Dear friends...

I am in love with this idea!

Type a message to a friend, family member, pet, politician, or lover, and email it to snailmailmyemail@gmail.com. Then sit back and relax while your email is handwritten, sent out, and delivered to the recipient of your choosing, completely free of charge!

Snail Mail My Email is a month-long (July 15 - August 15), interactive community art project which seeks to both share the warm-fuzzy feeling of receiving a personalized letter as well as inspire people to send their own snail mail. Anyone with internet access can partake by simply sending an email, after which the very same message will be handwritten and physically mailed to the chosen recipient anywhere in the world, completely free of charge.

The 86 Days of Summer

Grand Beach, Manitoba

Some people create New Year's resolutions.

I create a list of...

68 things to do in 86 days of summer!

Here's the approximate breakdown:

10 items are food related
5 are related to exercise and wellness
17 of them are sports/leisure/hobby type activities
7 are literacy related
at least 12 of them involve travel
11 will help me build some mad skills
and 9 of the list items are purely indulgent

I'm sooooo looking forward to summer!

Don't Forget to Vote May 3rd!

Here are some yard signs that can't be torn down or stolen!

If you're a Grand Forks resident and have questions about the library revitalization project and the upcoming vote (on Tuesday) for a 1% sales tax increase to fund it, please check out this blog: Speak Up For Your Library

The Art of Self-Editing

This is almost painful to watch. Come on, kids, life is about taking risks. It's bittersweet. So dear. So awkward. So unlike reality, in that we're privy to both minds at once in this video. If we only had a God's eye view, it would be so much easier. Of course, at 2 am... with the help of a little alcohol the filter seems a bit less intrusive. :)

Reading Rally Spring 2010

Our school held a year-end Reading Rally to celebrate the reading efforts of our students this year. We've done a sort of tally on the wall outside the library all year documenting student books and staff books in a friendly competition. We gathered to announce awards, accomplishments, and to present some books purchased with our NEA Books Across America grant.

Continuing with the theme of popcorn, we celebrated with a popcorn party--featuring the Book Club's favorite caramel popcorn as one of the choices.

In addition, we honored our 2010 Poet of the Year, and read his poem to the group. There were so many good ones this year it was a close race.

This is the kind of stuff that gets my heart beating a bit faster. I loved that kids used the post-its we put on the table to indicate books they wanted to be first to check out. I have a handful I know I am eager to read too. I love it when I get to try an idea I have and I love it even more when it turns out better than I imagined.

What is Wrong With This Picture?

UND Bookstore Childrens' Dept. now features a large screen TV.
I just threw up a little in my mouth.

NDRA Conference Presentation Fun

On Friday I presented a session on using picture books in the secondary classroom. It turns out I had more material than time but I managed to squeeze it all in. I hope folks took something away with them. I am cuckoo for picture books and I am sure that showed!

My pal Andrea and I had the pleasure of presenting a session together yesterday at NDRA on Creating a School-Wide Reading Initiative. It was loads of fun to talk about getting kids motivated to read and all the great YA books available to keep them engaged.

Friday, our luncheon speaker was Jacqueline Woodson and she read from a variety of books. I haven't had the pleasure of reading any of her work, but I want to now!

Jeff Wilhelm's presentation on Teaching with Inquiry blew me away and got me fired up for fall. The whole perspective shift and re-framing lessons just makes so much sense when it comes to teaching. This was my conference highlight!