Summer Reading 2015

A cup of tea, a summer morning, a long awaited book....life is good.

A cup of tea, a summer morning, a long awaited book….life is good.

Well, hot diggity dog, kids!  Summer is here!  YAHOO!  

And you know what that means, right?  Time for……..READING!  YAY!  Happy dance!  If you’re anything like me, you love summer because it is a season when we are able to do everything we love but have been putting off until we have time.  In June, July, and for some of August, we have the luxury of time.  Time to rest, time to exercise, time to spend with family and friends, time to vacation or to staycation, and time to READ!

Whoop, whoop!

What books are you planning to read this summer?   My list includes:

 

House of the Red Fish, (the sequel to Under the Blood Red Sun) by Graham Salisbury

(Remember our Skype visit, kids?  Also think about Eyes of the Emperor and House of the Bamboo Rat)

houseoftheredfish

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, 1599, by James Shapiro

a year in the life of william shakespeare

Creating Magic: 10 Common Sense Leadership Strategies from a Life at Disney, by Lee Cockerell

creating magic

The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd

the-invention-of-wings-sue-monk-kidd

Eyes of the Emperor by Graham Salisbury

Eyes_of_the_Emperor_Cover

and The Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

Life of Pi

If you need help finding a good book, try DOGObooks Summer Reading list and program.  Kids write all the reviews on DOGObooks; this year 78 books made the summer reading list,  and 76 books are offered as prizes for those who participate in the program.  Now is the time to find a good book, immerse yourself in another time and place, and then start a conversation by writing about your book adventure here.

Let the adventures begin!

Writing with Mrs. Rombach Reads

Hey Kids!

Through the wonder of blogging, we have found a great new class!  Mrs. Rombach and her readers, whom we have visited a bit in the past, have sent us some prompts so that we can write interactive stories with them.

How cool is that?  (Mrs. Rombach has also shared a very creative and fun method of working on vocabulary, but I will save that secret for another day.  Teachers are required by Teacher Law #65113 not to allow too much fun into any one day.)

So today, we can finish a story that has been started by a member of Mrs. Rombach’s class.  We also get to share prompts with her middle schoolers at Eagle Ridge Middle School in Ashburn, Virginia.

So let’s put on our author hats, and get writing!  Perhaps one of us will be the next Graham Salisbury.  You never know what the future holds.

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Happy Mother’s and Father’s Days!

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My mom and I; Christmas Day, 1969. I’m riding my horse, Patches.

My mom and I; Mother's Day 2014

My mom and I; Mother’s Day 2014

What will you do this year to let your mom and/or dad know how much they mean to you?  Did you know that Mother’s Day began as a day to spend in church and in writing a letter to your mom, letting her know how much she meant to you?  Father’s Day was begun by a woman whose own mother had passed away and who wanted to honor her dad.

When I was growing up, my dad wasn’t around very much.  He ultimately left our home when I was nine, and he died ten years later.  There were times he was a great dad, but there were lots of times he wasn’t.  My mom really had her hands full taking care of us three children, working as a nurse, keeping the house up, and dealing with my dad.   I think she did a great job.  My brother became an Eagle Scout and is now the CEO for the Boston Boy Scout Council.  My sister and I are both teachers.  We all have our own families and homes.  None of us would have the lives we do if it weren’t for all the sacrifices our mom made for us growing up.

 

Here are some of my favorite stories about my mom.

When I was about 12, we didn’t have any money for a Christmas tree.  My mother, being the resourceful New Englander she is, got a rusty old saw from the cellar, opened our living room window (which was about 15 feet off the ground), sat with one leg dangling out the window, and began sawing off the top of a pine tree that hugged our house.  She succeeded in getting us a four-foot Christmas tree and in changing the shape of our two-story pine from a triangle to a trapezoid.  She went out to the front lawn where the treetop had fallen, hauled it into the house, set it onto a table to give it some added height, and voila!  Problem solved.  I didn’t love the tree, nor did I love explaining to my friends why we had such a puny tree or why our outside tree had been amputated, but I did love the way my mom took care of us without asking for help or pity from anyone.  She is resilient.

Another time when I was around the same age, we were on a picnic at Castle Island in Boston.  It started to rain, and so my mom put a dish towel on her head and began “running” for the car.  My mom has not really been a runner since she was about five-years-old.  To my junior high way of thinking, she looked crazy, but she was laughing despite the rain, the ruined picnic, and my clear disdain for her dishtowel rain hat.  Even at the time, I still loved the way she laughed at the whole situation, which was beyond her control.  She was able to look at the big picture of our family together, running in the rain, and overlook the fact that the evening did not go as planned.

My mom has taught me a lot by the way she handles adversity.  It is often through adversity that we grow, and guess what?  Without rain, that pine tree next to my old house would never have been able to re-grow, so that today it once again stands two-stories high and is a perfect isosceles triangle.

The house I grew up in.  The pine tree is around the other side of the house, but you can see how high the first floor windows are off the ground.

The house I grew up in. The pine tree is around the other side of the house, but you can see how high the first floor windows are off the ground.

What do you need to thank your mom or dad for?

What is the funniest story you can think of that involves your mom or dad?

How does your mom or dad inspire you?