The Best Flower In Winter: Amaryllis ( Part 2)

In my earlier post I wrote of the beautiful amaryllis plant. We have been blessed now with the blooms of the red one. Enjoy these pictures as I now have two in bloom at the same time! They certainly are the best winter flowers.

Best Poem About a Snowy Day

Gazing at this lovely scene in the front of my house on New Year's Day would inspire most anybody to want to write. The poem below is one I  love to use with students as a model when I am encouraging them to describe a certain type of day..... such as a snowy day.


Awakening to Snow
Blades of light slide under my eyelids
and prise them open to discover
softness.
This is whisper day, muffled in deep down
of eiderdown snow, day of
those other echoes and shadows on frosted window-panes
that pass by furtively, wondering.
Today is hushed blue day of nothing, of
empty footprints where feet were,
of absence.
Today adrift from all the gongs of time,
suspended on the feather of your
silent white breath
-Sylvia Kantaris

 

photos taken 1/1/10

Best Birthday For This Year!

How can you ever pick a best birthday? Each year something special occurs to make that birthday a special one. Yesterday mine was awesome. I got to start the day with my teacher group at GU and had Foster broaden my thinking once again about what I do each day in the classroom. 

An early Chinese dinner in Kellogg was enjoyed by all as we laughed and conversed and experienced a variety of traditional dishes. At 7:00 we attended the play " I Do I Do" at the 6th St. Theater in Wallace. Silver Valley Girl and her husband were the two actors that carried the whole play with grace, ease, humor, beautiful singing, and tears. ( more on the play on another post)

The evening wrapped up with blowing out of candles, singing, opening of presents, and a nightcap and conversation with my Mom late into the night. I am just glad Mom and I were able to stay up so late. Thanks to all of you that birthday wishes. You made my day very special.

Best Number: 55

I was born in 1955 and turn age 55 today. I look forward to a day filled with a road trip with JEJ, coffee at Starbucks, meeting with fellow teachers at GU, afternoon spent with Mom in Kellogg, and Chinese food with JEJ,Mom,my nieces,my sister, her husband, and a family friend. The day will be topped off with a visit to the 6th St.Theater is Wallace to watch SVG and her husband perform in " I Do, I Do".

Sibling Assignment # 115 : Best Book That Changed My Thinking

I gave the sibling assignment this  week. Tell about the best book you've read recently that helped change your thinking about something. I will link my siblings' posts when they are completed.


I do read a lot of books. I read books with my students, I read professional books, writing books, and books for pleasure. I read cookbooks, the Bible, poetry books, and humor books. I love the feel of books, the words in books, and the sight of books sitting on my shelf.

I love everything Anna Quindlen writes . I love her essay collections, her novels, her advice books, but the book that recently changed my thinking was her thin volume  How Reading Changed My Life. I had read this book once before a few years ago, but during my studies this year with my National Board Certification program I reread it.  I wanted to dig deeper into knowing my students, their likes and dislikes. I am also exploring their habits as readers.

My middle school students love to read. They get to start the period each day reading, but many days ask for more time. Do you realize how hard it is to say, " I'm sorry- I need to ask you to close a book that has taken you to another time, another place because we really need to look at literary elements to prepare for our state test?"  I  build in literature that I feel is important for students to be exposed to, but during that time at the first of the period I think choice reading is important. Students'  lives are busy. They often don't have time to sit for hours in the evening and read the latest Twilight book or the most recent Wimpy Kid book. I build in that time. I did have to draw the line recently when I realized that the thick hardbound book one student was studying intently was a very fancy catalog from Cabela's. " Sorry... not enough text!," I reminded him.

By rereading Quindlen's book I was reminded of why my students like to read. She has many big ideas,  but one that stayed with me is this.  Quindlen states, " A book provides what it always has: a haven." She goes on to explain difficulties during the early years as a mother and what saved her sanity was books.  She went on to say " Reading continues to provide an escape from a crowded house into an imaginary room of one's own." This changed my thinking about my students. I think when life gets a bit crazy, when the house might be crowded, when somebody picks on them before class that reading does provide that haven. It made me realize how important that time may be in class. 

" Perhaps we are the world's great nomads, if only in our minds," Quindlen goes on to remind us. My students live in a remote area. Some of them have never traveled in a plane, others have not yet seen an ocean, and none of them have traveled to a foreign country except Canada.  I have realized by rereading this book that books do take all of us to places we have never been. Fantasy books grab the attention of many of my students as they create whole new worlds in their minds.  She continues by reminding us that, " Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home."

I want to encourage my students to keep reading. I want books to be a haven, a view into another world, or  into another person's head. I want books to feel like home. I am glad I reread Anna Quindlen's book.

The book ends with a series of great book lists. The last page has the following list. There are still some on this list I am going to add to my growing list of books to read.

10  Books I Just Love to Read, and Always Will
by Anna Quindlen
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
My Antonia by Willa Cather
The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Group by Mary McCarthy
The Blue Swallows by Howard Nemerov
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

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Best Images at Sunrise

Between the ice and snow yesterday morning the sun made a spectacular entrance above the mountain. JEJ caught these photos after I left home. The sky was brilliant as I drove to school also, but I had to concentrate more on driving. Enjoy his series of images.

“The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”- John Muir