One Lovely Blog Award

Congratulations, Ms. Houghton’s Class!

We received a One Lovely Blog award from Jess, who writes about her life as a newspaper reporter and as a temporary resident of Germany! To be fair, Jess and I also lived on the same floor in the dorms at Michigan State, and we traveled to the British Isles together in 2003. (Remember what I told you about college giving you friends for life?)

Anyway, one of the terms of accepting the One Lovely Blog award is that we must bestow it upon 15 other bloggers. That seems like a rather large number, so I snipped it down to an even ten. I rely on the work of a lot of great teachers, writers and friends to help come up with ideas for making our class a great place to be! Without further ado, and in alphabetical order…

Art Projects for Kids. If only Kathy Barbro were our school’s art teacher. Thankfully, she makes her lesson plans available for gen ed teachers like me, who need to step into the role of art teacher.

Color Me Katie. I have no clue how she does it, but New York-based artist Katie Sokoler always comes up with whimsical, smart art that fits right into her community. Her work always makes me smile.

A Fuse 8 Production. NYC librarian Elizabeth Bird runs this blog for the School Library Journal. It’s always thrilling to hear from someone so excited, so giddy about books! Plus, she always has great suggestions.

Help Readers Love Reading! Brian is a Wisconsin teacher who shares books he’s had success with in his classroom. I love that his reviews have been test-driven by students!

Huffington Post. My Internet newspaper.

Life with a Little Dog. Many of my newspaper reporting friends write outside the pages of their home publication. I interned at The Gazette of Colorado Springs with Crystal, and we had a delightful time. I enjoy keeping up with her life (and the lives of her critters) in Kansas City.

Made by Rae. I find a lot of great patterns here, and Rae’s a teacher as well! I’m also always dazzled by the fabrics she’s able to find. This blog doesn’t necessarily help me be a better teacher, but it does help me be a well-dressed one… :)

Mo Willems Doodles. With such a busy touring schedule, raising a daughter, and continuing to write brilliant books for young (and old) readers, it amazes me that Mo has time to blog.

Planet Esme. I somewhat begrudgingly bestow this award, because although I think Madame Esme fancies herself to be quite the bees’ knees and I’m not interested in inflating her ego any more, I do discover quite a few new and exciting books on her site. Blast.

PS 22 Chorus. Is there a teacher (or human) alive who is not moved, excited, and inspired by this group of 5th graders and their fearless leader? I am so glad that they are getting the national recognition they deserve!

To our recognized bloggers: I understand how busy you are and I certainly don’t expect you to go through your blogroll and recommend 15 others (I know this whole award was probably started as a ploy to get increased traffic), but I wanted you to know we enjoy your work.

Thanks to everyone for being such a great inspiration to me (and to our class)!

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