Enjoying and exploring

I found this cartoon at the blog, LibraryBytes. Somehow, I couldn't resist including it here.

So I have further used my 23 things: I have chatted via Facebook with my son in Greece (soon to be home in Minnesota for 2 weeks!), I have found lesson plans on water usage and the Jordan River in Israel, and I have become wicked good at bilging on Puzzle Pirates. (Okay, maybe a little TOO good at Puzzle Pirates...)

Seriously though, I have gotten more comfortable and more efficient at finding materials than I was before, and I was pretty good to start with. This past week I even found a bilingual (Hebrew-English) picture book about desert animals in the Negev for a first grade unit on, wait for it, desert animals in the Negev. And it's even adorable.

Well, enough self-praise. But I wouldn't have been quite so successful at this without the 23 things on a stick. So now I almost have time to play Puzzle Pirates again!

May Day Madness

Spring is exploding all around me, and I am sitting at my computer. The only thing that makes it even half-way okay is knowing that today I get to read to preschoolers, do recess duty, and pick up my plants from the school plant sale.

But even though I usually don't like spring (damp, etc.), I love the quality of the sunshine and the energy with which people respond to the world outside.

Here's one of my favorite poems about spring:


in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's spring
and the goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

ee cummings


I hope everyone gets to enjoy some sunshine, and sprinkles, and mud...

Wishful Thinking

I find myself wishing that with spring arriving, all would blossom and renew itself, so that all the good things in the world could continue in strength and health. But instead I find myself thinking that wishes alone cannot come true. That I need to work harder, try harder, dream harder, to make the good survive.

I am sure part of my pensiveness is learning that my position is being decreased in percentage time for next school year. I had so many plans and dreams for my students next year, but I will only be able to what I can in a 50% position.

I am grateful that I am not so dependent on my job for its income--that could have been disasterous. But I worry that all the progress I have made in educating students and expanding their minds will fall by the wayside.

So here's to dreams and to work--may they both be enough to increase enrollment so that I can be working more time!

When things go right

Sometimes, I remember why I like with working with children. I work with 3 second-graders as part of their enrichment. We are working in the Jr. Great Books curriculum in the library 2 days a week. Last week we were reading "The Fisherman and his Wife," a typical cautionary tale that warns what can happen if you wish for too much. To prepare for the story, the program suggests that you ask students a number of questions. I loved the answers and rationales I got.

When asked if they would wish for toys, clothes, or games, one child said, "No, I have enough of those." When asked if they would wish again for a million dollars, one was leaning toward "no" when another child said, "Well, I said yes so that I could give it to charity." The first one then said, "Oh, if I can give it to charity, I'll ask for the million dollars too."

Some days, the values we try to teach seem to reach them. On those days, it is easy to love being a teacher.

Life Beyond 23 Things

Today I am trying to figure out just what kind of blog I could create that would be appropriate for my school library. Right now, my best guess is a sort of book review blog; then, if I listed the address with my professional email, I would feel that it would be not only appropriate but useful. I'm not sure that the sort of exploring and play that I have done in this blog would work for a school librarian "official" site.

Anybody out there have any thoughts on the issue? I will post this to the 23 things NING too, so that I can get some advice.