Five For Friday

I'm linking up rather late for Five for Friday. I can definitely tell that school season is creeping up on me. I've had lots of commitments lately, which frankly makes me happy because I've been a little bored lately. I don't have kids, my husband works a crazy shift, and this was the first summer I haven't worked since I was like 15 or 16! So, I've been a little listless of late.

1. The highlight of my week was our Back-To-School picnic one of my co-workers hosted last night on her "farm." We had sooooo much fun. I'm constantly reminded of how blessed I am in my co-workers. We get along so well and have so much fun together. I really miss eating with them every day during the summer. Some teacher's lounges are filled with negativity and crass humor (I definitely experienced this during student teaching!). Ours is filled with recipe sharing, vacation recommendations, embarrassing moment sharing, idea swapping, and lots and lots of laughter! I'm looking forward to school starting just so I can eat with my fellow teachers again!

Here's a pic of the recipe from Better Homes and Gardens for the potato salad I brought to the picnic. It was a big hit!

2. I've been reading/reviewing books for my class library like crazy this week. This book, Plain Girl by Virginia Sorensen, was excellent! This will be very appropriate for my classroom because we live near Lancaster County, PA so we are all familiar with the Amish lifestyle. In our immediate area we have a lot of Mennonites as well, so the students will be able to have a frame of reference when reading this book. The book basically explores some of the questions and doubts going through the mind of a young Amish girl who was forced to attend a public school. Sorensen does an excellent job of presenting all sorts of scenarios that really causes the reader to dig deeply to figure out what he or she ought to believe in these particular situations. Another great book by the same author, which happened to win a Newbery medal is Miracles on Maple Hill. This explores what happens to men who come home from war and the effects PTSD has on their families. It also takes place in Pennsylvania. This time at a maple syrup farm in the Pocono mountains, which is also near where we live. I love when I can connect books to our current lives.

3. I decided to try a couple extremely simple sewing projects for my classroom Thursday evening after my husband left for work. My grandma taught me how to sew back in high school, but I've never been great at it. Every time I attempt a sewing project I get super frustrated with my poor sewing skills and sometimes even end up in a fit of rage. I got a great chuckle out of Kim's post the other day at Joy in 6th Grade. Her experience with Mod Podge sounds exactly like my experiences with sewing. This time wasn't too bad, though. I only spilled my entire container of pins once, and even though I burned my fingertips with the iron, it didn't leave a mark! Best of all, I only had to rip out one seam! Now I call that success! If the projects turn out okay when I install them in my classroom on Monday, I'll show you some more pictures of what I did.

4. My husband and I started re-watching the Lord of the Rings on extended Blu-Ray this week. Oh how I love LOTR! I've watched them a million bajillion times and pretty much have the first one memorized since it's my favorite! I cannot wait until the next installment of the Hobbit comes out!

5. This last one is kinda sad. On Wednesday of this week, my husband got an e-mail stating that the seminary he's been attending for the past four years is closing after this school year. He still had about two years left before he graduated, so we're not really sure what all is going to happen. On the positive side, it means we might get to move back to Illinois sooner than we anticipated. On the negative side, we now have to decide our future by December. Yikes! I was resting in the comfort of another year and a half before we had to make any big decisions. Also, several people we've grown to love as friends and mentors are now without jobs. It's a pretty big deal. If there's one thing I've learned in life, though, it's God works all things out for good. We may not see it at the time, but ultimately everything will work out for his glory. Looking forward to where God will lead us in the next year!

Saturday Snapshots

Well, I'm not sure that anyone actually will ever want to read my Saturday Snapshots posts because my Saturdays are typically rather boring. I do that on purpose during the school year. I have a really hard time working up the motivation to go to events or parties on Saturdays because it's my one day a week I don't have to go somewhere. My husband also works almost every Saturday, so we don't typically get to do anything fun. I'm usually content cleaning the house, doing laundry, grocery shopping, and watching lots of Netflix after it's all done. We are putting our subscription on hold right now though, so I don't know what I'll do during the school year.

Last night I stayed up till 2:30 am because my husband didn't get home from work until 2:00. So, I read this lovely book for several hours and almost finished it waiting for him to get home. 


I'm loving it so far. It takes place in Maine near where my hubby and I vacationed this summer after my brother's wedding in New Hampshire. I think I could go there every summer and still be perfectly happy. It's basically like Wisconsin or Minnesota moved to the east coast with the ocean and no mosquitoes or biting flies (at least not as bad as either of those places). Anyways, I loved the Maine accents in this book and the references to places I had visited recently. I'm looking forward to finishing my house cleaning so I can finish it before my hubby gets home tonight.

Here's a little glimpse of some of the loveliness I found in Acadia National Park in Maine this summer:

This morning I got all excited when I heard a knock at the door. I couldn't answer it because my hair was absolutely wild and I was wearing my pjs still. But, I figured it was just the package containing my laptop keyboard, and my landlords would just leave it on my step. When I went to look after showering and dressing, it wasn't there. Later, a pamphlet fell out of the door when I went to leave for the grocery store. Turns out the Jehovah's Witnesses were knocking at my door again. UGH! They won't leave us alone even though we've told them that my husband is studying to be a pastor of a Baptist church and he's told them kindly how wrong they are in their theology. I guess they are desperate to convert us. I've got news for them: it ain't gonna happen.  It is a challenge to me be bolder in sharing my own faith. So, I was hoping for a picture of my new laptop keyboard...but no such luck. I hope we didn't get scammed by the seller!

Anyways, after that I made myself some toast and had my devotions in bed. I need some serious spiritual fortification before the school year starts!

At the grocery store, I was hoping to pick up some beets for grilled beets later this week. It sounds super nasty, but I had them at my MIL's house when we were home to visit this summer, and they were AMAZING! The only beets they had were organic and super dirty and super expensive. So, I opted for some sweet corn instead. Being an Illinois country girl at heart, I have a hard time buying sweet corn in a grocery store. But, it looked okay so we'll see how tasty it is later this week. I did find one gem at the grocery store, though. Blood Orange Greek Yogurt. Blood Oranges are pretty tasty, so I was super excited to find this new flavor in the store brand.

If you're still reading this, congrats! You made it through the most boring Saturday Snapshot post ever! Pat yourself on the back...and feel proud that your Saturday is probably more exciting than mine!

Book Review: True Survival Stories

I just finished an excellent book called True Survival Stories by Paul Dowswell. I found it at our local book thrift store for just 75 cents. I like to know what sort of books I'm putting in my classroom library, so I typically at least glance through them before placing them on the shelf. There really are a lot of garbage-filled books out there that I don't want to provide for my students. I actually read this book cover to cover because it was so intriguing.

It's broken into about 10 different chapters on 10 different true survival situations. Some of them are famous survival situations and others are lesser-known. It's at a 6.2 reading level with a Guided Reading Level of X. I found it to be an easy read with plenty of rich vocabulary that can easily be deciphered with context clues.

In my four years of teaching, I've found that 6th graders (boys especially) love survival stories. Some of the most-read books on my bookshelf are the I Survived...books put out by Scholastic. Surprisingly, some of my students prefer non-fiction to fiction, so this book is excellent for those students. Each survival story is told in a story format including diagrams to help explain some of the more technical details.

There are no objectionable elements or language in this novel, which makes this Christian school teacher happy! I really get tired of foul language and mature themes creeping into children's literature. Don't even get me started!

Click here for a link to a copy on Amazon.

I can't wait to suggest this book to reluctant readers! How bout you? Do you have any suggestions for reluctant readers/survival fanatics?

Book Review: Ralph Fletcher's Live Writing

(I was not contacted by Ralph Fletcher or his publishers to give this review. All opinions are 100% mine and were not compensated in any way. Although, I'm 100% for compensation and would love any money thrown my way...hehehehe.)

Yesterday I mentioned that I was reading Ralph Fletcher's Live Writing: Breathing Life into Your Words. I can't remember where I first heard about Ralph Fletcher, but it was sometime last summer when I was researching the concept of Writer's Workshop and Writer's Notebooks. I have a couple posts about my journey into starting Writer's Workshop on my other blog The Lazy Perfectionist which I wrote before I decided to do an exclusively teaching blog here at Simply Sixth Grade. Here's a post on introducing the Writer's Notebook: click here. Here's a post on using observations in the Writer's Notebook: click here. Here's a post on using Heart Maps in the Writer's Notebook: click here.

I really enjoyed implementing Writer's Workshop in my classroom last year. My students loved it as well. My goal for this year is to be a bit more focused in the Writer's Workshop mini-lessons and to make the purpose of the Writer's Notebook clearer to my students.

The focus of Live Writing is on crafting powerful stories. The chapters are essentially broken up into different elements of stories. Fletcher starts with character, then moves on to voice, conflict, setting, time, leads, details, and then ends with a discussion on "the golden line."

One thing I love about Fletcher's writing is his straightforward writing style. 4th-6th graders could easily read this book and apply the principles to their own writing. As an adult, I can also easily apply the tips and principles to my own writing. So, he somehow writes in a way that speaks to anyone at any age. The best part is this book is only about 131 pages long so you could easily read it in a day (maybe even sneak it into teacher's in-service). ; )

I also like how Fletcher finds a way to get interviews with big-name children's authors and then includes excerpts from those interviews in his writing. He also uses examples from the writings of upper elementary students (good and bad) to emphasize his principles. He has written a few novels himself and he includes excerpts from these novels to further exemplify his writing principles.

I think Fletcher's thoughts about "voice" are what stuck out to me the most. When I'm blogging (especially with the goal of having other teacher's read my writing), I so often tend to write in a formal, up-tight way. Every once in a while, my true self emerges. I could easily copy the writing styles of other bloggers since I read A LOT of blogs. Plus, it sometimes seems that the more you conform to the standard writing style, the more followers and readers you get. At the risk of sounding like a jerk, I've noticed some teacher-bloggers writing in a style that almost sounds fake. I don't know them personally, so I really have no right to assess whether or not they are being fake. But, I can't help wondering if they really sound like that in real life. I hope that I don't do the same thing by trying to sound grammatically correct or prim and proper in order to keep all the English teachers out there happy. Anyways, Fletcher urges his readers to find their voice and make it come through their writing. He mentioned that writing, writing, writing is one of the best ways to get your voice to rise to the surface.

All that to say, Ralph Fletcher's Live Writing is an excellent book. I'd recommend it to anyone looking to either improve their own writing or to improve their writing instruction. Read it...you won't be sorry...especially if you read during teacher's in-service. ; )