Good morning!

We’re officially into the Christmas season; it’s not the shopping time beforehand. The 12 Days of Christmas are until Epiphany, the visit of the Three Kings. I hope your celebrations, visits, good time with family and friends and time to do the stuff you enjoy continues on!

Sunday Morning is remembering all the rich and famous we lost this past year. It’s memorable to see, but my memories are of those I’ve known and who touched my life. They don’t get their moment of fame, but the sure do have my love!

It’s hard to believe we’re a decade into this century; weren’t we just yesterday fretting  over Y2K? A decades is another reason for lists and the first I have to share is School Library Journal’s. SLJ provides a nice overview of trends in children’s and YA lit and a nice confirmation of the lack of presence of POC in childrens and YA. We didn’t even pass away last decade, did we Virginia Hamilton?

I know sarcasm doesn’t always work in print, but, it’s all I’ve got in times like these.

I want to work on book page poems. Someone blogged them again recently. I think if a class is studyng say WWII, finding the old weeded books on WWII could help them understand bits of the war if they use the pages to create a poem. Or origami.

Sometimes, silly is all I”ve got.

(‘Weeded books’ are old, no longer used, damaged, erroneous and/or outdated books that are removed from a library’s collection.)

Storytelling through picture could be a good way to go as well.

I got a Wii for Christmas!!  Watch out fitness, here I come! In looking through the available games, I was amazed to see games that help with physic concepts, language development and world history.  Great for kinesthetic learners! My son wants to pitch Wii to his company for team building activities, one more way they’d be great in a classroom as well. I’d hoped to acquire one through DonorsChoose for my school, but for some reason they only provide this huge $2000 package with a TV and cart. If you’re reading this and fell inclined, just contact me and I’ll give you my school’s address!  In the meantime, I guess if will be the freer, flatter games.