It’s Monday! What are you reading?

imwayr

Trying to get back on track with writing. I’ve been making excuses and getting sucked into my depression, but here we go.

Currently Reading:

The Music of Dolphins, Karen Hesse

I’m reading this with some of my students. I think I’ve finally figured out how to make small group instruction work during my literacy block. It involves using a rubric where I take notes during group meetings, so I can then input all my anecdotal notes into my gradebook. That’s been my biggest challenge — getting my classroom evidence to be reflected in my students’ grades. My students also have a shared Google Doc where they can ask each others questions and seek clarification.

Chomp, Carl Hiassen

I was originally planning on having this as our last read aloud of the year because it’s on next year’s Battle of the Books list, but after reading the first hundred pages, I decided to make a different pick. Actually, my students made the pick and they chose:

The Twenty-One Balloons, William Pene du Bois

I love this book, and we attempted to read it aloud last year, but we ran out of time before the year ended. Hopefully we’ll be successful this year.

The Bible

I’m 45% of the way through the Bible. I had always thought of Luke as just being the gospel with the Christmas story, but I’m really enjoying JC’s parables in this translation.

Here we go!

Thirstday 07/11/13

It’s tiiiiiiiiime!

thirstdayProps as ever to David Etkin for hosting this fine meme.

Salutations from Maui! My beverages haven’t been terribly tropical, but they have been tasty.

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I didn’t really care for this book, but I do like the tea.

And yes. There’s a Starbucks cup even out here. I just got the newest mug from the You Are Here series.

I attempted to take a photo for #bookaday that featured both my book and the #viewfromhere, but the lighting foiled my plans. Take a look at this lovely bird, though.

Photo2 (8)Off I go!

 

 

Treat Tuesday 5/28/13

treatbadgeThanks to Niki for hosting Treat Tuesday!

Now that my National Boards are turned in, it feels sooooooooo nice to be back on this site again. Time for a huge sigh of relief.

EXCEPT!

That I can never rest for long.

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When I posted this image to Twitter as a preview for tonight’s blog post, I received this:

Screen shot 2013-05-28 at 7.31.19 PMLornaaaaaaaa! I was GOING to just share that I’m reading A Tangle of Knots and although I’m not snacking on it today, I just UNLEASHED my sourdough starter from King Arthur Flour. But then I asked my sickly husband if he wanted fresh baked goods and he did, so I hoofed it down to the library and to our friendly neighborhood QFC.

And now I’m making Marigold’s Lime Pound Cake. Theoretically, it will look like this:

Image from Lisa Graff’s website.

Back to the kitchen. <3

 

 

It’s Monday! What are you reading? 5/27/13

Welp, I’ve been avoiding the last big push to finish my National Boards, and I have now discovered my coping mechanism: devouring Shannon Hale princess books.

This week I powered through The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, and Princess Academy, and the only reason I stopped there is because I’m on the hold list at Seattle Public Library for all the rest. Here are some other items I’ve been reading:

Screen shot 2013-05-27 at 11.19.54 AMNow, back to Entry 1.

 

 

Treat Tuesday 02/19/13

treatbadgeThanks as ever to Niki OhsBarnes for getting this snacky show on the road.

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Today I’m planning my next social studies unit, which focuses on geography. I’m SUPER pumped because this will line up really nicely with our plant science unit — the culminating activity for the social studies unit is to create a community nature center guide, with each kid picking a different community in the US and discussing the plant life (and landforms) found there.

I’m hoping it might also be a good time to play around with Mystery Skypes, which I heard about from the inspiring, thoughtful Cheryl Steighner. This is my social studies unit for my National Board entry, so I’m hoping to make it really beefy and wonderful.

QUICK PLUG. Please PLEASE support Cheryl by liking her video so she can be a New Media Consortium K-12 ambassador?

Anywho, back to snacks. Upon discovering I’m officially, medically overweight (according to one measure), I pretty much eliminated sweets from our house. But I do still have AMAZING Michigan potato chips from my parents’ thoughtful Christmas prezzie. I have an entire CASE of Better Made BBQ chips. YESSSSSSS. (“What do you want for Christmas, Shannon?” “All of the Michigan things!” And they delivered. Because my mother is the best gift-buyer on the planet)

OMG speaking of which, look at what SANTA included with Toby’s Taco Bell gift certificate.

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Yeah. So snacks. Salty > Sweet every time. Happy Treat Tuesday.

Oh! And so you should totally follow my mom on Twitter. She’s kind of seriously the best around. And she has mastered the art of ironic hashtags.

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Happy Tuesday! Enjoy Midwinter break!

 

It’s Monday! What are you reading?

imwayr

 

I’ve been reading quite a bit in the past week, mostly before bed as I’ve been a slacker as far as taking the bus goes. Yesterday my iPad fell on my face while I was reading The Second Siege in bed. Whoops.

Here’s what I’ve been reading.

Screen shot 2013-02-18 at 9.58.52 AM

I was most thoroughly disappointed in Not My Bag, and most excited by Lincoln’s Grave Robbers.

Treat Tuesday 02/12/13

treatbadgeSnacking on my snacks while pondering Washington state’s new teacher evaluation system. Wishing I could start on Ellen Klages’ White Sands Red Menace.

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I know it’s Paczki Day, so I should be indulging in pastries, but there are no yummy baked goods that caught my eye here at the Puget Sound ESD. So fruit. With paczki from the Met Market later today.

If you live in Michigan and aren’t eating a paczek, just know that I am weeping because of your waste.

Treat Tuesday / Thirstday 02/05/13 and 02/07/13

My snacks and coffee mugs were too rad for me this week to bypass this Tuesday and Thursday’s memes, even though I am late.

I am late on much of my writing lately, it seems. I still need to put together an ALAMW post, and I have a Nerdy Book Club post that Colby kindly pushed back. I DID get my report cards done on time. And I have National Board stuff to mess around with.

But first, SUPER-QUICK, you’ve gotta see this:

treatbadge

I’m not where I want to be, both health-wise and weight-wise. But my pants reached a critical point where I couldn’t pretend they were fitting any more. So I bought my Orange Pants of Guilt, which isn’t a terribly healthy name body image-wise, but it was kind of true. Plus, the pants were amazing.

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The orange shade of my Orange Pants of Guilt is the same shade as Taki dust, which we discovered when we had a Hot Cheetos and Takis party Tuesday in class. It’s also the same color as Taco Bell hot sauce, which you can see from the photo.

The book above, Dignifying Science, is written by the guy who wrote Feynman, and it’s illustrated by a bunch of rad women cartoonists.

And then there was Thirstday.

thirstdayOh haaaaaay! It’s Thursday again and I’m drinking coffee again.

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Making some espresso for Toby too. His cup is from Crate & Barrel.

The book is my FAVORITE book on Bucky Fuller, called Starting with the Universe. It’s a book that came out to go along with the retrospective exhibit at the Whitney in 2008.

I think pixel art is pretty much the best thing in the universe. It might be because I’m a child of the 80s or because I’m a big cross-stitch nut, but I love that little squares can wind up representing things pretty clearly. This mug was designed for the holiday collaboration between Rodarte and Starbucks, but it makes me think of Minecraft, Lego art, and this book trailer by Julian Hector:

 

Happy reading!