I am including a photo of Madagascar on my blog today because I want to tell you about the commitment I made at church today. I want to post about it on my blog 1. to hold me accountable and 2. to inspire anyone else to do the same. At church, a priest from the [...]

So, I was in the bathroom, just home from the Little Gym with my daughter and thinking about nap time, when I realized, OH MY GOD! I FORGOT TO DO MY BLOG! I never forget to do my blog. On Sunday and Wednesday nights, I always read a book or prepare a guest post, blog [...]

*Picture book for preschoolers through second graders *A creative cat as the main character *Rating: Chester is such a great illustrator and author–who needs that Melanie Watt? If you haven’t read any of the Chester the cat series of books yet (with NO HELP FROM Melanie), then you must check one out. So cute and [...]

*Picture book, fantasy for preschool through 2nd grade *Young ambitious dinosaur as main character *Rating: Brontorina is a very cute book with a powerful message! Short, short summary: Brontorina has a dream to be a ballerina even though she is a dinosaur. But she doesn’t let her size stop her. She goes to Madame Lucille’s [...]

One of my favorite 6 + 1 traits of writing activities for the elusive VOICE trait has to do with Martin Luther King, Jr and his sister’s book, My Brother Martin. I’m not sure if I’ve written about it before on here or not, but I always share it when I do 6 + 1 [...]

I had the best of intentions to do a blog post on this book: That’s My Dog before I went out of town. However, I’m still getting my stuff together and now my dear daughter is crying. So, I will do this book justice with three activities on another day, but I want to tell [...]

*Picture book for preschoolers through third graders (Written by J. Patrick Lewis; Illustrated by Lynn Munsinger) *A young girl and boy detective as main characters *Rating: I L. O. V. E. this book. What a clever idea! Spot the Plot can be used in any elementary classroom, really, and actually older kids will be better [...]

*Picture book, realistic fiction, for preschoolers through second graders *Young girl as main character *Rating: Pay Attention, Emily Brown is a picture book put out by educational publisher, Woodbine House. Its focus is for children with ADHD to let them know that they are loved just how they are. It’s a cute book with really [...]

Before I post about this beautiful picture book, Back of the Bus by Aaron Reynolds, I wanted to announce the winner of Mari L. McCarthy’s journaling giveaway contest. The winner is J. C. Nierad, and she chose Mari’s Musefull Journalling book. Congrats, J. C. To everyone else, I hope you will consider going to Mari’s [...]