Christmas Week Fun

• December 26th, 2010
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Pumpkin Pie!

We baked…

Gutter ball!

Strike!

We bowled…

Just a few more pieces...

 We worked on a Christmas puzzle… 

 We played Sequence…

Two thumbs up for The Tourist!

 We went to the movies…

We decorated sugar cookies for Santa…

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

And the winner is…

• December 23rd, 2010
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Thanks to my Wilson’s Creek colleagues who voted me Teacher of the Month because,”She plans innovative and creative writing lessons in her class!”

It's sitting on the mantle!

But what makes me even happier then having the trophy on the mantle is having Kelsey in the house!

Kelsey and Maggie kicking back!

Countdown to Christmas!

• December 18th, 2010
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Amber and The Nutcracker

 We enjoyed a pre-party lunch for Amber’s 21st B-day at Highland Springs Country Club. The cake, provided by Cake It To The Limit, was delicious! Next, we were off the Lander’s Little Theater for The Nutcracker-scores of talented  little girls with pointed toes. We snuck out at intermission, as Amber had to get to the business of “serious partying.”  Now that we have successfully celebrated her birthday, we can turn our attention to Christmas!

Mom and Kelsey arrive Tuesday-which means I need to do some serious grocery shopping as well as wrapping stocking gifts. I’m really looking forward to spending time around the Christmas puzzle, making potica, fudge, and decorating sugar cookies! Hoping to fit in several flicks and a trip to the Christmas village in Branson as well.

Hope you and yours enjoy the holiday season!

It’s My Birthday!

• December 10th, 2010
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Learned an interesting plot strategy last Saturday called Meet In The Middle at the Ozarks Writers and Illustrators for Children holiday party/meeting.Basically, you number a piece of paper (we used 1-15) then fill in your plot outline in the following order: 1 then 15, 2 then 14, 3 then 13, 4 then 12 and so on… until you Meet In the Middle! Thanks to Janie Chaeney for sharing this idea! 

In my own classroom, we are working on creating found poems using our silent reading books. Here’s what I’ve started using The Cardturner by Louis Sachar (The bolded words are Sachar’s):

If I were a super talented author

I’d make the words sing

Sweet and melodic

Instead of being

Gritty and full of cracks

A tangled web of gibberish

That sounds like

A piano falling on top of you.

My words would dazzle

Like a kiss

Not cause heartache

Like the twist of a bloody knife.

I’m off to Missouri State University to collaborate with my Ozarks Writing Project colleagues. Our agenda includes finishing the CFA, discussing the 2011-2012 budget, planning upcoming programs and revising the site map. Hopefully birthday cake will be provided!

Scholastic,Saturday Soiree , Sunday Shoot out and other Stuff

• December 5th, 2010
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Okay, so I was going for alliteration in my title and I may have overdone it a bit. But I have poetry on the brain, since we have been  working on it in class. We are analyzing poems, memorizing poems, reading poems, and writing all kinds of poems: acrostics,ballads, centos, clerihews, cinquains,concrete, haikus, limericks, list,odes,sonnets,tankas, and villanellas to name a baker’s dozen!

On Thursday, I had the pleasure of guiding some students from the Springfield Boys & Girls club through the ins and outs of the Scholastic Arts and Writing Contest. (Check it out on www.artandwriting.org ) I cajoled  Springfield Writers Group members Amanda Barke, Wayne Groler, and Jerry-Mac Johnson, to share tips on their areas of expertise; journalism, memoir, and script writing. We chowed down on pizza provided by the Ozark Writing Project and wrote, wrote, wrote.  I will be returning in January to collect their signed entry forms and to help them upload their pieces.

My Saturday soiree was to Reeds Springs Pizza-USA Today named them the number one pizza in Missouri. My husband and I devoured almost an entire large, definitely worth the drive! Sunday matinee was the movie Faster: more shoot outs then you could shake a stick at.

As for the stuff- well don’t we all have a lot of that? A to do list that included signing up for the 2011 Missouri Writers’ Guild Conference, Just Write! to be held in April,  pondering publishing options and addressing Christmas cards, which I’m pretty sure doesn’t count as writing.

Looking forward to Friday, my birthday! I’m thinking cake with buttercream frosting , that Harry Potter flick, and driving around to look at twinkling Christmas lights!

Till next time…