside chats reminded me of this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The Fire of Drift-Wood
Devereaux Farm, near Marblehead

We sat within the farm-house old,
   Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold,
   An easy entrance, night and day.
Not far away we saw the port,
   The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,
   The wooden houses, quaint and brown.
We sat and talked until the night,
   Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,
   Our voices only broke the gloom.
We spake of many a vanished scene,
   Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
   And who was changed, and who was dead;
And all that fills the hearts of friends,
   When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
   And never can be one again;

Read the rest of the poem.
For more like it, look for The Seaside and The Fireside.

The round-up today is at Big A little a. Do stop by and take in some of the amazing poetry that's been shared. But wait! Before you go, there are two things you must do.

First, check out the renga that was started for this week's poetry stretch. If you're feeling game, why don't you leave a stanza?

Second, for last week's poetry stretch, one brave soul wrote an entire poem with words containing only one vowel! Can you picture it? Okay, now go read sister AE's OULIPO called Stretch.

Happy poetry Friday, all! Have a great weekend.

Poetry Blast - THE Place to Be

Where do I want to be this Saturday? Without a doubt, at the NCTE Poetry Blast. Here's the scoop. The Poetry Blast will be held on Saturday, November 17 from 2:45-5:30 pm at the Marriott Marquis Times Square, Broadway between 45th and 46th Sts., Astor Ballroom, 7th Floor. If you are at the NCTE Annual Convention, don't miss this opportunity. The program description reads:

Poetry demands to be heard! Michael Cart and Marilyn Singer co-host the Poetry Blast, where poets read their own work, featuring Helen Frost, John Grandits, Nikki Grimes, Lee Bennett Hopkins, Alan Katz, Curtis Krisler, Marilyn Nelson, Lisa Ann Sandell, Joyce Sidman, Marilyn Singer, Charles R. Smith, Jr., and Janet Wong.

Doesn't this sound amazing? I hope some of our friends in the kidlitosphere go, and I hope they report back! (Hello, Mary Lee???)

Odds and Ends

I'm in the midst of grading papers and other craziness at work, so this will be short, but sweet. Here are some things of which you must take note!

HipWriterMama has a very cool contest going to win an adorable, handmade sock monkey. Here's the deal. You must think of an author's name (living or dead), and then create a name and cool personality of a character based on the author's name. Put your thinking caps on and then join in.

I got my first piece of mail today addressed to Miss Rumphius. It made my heart melt!

Check out the renga being written right here as part of this week's poetry stretch. It's awesome! Come and contribute your own 2- or 3-line stanza.

The last day of Blogging for a Cure is Sunday, and I have the most amazing interview to share with Teri Sloat. It's going to be damn hard sitting on it until then.

Looking for a Christmas or Hanukkah gift for the poetry lover on your list? Try Poetry on Record. If you haven't shopped at Acorn before, you should. They have great stuff. Last year I received these lovely gargoyle bookends. (And yes, they're reading!)

That's all for now. I'll be back!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Renga

Over the course of the last twelve days I've had house guests for more than half of them. Since I'm all about company these days (my next guests will arrive in time for Thanksgiving), I thought this would be the perfect time to work on some group poetry. Therefore, the form for this week's poetry stretch is renga, an ancient Japanese form of collaborative poetry.

The Renga platform in the UK provides this introduction for beginners.

A renga is a series of short verses linked into one long poem, composed collaboratively by a group. Each constituent verse must make sense independently. It should also connect in some way with the verses that follow and precede. The verses alternate between 3-liners and 2-lines throughout.

The opening verse of a renga is called the hokku. It takes the same form as haiku -three short lines. A renga opens with some reference to the season of composition and moves - not necessarily in orderly sequence - through all four seasons, generally ending with a spring verse. Seasonal themes are generally sustained for at least a couple of verses, and the passage from one season to the next is often broken by one or more non-seasonal verses.

Seasonal reference is made through the use of a season-word, which may be obvious, like ‘autumn rain’ or ‘snow’, or more subtle, for instance, ‘watermelon’ for summer. Season words include cultural as well as natural references; for instance, you might use April Fool's Day for spring. The two key principles of renga are link and shift. Link means that each verse should connect in some way with its immediate predecessor. Shift means that, with the exception of the link just noted, each verse should move on, drawing on imagery, which is new (for that particular renga). That is, repetition is to be avoided. Even when linking, although there will be some implicit connection, actual words and phrases should not be repeated.

So, are you up for some collaborative poetry? Here's what I propose. I will post the hokku to get this thing going. The next person will post a two line stanza in the comments. I'll add it to the poem, and then next poet can add a three line stanza. As each person adds a new stanza, I'll add to the growing poem on this page. Are you ready? Here we go.

leaves blush then drift
down with acorns tumbling
toward quiet slumber

blankets of clouds pile
at the orange edges of the sky

cool dark sighs
from east to west
in a slow blink

dusk reveals the bones of trees
washed in cool, cleansing mist

squirrels scatter and gather
then scramble and climb
to chatter and screech

bending bare boughs
waking Old Man Winter

snowflakes drift slowly
to the ground, covering it
with a blanket of white

when the sky sits also white,
the horizon vanishes betwixt the two

one black crow
flies low against the white
crossing the circle

leaving wide silences
to listen with great charity

a tree bakes
in a mid-day thaw
and dreams of summer

Now it's your turn. Step right up and join in. Remember to pick up the theme of the last written stanza (not the poem as a whole), follow the alternating 3-2-3-2 pattern for stanza length, and write with the economy and sensibility of haiku.

Robert's Snow - Week 4 Round-Up

Four weeks of amazing art and snowflakes, what more can I say? The first auction begins in 8 short days. I hope you have been following along and making notes on the snowflakes you'll be bidding on. If you haven't seen the snowflakes that were highlighted this week, along with their fabulous creators, please take some time to do so. Robert's Snow needs your support! Here are a few of my favorites from this week, along with links to all the features.

• R.W. Alley at at Jama Rattigan's Alphabet Soup
• Anna Alter at The Longstockings
• Laura Huliska Beith at Just One More Book!!
• Cece Bell at Jo's Journal
• Jeannie Brett at cynthialord’s Journal
• Tim Coffey at The Silver Lining
• Genevieve Cote at a wrung sponge
• Elizabeth Dulemba at sruble's world

• Jeff Ebbeler at Sam Riddleburger's blog
• Chris Gall at Through the Studio Door
• Linda Graves at Your Neighborhood Librarian
• James Gurney at Charlotte's Library
• Susan Kathleen Hartung at Wild Rose Reader
• Carol Heyer at The Shady Glade
• Joe Kulka at ChatRabbit

• Scott Magoon at Just One More Book!!
• Daniel Mahoney at Paradise Found and Great Solutions to Team Challenges
• Connie McLennan at The Shady Glade
  
• Denise Ortakales at cynthialord’s Journal
• Julie Paschkis at the excelsior file
• Mary Peterson at Brooklyn Arden
• Steven James Petruccio at Blog From the Windowsill

• Amy Schimler at Please Come Flying
• Carol Schwartz at Jama Rattigan's Alphabet Soup
• Annette Simon at Check It Out and Deo Writer
• Matt Tavares at Please Come Flying
• Melanie Watt at Whimsy Books
• Amy Young at Kate's Book Blog

If you want to learn more about this extraordinary effort, visit the Robert's Snow site. Not only can you view all the all the 2007 snowflakes, but you can also link to children's books illustrated by the artists. Finally, many of the illustrator's have been generous in offering prizes for the readers of these blog entries. For a listing of all the Robert's Snow contests, check out this list at Paradise Found.

**Please Note - At the time the Blogging for the Cure event was organized, not all snowflakes were in the hands of the folks at Dana Farber. As a result, not all of the illustrators were available for selection as part of this effort. This in no way diminishes the work of any of the illustrators that will not be highlighted. It is our hope that these features will encourage readers to visit Robert's Snow and look at ALL the wonderful snowflakes up for auction.

Poetry Friday - A Cento

I've been reading (for the umpteenth time) Walden: Or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau. I just finished the chapter Winter Animals and was inspired by his words to write this cento.

Hills rose up around me
and in misty weather loomed
like fabulous creatures.

I could walk freely
far from the village street,
where I heard the forlorn but
melodious note,
quite familiar to me,
of a hooting owl.

At length the jays arrived
with discordant screams.
Then came the chickadees
in flocks, hammering away
with their bills.

And once a sparrow
alighted upon my shoulder.
For a moment,
I felt more distinguished
by that circumstance
than by any epaulet
I could have worn.

In the spirit of Andi's Poetry in Place endeavor, I'm going to hang this one in the gazebo on Westhampton Lake. I may even post a few along the path in the woods. As soon as I can get a picture or two, I'll post them here.

The round-up this week is at a wrung sponge. Please stop by and check out all the great poems posted. But wait! Before you go, be sure to read this week's poetry stretch results. Happy poetry Friday, all!

Poetry Stretch Results - OULIPO

Many people wrote this week to say they were trying this form, but that producing a poem might take a while. For now, I'd like to share what we have.

The author of The Reading Zone used the S+7 constraint on Shel Silverstein to write Where the Sign Ends.

Using a constraint called monovocolism, sister AE at Having Writ wrote a poem called Stretch using only one vowel! I am in awe!

Andi at a wrung sponge went exactly where these fine fall days should leads many writers, and wrote this OULIPO.

I was thinking fall too, until my aching muscles led me in another direction. Here's a poem dedicated to my 17 years (yup, count 'em) in the sport of gymnastics. You could also put dancer in the title and it would work just as well.

Ode to a Gymnast
Yes,
once
again.
Aching,
bending,reaching,
repeating,
perfection!

It's not too late if you still want to play. Read the rules here. Then leave me a comment about your poem and I'll include a link to it on the list.

365 Days of Blogging Glory

The Miss Rumphius Effect is one-year old today, so please indulge me while I reflect on where I've been and where I'm going. I started blogging last fall in large part because I wanted my students to blog. How could I possibly expect them to take on a task I hadn't attempted myself? So, to prepare for the spring semester, I jumped in. I wasn't sure where I was going or what I was doing, but I did have some great models (Libby and Heather). I started reading a variety of blogs before I actually began to post, in an attempt to decide what I wanted my blog to be. In my first post, I explained my choice of blog title. It took me a while to nail down what I wanted to write about. My posts covered a range of topics, from teaching and reading, to books and authors, to my son. Okay, so that's what I do today, though I feel like I'm more focused.

Starting a blog can be a lonely business. I was reading a lot of blogs, but rarely commenting. If it wasn't for Heather taking the time to read and comment on my posts, I would have become frustrated pretty quickly. I began writing salutes to highlight authors and illustrators on their birthdays. It took until mid-January before I finally got a comment from a bonafide member of the kidlitosphere. I wrote about my application to travel with faculty from the University to China, Tibet and Taiwan. Entitled Dreaming of China, I wrote about my interest in linking the study of China to children's books. With that post a friendship was born, for this very first comment came from a kindred spirit, Elaine at Wild Rose Reader (although she was only a Blue Rose Girl then). Just over a week later I wrote Thank You, Grace Lin (or Why Multicultural Books Matter), and received comments from Elaine and Grace! The next thing I knew, Kelly Herold had added me to her blogroll, and The Miss Rumphius Effect was off and running.

It's been a great year of blogging. Here are some highlights.

• Participating in Poetry Friday.
• Writing a series of thematic book lists for instruction.
• This post on reading aloud.
• My response to the great scrotum debate.
• This post on Diversity in School and Classroom Libraries.
  
• This three part series on Exploring the Natural World.
• Documenting my trip to China, Tibet and Taiwan.
• This post on Ten Little Rabbits.
• The poetry stretch series and the very creative results.
• This post reviewing John Green's lecture at UR.
  

I could go on. I was thrilled to attend the 1st Annual Kidlit Conference where I met so many wonderful bloggers and authors face-to-face. Today I am honored to participate in the Blogging for a Cure effort and excited about my involvement in the Cybils. I am so grateful to be part of this supportive community. I would name you all, but the list would be long and I fear I would leave some important member out.

Where will the next year lead? Hopefully further down this same path with more book reviews (nonfiction, of course), thematic lists, and thoughts on teaching and learning. I hope you'll stick with me. It would be darn lonely without you.

Monday Poetry Stretch - OULIPO

Inspired by TadMack's poetry Friday post entitled Painfully Bad Math, I decided that this week's stretch would take poetry on a different kind of mathematical journey. WAIT! Don't go -- keep reading! The OULIPO is a form created in 1960 by a writer and mathematician. The form is designed to examine verse written under strict constraints. There are many constraint forms. Here are just a few that look interesting.

• S+7: The writer takes a poem already in existence and substitutes each of the poem’s substantive nouns with the noun appearing seven nouns away in the dictionary. This can also be used with verbs.
• Snowball: A poem in which each line is a single word, and each successive word is one letter longer. This form could also start with one word with each line growing by one word.
  
• Lipogram: Writing that excludes one or more letters.

You can read more about this form at Wikipedia and Poets.org. The official site is here, but alas, I do not read French. (However, the Google language tools are somewhat helpful.)

So, do you want to play? What kind of OULIPO will you write? Leave a comment about your poem and what constraint form you used, and I'll post the results later this week.

Robert's Snow - Week 3 Round-Up

Three weeks down, two weeks to go. Can you believe we're just two weeks away from the first auction? My head is spinning from all the glorious works of art I've seen. I hope you have been following along. If you haven't seen the snowflakes that were highlighted this week, along with their fabulous creators, please take some time to do so. Robert's Snow needs your support! Here are a few of my favorites from this week, along with links to all the features.

• Joy Allen at Check It Out
• Ellen Beier at What Adrienne Thinks About That
• Robin Brickman at Greetings from Nowhere
• Bill Carman at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
• Holli Conger at Please Come Flying

• Joanne Friar at The Longstockings
• Alissa Imre Geis at Wild Rose Reader
• Diane Greenseid at Just One More Book!!
• Molly Idle at The Shady Glade
• Melissa Iwai at Brooklyn Arden
• Victoria Jamieson at AmoXcalli and Cuentecitos

• Sara Kahn at Kate's Book Blog
• Rolandas Kiaulevicius at a wrung sponge
• Ann Koffsky at Book Buds
• Karen Lee at sruble's world
• Sylvia Long at Whimsy Books

• Diana Magnuson at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
• Meghan McCarthy at A Fuse #8 Production
• Tracy McGuinness-Kelly at Sam Riddleburger's blog
• Susan Miller at Your Neighborhood Librarian
• Wendell Minor at Wild Rose Reader
• Judith Moffat at Jo's Journal

• Gretel Parker at Finding Wonderland
• Matt Phelan at A Year of Reading
• Sean Qualls at Brooklyn Arden
• Adam Rex at Booktopia and Welcome to my Tweendom
• Stephanie Roth at Writing with a broken tusk

• Dan Santat at Writing and Ruminating
• Lauren Stringer at laurasalas
• Hideko Takahashi at The Silver Lining
• Jeremy Tankard at the excelsior file
• Shawna Tenney at Kate's Book Blog
• Nancy Wallace at In the Pages . . .
• Mo Willems at MotherReader

If you want to learn more about this extraordinary effort, visit the Robert's Snow site. Not only can you view all the all the 2007 snowflakes, but you can also link to children's books illustrated by the artists. Finally, many of the illustrator's have been generous in offering prizes for the readers of these blog entries. For a listing of all the Robert's Snow contests, check out this list at Paradise Found.

**Please Note - At the time the Blogging for the Cure event was organized, not all snowflakes were in the hands of the folks at Dana Farber. As a result, not all of the illustrators were available for selection as part of this effort. This in no way diminishes the work of any of the illustrators that will not be highlighted. It is our hope that these features will encourage readers to visit Robert's Snow and look at ALL the wonderful snowflakes up for auction.

Poetry Stretch Results - Found Poetry

This week's challenge seemed to really inspire people. Take a look at some of these creative pieces.

Terrell from Alone on a Limb gives us Who Owns the Water?. The words in this poem come from an interview Philip Greear gave for the Living on Earth series.

Over at Having Writ, sister AE used the words she sees while driving her car to write the poem Airbag. She also gives us a cento (a found poem created from lines of other poems) entitled Poetry Jam Session.

Mad Kane used quotes from a certain presidential hopeful to create The Poetry of Rudy Guiliani.

At a wrung sponge, cloudscome took search terms from her site meter and shaped them into a poem called Chicken Chasing Poem.

Sam Riddleburger also wrote a found poem using used search engine terms that have led folks to his site.

Karen Edmisten shares the words of a friend, the frustrated gardener, in I don't know if he meant for this to be a poem.

My found poem was created by lines from letters written by my high school pen pal. It is called Meeting at a Distance - A Life in Letters.

Still want to play? Read the rules here. Then leave me a comment about your poem and I'll include a link to it on the list.

Poetry Friday - My Found Poem

For the poetry stretch this week I challenged folks to write a found poem. My poem comes from lines found in letters written by my high school pen pal.

Meeting at a Distance - A Life in Letters
I am anxious to learn
what life is like
and learn of your country.
I have been anxious
to write to someone
in the United States.
I have questions.
What is life like in the U.S.A?
What do you do?
What do think about?
What do you believe?
I'll be happy if you write to me.
So long for now.

I read your letter
with much interest.
I'm very fine and happy.
You live a pleasant life.
Could it be
that we are more
alike than it would seem?
On opposite sides of the world
I feel as if
I have kept friends with you
for a long time,
though I have never
met you.

I wish I knew what I had written. I'd love to know what I told her. We stopped writing when Keiko went off to college, though I'm not sure why. I sure would love to know where she is today.

Poetry Friday today is being hosted today by Mentor Texts, Read Alouds & More. Please head on over and check out all the great posts this week. Before you go, however, do check in and read the results of this week's poetry stretch. Happy poetry Friday, all!

And the Surprises Just Keep On Coming!

I've been out of the office and away from the computer today. Imagine my surprise to find several congratulatory e-mails about this.

You can read about all the finalists here. I am amazed to be in the company of the following folks in the category of Best Education Blog.

• The Jose Vilson
• Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs
• Frumteacher
• Hobo Teacher
• NYC Educator
• Education Week (I've linked to the blog that I read every day, though there are many others hosted here.)
• Matthew K. Tabor, Education for the Aughts: Education News, Issues and Analysis
• James Logan Courier
• IvyGate

Frankly, I'm not sure how I got here, or if I even belong, but in any case, I want to extend my thanks to those of you who nominated The Miss Rumphius Effect. I'm thrilled to know that there are folks out there who find my blog to be a useful resource.

**My friends at the Cybils found out before I did! You can read what they had to say.

Now that you've read this, GO VOTE!

Spring Teaching, 20 Percent Time and Podcasting

Right now we are in the midst of registration for spring 2008, so my mind has turned to syllabi for my courses. I know it's early, but I'm already thinking about new ways to engage my students. I'm considering two new ideas -- podcasting and 20% time.

Podcasting - The University of Richmond has had an iPod grant for a while. On a competitive basis, faculty can submit a grant proposal with their ideas on enhancing teaching and learning through the use of iPods. Faculty who win these grants receive a a 30GB video iPod and MicroMemo microphone. Students in the courses using the iPods are loaned a 30GB video iPod with a case and a MicroMemo microphone for the semester. I've long thought about applying for a grant, but was not motivated to do so until this year. I was so inspired by Mark Blevis' presentation at the Kidlit conference, that I finally got going and applied. Here's a portion of my proposal:

I have been disappointed in recent years with the quality of textbooks available for my course Foundations of Math Instruction. Most texts focus heavily on pedagogy, which is a major focus of class sessions, and very little on theory and development of mathematical ideas in children. I have been presenting short lectures on these topics and providing outside readings, but I would like to deliver more extensive lectures, and there simply isn't class time to do this. I propose to use the iPod to deliver a series of longer lectures. Initially, these are the topics I would like to focus on.

• The Mathematical Knowledge Children Bring to School
• counting and the origins of number concept
• linguistic structure of number names
• procedural fluency and counting
• intuitive notions of magnitude and equivalence
• intuitive notions of addition and subtraction
• limitations of preschoolers' mathematical proficiency
• Reading and Writing Basic Symbols
• knowledge of written symbols
• recognition and reading
• writing numerals
• reading and writing difficulties
• Numbers and Number Systems
• what are numbers?
• what is a number system?
• historical development of number systems – tally, additive, multiplicative
• the idea of base
• basic digits and place value
• the role of zero

In addition to delivering course content using the iPod, I propose to have students generate a series of podcasts related to using children's literature to teach mathematical concepts. Currently students review books and write lessons that integrate children's literature, but this work does not reach beyond the boundaries of the classroom. I would like to make these ideas available to a wider audience (elementary teachers, homeschoolers, etc.) by making their podcasts available online. Student podcasts would include a booktalk, short reading of the text, ideas for instruction, and links to related books.

These are just initial ideas, but ones that I am excited about. Even if the grant isn't funded, I may try to find a way to do this on a small scale anyway.

20 Percent Time - 20 percent time is a well-known part of the Google work philosophy, enabling engineers to spend one day a week (or 20% of their time) working on projects that aren't necessarily in their job descriptions. This program keeps engineers engaged and excited about working on new projects while also providing an opportunity for them to grow both professionally and personally.

As I begin to think about required work for my classes, I'm seriously thinking that I might use 20% time as a required assignment and component of the final grade. I see this as a perfect opportunity for students to determine a project that is meaningful to them as they work to demonstrate their mastery of course material. This kind of choice could be highly motivating for students, and as a result, I could get all manner of creative pieces.

So, that's where I am today. Who knows where I'll be tomorrow? What new things are you trying in your classes?

Halloween Fun

Last year as William and I worked up until the last minute to finish his costume, I swore I would never do it again. So what was I doing last night? Sewing the legs on the spider costume, until William cracked his head open on the coffee table. Everything got put on hold while we dealt with that mess. Last night's emergency meant I had lots of last minute sewing to do when I got home from work today. It all worked out in the end. Even though the legs were a bit droopy, he still looked good. (And if you're wondering, he does have 8 spider legs -- two arms, two legs, and four socks!) Here's my favorite spider.

Isn't he cute? He makes a great spider, but last year's costume was pretty darn cute too!

Happy Halloween, all!

Woo-Hoo - Blog of the Day Award!

Color me happy, for today I won an award. I can't take all the credit, though. I believe I won because of this post about my son.