Quotations on Thinking

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“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

Albert Einstein

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“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”

Plutarch

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“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Socrates

Language, Literacy, and Storytelling – Part 1

Here is another wonderful post on education by that excellent teacher, Jennie!

A Teacher's Reflections

As a teacher, I want to grow readers. I want to help children develop a sense of understanding. I want children to become curious, and eager to discover. I learned early on that in order to do this, it all begins with language and hearing words. Fact: a child’s success in school in all areas, not just reading, is directly attributed to the number of words s/he hears. As a parent of young children, that fact alone made me want to run to the public library. And I did. As a teacher, I became an advocate for reading to children. I just knew that pouring all those words into their brains was filling the learning reservoir. It happens in this order – listening, speaking, reading, then writing.

Reading aloud became a passion and a constant in my classroom. The guru of reading aloud, Jim Trelease, visited my classroom to hear…

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The Miracle of Reading

This is a wonderful post I just found!

Myths of the Mirror

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I had another post prepared for today… but then a miracle happened…

I showed up at Tornado Boy’s house for two days of “Grammy Time.” Kindergarten doesn’t kick off until Tuesday and preschool ended early, leaving mom and dad in a lurch. When I walked in the door, I received my usual whirlwind of hugs, but the first question out of the tornado’s mouth was, “Do you want me to read a book to you?”

Not Legos, no request to build a spaceship or visit the park, no plea to use his old grammy as a jungle-gym. Nope.

“Do you want me to read a book to you?”

“Why, sure,” I replied, fully expecting a play by play narration through a picture book or a four-pager of his own creation.

I sat on the couch, and he climbed up beside me, tucked in tight, and opened Dr. Seuss’s Hop…

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Conversations With Colleen: Meet Author & Poet, Annette Rochelle Aben

Here is a wonderful interview with the poet, writer, and blogger Annette Rochelle Aben!

Elephant Appreciation Day

Here are beautiful water colors by Sarah!

Art Expedition

Today, the 22nd of September is Elephant Appreciation Day! And because I really love elephants and couldn’t stop after just one water color, I had to paint a second one. 🙂

African Bush Elephant (water color on paper; Sept. 2018)

Most of us only get to see elephants in zoos and/or documentaries, and some of us, like me, might dream to see them one day in the wilds of Africa.

But if we want to, we better hurry as African elephants are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) while the Asian elephant is classed as endangered.

One of the biggest threats to elephant populations still is the ivory trade, as the animals are poached for their ivory tusks. Other threats to wild elephants also include habitat destruction and conflicts with local people. In Asia they´re used as working animals. And in the past they were even used for war, think of Hannibal for instance, who…

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Waterfall of the Gods~

Here are most beautiful photographs from Cindy Knoke!

Cindy Knoke

Godafoss, the Waterfall of the Gods, originates deep in the Icelandic Highlands.

The first cascade falls 12 meters, over a span of 30 meters, and the cascades continue for quite a distance. There is an incredible volume of water moving here, and the sound, spray and color, are quite remarkable.

It is one of Iceland’s many spectacular waterfalls.

Godafoss can be accessed from the nearby town of Akureyri, which in turn is reachable by Iceland’s famed Ring Road.

Akureyri, like all Icelandic towns is charming, and boasts the northern-most botanical garden in the world,

where you can see many unusual and beautiful plants.

We are home at The Holler now, but it is still, cheers to you from stunning Iceland~

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An Invitation To Join The U.L.S. The Underground Library Society–In Honor of National Banned Books Week

This week is National Banned Books Week–an important time to focus on the risks of books being banned and challenged.

In an earlier First Year Class at Lehigh University, The U.L.S. — The Underground Library Society — was created. It is in the spirit of the Book People from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. In that novel, all books have been banned, and a few people “become” books by memorizing them, in the hope that, one day, books will be permitted to exist again.

In that spirit, I am putting out the call once more for like-minded people to join The U.L.S. All that is needed is to choose a book you would memorize if the need ever arose. You do not actually have to memorize the book now. If you wish to join, simply write a guest post in which you say what book you would “become” and why.

I hope many of you choose to join.

A Published Poem By My Friend Rob Fillman

I wanted to share the exciting news that my friend and colleague Robert Fillman has a poem in the journal Canary: A Literary Journal Of The Environmental Crisis.

The link is here: Canary A Literary Journal of the Environmental Crisis

The Science Teacher

by Robert Fillman

Robert lives in the Lehigh River Watershed in eastern Pennsylvania.

When old Mrs. Helmut got sick
Miss Carson was her substitute.
She was young, straight out of college,
voice as soft as the knee-high grass
in the fields behind the playground.
She taught us about recycling,
how to conserve more energy
by swapping incandescent bulbs,
hanging our wet clothes on the line,
unplugging old appliances.
She asked us if we had ever
heated water with a peanut,
forced our nine-year-old minds to think
beyond broken chalk and blackboards.
We made compost in the courtyard
out of our leftovers from lunch,
went on field trips to Cedar Creek,
gathered specimens to study.
She took us to the water works
where we watched sewage get filtered
into vats and sent to landfills.
My dad called her a tree hugger.
My mom thought she was too involved,
too motivated, much too bold
for her own good. Both couldn’t wait
for Mrs. Helmut to return,
for the leaves of enlightenment
to fall. The last time I saw her
she was staring out the window
of our fourth-grade classroom, singing
to herself while she watched a group
of sparrows and nuthatches peck
at the sunflower seed feeders
we made for her going away.

© Robert Fillman

Congratulations to Robert Fillman on his publication!

Promote Your Book Party!

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Hello to everyone! I want once again to offer an opportunity for all writers who follow this blog to share information on their books. It can be very difficult to generate publicity for our writing, so I thought this little effort might help. All books may be mentioned, and there is no restriction on genre. This includes poetry and non-fiction.

To participate, simply give your name, your book, information about it, and where to purchase it in the comments section. Then please be willing to reblog and/or tweet this post. The more people that see it, the more publicity we can generate for everyone’s books.

Thank you for participating!

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