Heading into Pumpkin Spice Season

 "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." (Lucy Maud Montgomery in Anne of Green Gables) A longish title for a blog post, and yet a perfect thought to begin each day in October. To Anne, October is a clear message from nature that things change, and change is a good thing. Your new-in-August-or-September class should just be settling into routines by now and realizing that every day brings new adventures in learning. Maybe you have changed grades, or subject focus, or schools. This year, in any case, should be an adventure in building relationships with your students. Even a looping class shows up on the first day very different than they were when they left for summer break. We change every day as long as we keep living.

What does October make you think of? Pumpkin spice everything? As a non-fan of pumpkin spice, I am always up for other new flavors from my favorite coffee place. The caramel apple one called to me this month, although I have pretty quickly returned to oat milk flat white. Decaf. I'm much too exciting already for caffeine. In my part of the country, October never disappoints with the fiery displays of color from trees all around my community. And best of all? The mosquitoes are gone. I know many of your students have Halloween and the planning of their costumes on their minds. You might even be planning your own costume and those of your family.

October is a cozy kind of month to me. I dream of long lazy stretches of time, knitting, painting, and reading. I can still walk outdoors, but the time spent inside when I return is much more enticing. This October, I have a fresh new novel from each of several of my favorite authors to explore: Jodi Picoult, Ellen Hilderbrand, Jamie Ford, Celeste Ng, and Colleen Hoover. Here's a list of new books for middle grades that you might want to explore as you have reading conferences with your students this fall. 

Nothing suggests fall coziness in the classroom more to me than a read-aloud. In my opinion, kids are never too young or too old for a good read-aloud. For October, I recommend Anne of Green Gables and the more contemporary Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles. Comfort Snowberger  is a character that your students and you will not forget. 

Some suggestions to try out in your classroom before October ends, and to continue into the rest of Autumn:

Around the Campfire

Try this idea for Morning Meeting, Read-aloud time, Author's Chair, or Poetry Share. Build a "campfire" on a paper plate base from empty toilet paper or paper towel rolls and crumpled tissue paper. Sit in a circle around it. Students could have their own individual "logs" to add to the fire when they add a reading of their own work or when they add an observation, compliment, or suggestion to the conversation. I purchased an electric "campfire" from a local  fireplace shop, but here's a picture of one that you could easily build:

October Stations

Stations Day was always a time my students looked forward to. As a fourth grade team, we had a stations day each week, with a special one each month. Of course, our October Stations addressed our curriculum standards, but with a focus on Fall. Try a liquid measurement station with apple cider as the liquid. Try a STEM/STEAM activity using miniature candies like the one found here. For Halloween-focused stations during Halloween week, don't miss this bundle from Rainbow City Learning!

Stations are much like Centers, but with the addition of volunteer helpers at each Station. I like using parent or community volunteers to run the Stations, but older students from other classrooms can also do a great job. Volunteers help when supply management is a little more challenging. 

Explore Change as a Theme

It's been said that the only one who actually likes change is a baby with a soiled diaper. I disagree. IMO we all can learn to embrace change. Change means that we are growing and learning and becoming (hopefully) better versions of ourselves. There are so many ways to focus on change in your classroom. Explore the states of matter, chemical and physical change, and the way characters change from beginning to end of a book/story. Look at the ways other characters become a force for change to the main character. Begin to look at the changes each of us goes through during the school year. We are like beautiful butterflies, emerging from a gloppy pile inside the chrysalis. Journals, time capsules, and portfolio collections can help us to save and savor the beauty of change. 

This resource can help your students to document and then look back on the changes they see in themselves during the year. 

I hope you'll use the rest of your October to lead your students on their journey to embracing change. Introduce them to new scientists, authors, artists, and poets this month! And introduce them to my actual favorite quote from Anne of Green Gables: "The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and storytellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland." 

My wish for you is that you never forget the way to fairyland. Just as working with young people all day will keep you young, remembering the way inside your own imagination will accomplish that as well. I'm so glad I live in a world where there are teachers like you!

For more October teaching inspiration, be sure to take at look at some of the posts below. If you are a blogger and interested in joining Teacher Talk, please contact me at retta.london@gmail.com and I'll explain how to get started!

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Narrative Nonfiction Brings History to Life

 

I wanted to be a teacher as long as I can remember, even before I actually attended school. I will admit though to several side journeys as I grew. My uncle campaigned pretty hard throughout my high school and college years to study law and join his firm. Once his own children were exploring their own future careers, he stepped back. Two of his three children actually did become lawyers, and I was free once again to continue moving toward my dream of working in my own classroom. 

In college, I became extremely interested in sociology and archeology, and briefly considered a career as an archeologist. Dirty fingernails along with a dislike for working outside in extremes of weather told me that this was not a good choice for me. I believe that my intense interest in these fields of study helped me overall to be a better teacher. I never had to pretend to be excited about digging into the study of a new piece of nonfiction. I was all in from the beginning, and sometimes needed to calm down a little before presenting the lesson to my students! 

I  came across an article recently that detailed the discovery of Harriet Tubman's childhood home in Dorchester County, Maryland. The area is becoming swampier as the water level rises and the land is sinking, but when the manager of The National Blackwater Wildlife Refuge learned that Ben Ross' (Harriet Tubman's father) cabin may have been on their newly acquired land, she called in the archeologists! Their first find was a coin from 1808, the year that Harriet Tubman's parents were married. After digging over a thousand pits, the team discovered many datable artifacts, such as "...bricks, 19th century pottery with distinct design patterns, rusty nails, a button, and old documents". Historical records tell us that Harriet Tubman lived in this cabin as a child, and again as she planned her strategy of the Underground Railroad in 1849. While not finding an actual homestead or even a chimney, this find was exciting, and pulled me back to a longtime favorite book of mine.

Teaching Home Place by Crescent Dragonwagon (IKR? Her real name!) was always one of those "calm down first" moments for me. I love this author and the gentle and tender way she lets her story unfurl. Also majorly in love with the illustrations of Jerry Pinkney. A special book to treasure on several levels. Past and present melt into each other as watercolors do when you are working wet on wet and colors begin to merge. A family on a hike through the woods (how many times have we all done this as a family outing ?) finds daffodils growing in the wild, but no house nearby. They search further and find part of a chimney standing by itself. A little digging in the ground unearths a blue glass marble, a nail, part of a china plate, a horseshoe, a small yellow bottle, and a doll's arm. These artifacts help them to tell each other the story of a long ago family living right in the spot where they stood, having chicken for dinner, singing on the front porch, and even complaining about the heat on a summer day long before central air! If I had my hands on this book as a child, I might have veered off onto the archeology path despite the dirt and heat! Don't miss sharing this one with your kids!

Teaching Narrative Nonfiction is really much more intuitive than many of us think when we first approach it. Which type of writing is a nonfiction narrative? It is simply nonfiction delivered in narrative structure rather than expository. It is all true, but told as a story unfolds. Crescent Dragonwagon tells the story of a house and family as they lived circa 1900. It's recommended for grades K-3, but I used it with grades 4 and 5 for years. Fourth and fifth graders are much more likely to be able to use it as a mentor text for writing more narrative nonfiction.

A favorite followup writing activity to Home Place would be to bring a photo of an artifact from home, or an artifact discovered on a walk, and tell the story of a person or family who might have used that item in another time in history. Without using artifacts, you could also look at a particular time in history and have your fourth or fifth graders tell about that time from the viewpoint of a kid their age at that time. (I would steer clear of using this idea to study slavery or other culturally sensitive issues.) 

If you use The One and Only Ivan in your reading curriculum, there is a narrative nonfiction companion book called Ivan, the Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla, also by Katharine Applegate. It would be very interesting to discuss the narrative structure of each. 

As a reading addict, I always had a book or two up my sleeve that I was reading to tell my students about as we discussed their books. I usually did not tell them the title. No need for them to read an adult book that may not be suitable in other ways, but only to show that authors who write for all ages use many of the same structures, elements, and storytelling techniques. The story of Home Place takes me back to a recently read book, The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner. A tourist in London goes "mudlarking" and finds a mysterious blue bottle on the shore of the Thames. We then embark on parallel stories of the tourist trying to trace the history of the bottle and a history told of a time when apothecaries sometimes prepared secret potion poisons for abused women to dispatch their abusers. I would share only the story of the bottle find and the historical search that ensued, of course! If you haven't read this book yet, you might want to add it to your own summer reading list. So good!

Some suggested narrative nonfiction texts (in addition to Ivan) are: Camp Panda by Catherine Thimmesh, A Seal Named Patches by Roxanne Beltran, The Boo Boos that Changed the World by Barry Wittenstein, and Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. This list could go on for pages and pages.

For more ideas on teaching Narrative Nonfiction, be sure to check out these resources from Rainbow City Learning on TpT!

If you would also like to be a part of Teacher Talk, we are a group of teacher bloggers who share posts that are heavy on the ideas with just a little selling of our educational materials at TeachersPayTeachers.com.  For more information about joining The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative, go to https://bit.ly/3o7D1Dv.  Feel free to email me at retta.london@gmail.com if you have any questions. 

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Read it Again!

 Season's Readings! It's cold and stormy here, and I can't wait to take my insulated mug of tea and climb under a fluffy blanket with my new book, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. My book club will be discussing it next week, and I am hoping that it will transport me away from the memories of the book I finished just this morning. I haven't stopped longing for the fantasy world inside that last one.

My mind is wandering back to all the read-aloud, class novels, and lit circle (book club) books that have filled my teaching life for so many years. When I open a copy of Tuck Everlasting or Gifts From the Sea, I am immediately transported back, not only to the world of the story, but also to my painted rocking chair and the engaged and precious faces in front of me. We felt all the feels together, and made some precious reading memories.

Everyone must have at least one book or story that never gets old, and is a different pleasurable experience every time it is reread. When I was ten years old, my little brother was an insatiable fan of Dr. Seuss. To this day, I can still recite Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat by heart. As soon as the book ended, my brother would joyfully shout, "Again!" I won't tell you how many times I've reread Second Star to the Right. Ok, ok, at least 12 times. Maybe more. Really, do you ever tire of visiting Disney Land or World? The familiar feels like home, and there is always something new that you may have missed or forgotten. My copy of The Velveteen Rabbit is worn and loved as much as the tattered main character. The images of the rooms in the ancient rooming house of Second Star to the Right can be called up at will, especially the top floor. (You'll just have to read it. I hear you have a little vacation time just ahead. Since there's more than one book with this title, here is a link: 

My classroom application of all this reminiscing would be to have a "sweet memories" book club. (Create your own title if that's a little too sugary for you.) Ask your students to write on a ballot the titles of three or five or whatever number of books that they would love to reread and discuss in a book club with classmates. Tally the ballots and put a few groups together. I can't imagine a more delicious lit experience than this! My head is literally spinning with the idea of discussing my all-time fav (above) with others who have read and loved it! 

If you decide to have a sweet memories book club experience, please please please comment below or email me and I'll enter you in a drawing for a $10 TpT gift card! I would love to hear all about how it went!

For resources to help you make this happen in your classroom, try these resources from Rainbow City Learning!

Wishing you and your students Season's Readings, and a sweet holiday season!

 

For more December thoughts and tips, be sure to check out the posts of my blogging friends.

If you would also like to be a part of Teacher Talk, we are a group of teacher bloggers who share posts

that are heavy on the ideas with just a little selling of our educational materials (to make your teacher life easier) at TeachersPayTeachers.com.  For more information about joining The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative, go to https://bit.ly/3o7D1Dv.  Feel free to email me at retta.london@gmail.com if you have any questions. 

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Read Aloud Magic

 Ready to add some magic to your read-aloud? Reading plus gifts. What could be better? This post is a followup reveal to something that I teased in my last post! Who loves reading? Well, almost everyone. Who loves gifts? EVERYONE!!! By adding class gifts to your read-aloud, you can offer your students a magic portal to the world inside the book, as well as encouraging them to love reading just a little more than they already do. 

It all started on Mother's Day several years ago. My daughter gifted me a subscription to a book box club that would send a new book to me each month, along with four gifts that are mentioned in the book. As I read the book, I would reach a page with a sticky note that said, "Open Your Gift!" The gift, wrapped with a label showing the corresponding page number, was always a perfect way to hold a piece of that book in my hands. Example, in that first book, a "flower child" of the seventies approached the main character. She was wearing huge hoop earrings with fringes and a scarf in her hair. Inside the gift for that page was THOSE earrings and THAT scarf! Love, love, love! Right? In another book, the main character stepped out of her usual personality and stepped up to try karaoke. My gift for reading to that page? A karaoke microphone! The microphone was also rose gold - definitely speaking to my very soul! 

Sweetheart number six in my family has seen my book boxes in process and some of the gifts. She asked for a book box of her own for her recent seventh birthday, and I created two of them for her! She loved her  gifts! Clementine by Sara Pennypacker is one of the books that I gave to our sweetheart. As I've also used this in the past as a read-aloud for third graders, it occurred to me that this open-your-gift magic could also be done as a read-aloud experience in the classroom. 

Yes, of course there was glitter on each sticky. Have we met?

I'm sharing here ideas for two read-aloud books that you could try this with. The first is recommended for grades 2-4 and the second would work with grades 4-6. The second one is my all-time personal favorite for an upper elementary read-aloud. I'm listing individual gift ideas, and then classroom "moments" (gifts suitable for a group). This idea would also work in small book club groups in your classroom. A great followup would be to ask students to select four stopping pages and four corresponding gifts for the next book they read. 

I hope you and your students will enjoy stepping through the portals into the story of your next read-aloud! I would love to hear from you in the comments below after you try this! Email me if you'd rather share your results that way!

Clementine by Sara Pennypacker

Page 18: "grabbed the box of markers from where my mom had hidden them"

individual gift: new permanent or paint markers

class moment: new markers added to community boxes, or an art break to paint a "flaming sunset".

Page 83: "The following students are excused from recess so they can catch up on their journal writing"

individual gift: new fun journal

class moment: extra time to add art, stickers, and other embellishments to journal entries, or time to share the reading of journal entries in small groups

Page 114-115: "Because I am so good at paying attention, I know all the things Margaret likes. So I ran around the apartment gathering them up."

individual gift: red Barbie shoes, a blue feather, or M&Ms

class moment: Stop and talk about collections that each student personally has. Could also plan a collection display as part of the celebration for completing the book.

Page 130-131: 

individual gift: stuffed kitten

class moment: cupcake decorating party - adding frosting, sprinkles, etc. Alternative: design and draw cakes that celebrate events other than birthdays

A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban

Page 20-21: "...he would hand me a velvet box, and in it would be a diamond tiara..."

individual gift: tiara

"And the second thing is that she likes ginger ale..."

class moment: ginger ale tasting (Compare Vernor's to Canada Dry, Schwepp's etc.) 

Page 43: "And she gets socks."  

individual gift: unusual socks

class moment: wear (or draw) your favorite socks to class. Have a "wear your socks" day in class.

Page 76 -77: "So what's it going to be?" asks Mabelline Person. 

                     "'Forever in Blue Jeans', by Neil Diamond," I say.

individual gift: USB Flash drive with the five songs mentioned on page 76; doll-sized blue jeans 

class moment: dance break with the five songs mentioned above, vote for class favorite

Page 116: "My cake is beautiful."  "'It's perfect," I tell him." "'It's a crooked kind of perfect,' I say."

individual gift: cake mix, frosting mix, cake decorating accessories

class moment: design the perfect birthday cake for you (start with an art activity, but maybe choose one to     actually create and bring in to share at a later time. 

Page 184: "'Wouldn't that be funny if everybody wore shirts with true stuff on them?' Mona laughs."

individual gift: white t-shirt and fabric markers

class moment: design a t-shirt with "true stuff" about you 

For a complete unit on A Crooked Kind of Perfect, click here:

For more Book Club ideas from Rainbow City Learning, click here!

If I can do anything else to help make your job easier,  please let me know in the comments below! If I use your idea for a new blog post, you will win a TpT $10 gift card. If I create a new resource for Rainbow City Learning based on your idea, you will win a free copy of that resource to use in your classroom! (Note: all comments are reviewed before appearing on my blog. It may take a few hours for your comment to appear! Thanks for your patience!)

For more thoughts on teaching as we head into the homestretch of the teaching year, don't miss these posts by our awesome members of Teacher Talk!  

If you would also like to be a part of Teacher Talk, we are a group of teacher bloggers who share posts

that are heavy on the ideas with just a little selling of our educational materials at    TeachersPayTeachers.com.  For more information about joining The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative, go to https://bit.ly/3o7D1Dv.  Feel free to email me at retta.london@gmail.com if you have any questions. 

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Celebrate Reading

"It's always something." (Gilda Radner as Roseanne Rosannadanna) Every day that we show up at school, ready to learn, is a cause for celebration. "...and everywhere was a song and a celebration." (Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young. Woodstock, baby.) Seriously, teachers, we can find something to celebrate in class every single day. The biggest celebration, of course, is when the imaginary light bulbs flash with new learning, with a newly converted reader for life, budding author, artist, mathematician, researcher, or maker. As teachers, we are part of those amazing moments all year long. And yet, if we seek other celebrations to bring a learning theme to our students, the calendar is filled with them. Here's a year-long resource for an author birthday focus every month.
                
Read Across America Day was originally conceived to celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss. You might have been wearing out your "Cat in the Hat" striped chapeau for all the Marches for as long as you've been teaching. Maybe your school focuses on Dr. Seuss, or maybe you just enjoy that celebration in your classroom. Maybe your own teacher tied a red bow around her neck every March, and the memories are filled with warm fuzzies. Or...maybe...you are ready for a new idea?

Did you know that Leo Dillon's birthday is March 2 also?  With his wife, Diane, Leo Dillon was the author/illustrator of forty beloved children's books. Many of the books will bring the concepts of diversity and world peace into your classroom. What a beautiful segue from February is Black History Month! Why not kick off March is Reading Month this year with a fresh focus?

A favorite Dillon book of mine is If Kids Ran the World. My students were so fortunate to have the chance to meet this gentle and lovely couple before Leo's death in 2012, when they visited our school.  The mentoring for our future authors and illustrators was off the charts! If Kids Ran the World was the book they were working on at the time of Leo's passing.

In addition to the beautiful illustrations and words showing how the world would be a better place if we all cared  for others in the way these children do, this book effortlessly becomes a mentor text. Click below to learn more:

Some other authors whose work will make for great sharing and inspiration any time of the year: Patricia Polacco, Eve Bunting, and Jacqueline Woodson. These are a few of my favorites, and my students have enjoyed many lessons for reading and writing led off by the works of these writers. 

Try The Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco to see how the author's own mother was encouraged to love reading!

Share a read-aloud of The Wretched Stone by Chris Van Alsburg to prompt a discussion of all the things we might enjoy if we give up a little screen time. 

Of course, no month-long celebration is complete without a few official school-wide or grade-wide or even class-wide activities. Some of my favorites:

Hold a Read-In

In no way should this be confused with a clean your desk, grade papers, and enter data day. Wipe that thought from your mind. It's tempting for sure, but a read-in day where you participate right along with the kids is a golden opportunity to encourage a lifelong love of reading (like yours!). Only you can be the role model for that in your classroom. Sleeping bags, blankies, jammies, and pillows optional! My kids always liked making little fort areas under the desks for uninterrupted reading bliss!

Who doesn't love a Parade?

Ask your students to bring in their Radio Flyer or Little Tykes wagons to use as float carriers for a Parade of Books! (Think Macy's Thanksgiving or Disney any day, or The Rose Bowl Parade, but with books!)  Kids work in teams to create a float display (think giant diorama!) of a book. The team members dress as some of the characters as they accompany their float in a parade for school and community!

Spotlight on Books

Create a display with a fun place to leave comments/reviews about a book that the class shared as a class novel, book club choice, or read-aloud. Place a book cover in the center of the display, and kids write comments all around. Examples of fun places to leave comments: black construction paper with colored chalks, small white boards with wipe-off markers, plexiglass with window markers, fabric with glitter pens. I know your kids can  help you think of more! 

Recommended in Rainbow City

That's what we called ours, anyway! Start a weekly or monthly newsletter or blog section where kids can review books they have read and loved. It's a great resource for your students to clip and keep on hand for when they are browsing for new books to read. 

Book Trailers

Use your technology (iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, or your favorite movie creator) to have your students create exciting trailers to "advertise" their favorite books. So many resources, directions, and examples of book trailers for kids in this post. (Just click on the director below!)

I loved sharing ideas for March is Reading Month with my podcasting friends, Tracy, Deann, and Kathie. Tune in to "We Teach So Hard" Episode 28 to hear what we came up with!

Happy, happy March! Hope you get to read something you love this month, too!

If I can do anything else to help make your job easier this year, please let me know in the comments below! If I use your idea for a new blog post, you will win a TpT $10 gift card. If I create a new resource for Rainbow City Learning based on your idea, you will win a free copy of that resource to use in your classroom! (Note: all comments are reviewed before appearing on my blog. It may take a few hours for your comment to appear! Thanks for your patience!)

For more thoughts on teaching in March, don't miss these posts by our awesome members of Teacher Talk!  

If you would also like to be a part of Teacher Talk, we are a group of teacher bloggers who share posts

that are heavy on the ideas with just a little selling of our educational materials at    TeachersPayTeachers.com.  For more information about joining The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative, go to https://bit.ly/3o7D1Dv.  Feel free to email me at retta.london@gmail.com if you have any questions. 

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What's Saving Your Life Right Now?

What a great idea for the middle of winter! On February 2, we will be at the midway point of winter, and The modern Mrs. Darcy (a favorite blogger of mine!) has a tradition each year of writing down all the books and other things that are saving her life right now. It's easy to make a giant list of all the things that are absolutely killing us in the middle of a long and gray winter, but the idea of turning those thoughts from negative to positive is intoxicating to me right now! 

Here's my list of books that are currently saving my life:

Wintering by Katherine May uses examples from nature, history, and legends to show how retreat and relaxation can really get us through difficult times. Winter can be hard. It is especially hard during these pandemic times. Reading this book let me know that it's very ok to slow down, cuddle up under a soft quilt, and read. Even as a busy teacher, you don't have to be constantly involved in preparation, planning, doing, and assessing. It's ok to take some quiet time for yourself.

Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult is a tale born of the isolation that the author experienced during the pandemic, as so many of us have experienced. Without giving too much away, this book has encouraged me to fall asleep more easily at night, looking forward to dreams. Since finishing this one, I do sleep better  even if it takes an extra sweater and two pairs of socks! I also find it interesting to remember my dreams. 

The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mitch Albom has renewed my spiritual faith. It has also caused me to reread his earlier book, The First Phone Call From Heaven. With so many now missing from my life, the idea of such an occurrence brings me joy and gives me hope that someday we will meet again.

Books for kids that I love to share, and that save my life when I do so:

Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles

This is an old favorite from my personal and class bookshelves. I've always asked for parent permission first because the main character, Comfort Snowberger, lives in her family's funeral home and has attended 247 funerals. I always thought that might be considered too intense or scary for some kids, but I have never had a parent say that their child could not participate.

Even the first line resonates, " I come from a family with a lot of dead people." Don't we all?
Comfort says it so beautifully herself:
"...death is hard. Death is sad. But death is part of life. When someone you know dies, it's your job to keep on living.
So...we did. We adjusted. We did what we always do when death comes calling:
    We gathered together.
    We started cooking.
    We called the relatives.
    We called our friends.
    We did not have to call the funeral home. We are the funeral home.
    I wrote the obituary."

And Comfort eventually takes over writing the obituaries for her local newspaper. She call them "Life Notices" rather than "Death Notices". She writes the most unique obituaries you will ever read, truly celebrating the life of each person. Comfort teaches each of us to find gratitude in the sweet, funny, and even outrageous events that make up a life. I met Comfort as a reader in my 50s, and she changed so much about my outlook on life. I like to think that she has done that for many of my students too!

Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs by Betty G. Birney

More than a century ago, on a fictional farm in Sassafras Springs, Missouri, Eben McAllister has been fascinated by reading about The Seven Wonders of the World in school. He wants to take his first trip away from his "boring" home to visit relatives in Colorado. Eben's dad challenges him to find seven wonders right at home in Sassafras Springs that can rival the real Seven Wonders. Eben sets off on a journey of knocking on neighbors' doors to discover the origin stories about some ordinary seeming items. He hears magical tales about a doll that saved a life, a musical saw, an ordinary table, and an incredible wonder at the end that I won't spoil for you!

As Eben says:
"Sometimes extraordinary things begin in ordinary places. A fancy-dancy butterfly starts out in a plain little cocoon. A great big apple tree grows from a tiny speck of a seed. And the wonders started right on our own front porch on a hot summer night I would have forgotten on the spot if it hadn't been for what got started then and kept on going."
Once you start looking for the beauty in and finding gratitude in ordinary things, it's hard to stop. Eben sets a great example for all of us.

This book has held a special place in my heart for so many years. It was a favorite read-aloud for my students. We all loved how each chapter was its own little story. I based my writing lessons on it for a unit on memoirs. Each student created a "Wonder of Farmington Hills" story. (The location of our school.) Every story was a touching closer look at something that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.  One particular story still in my heart was the story about a rose that blooms each summer in one family's yard on the anniversary of the death of a favorite uncle who left them at a young age. Another was the story of how the Rainbow City (my classroom name - but you knew that, right?) Rocking Chair came to be. It was a special chair, painted and repainted every year by each new class, but of course the story of how it came to be was nothing like the real one!

We sent our collection of "The Wonders of Farmington Hills" to Betty Birney and she loved it! She sent us a beautiful letter to share with families and our school community as a celebration of our writing!

The best lesson here though, is the same as above - finding beauty and feeling gratitude when looking at simple everyday things. "Fancy-Dancy butterfly". I still love that!

What saves my life as I move through the world:

Strolling past my grandchildren's home in our neighborhood (when it's not too cold) and seeing that they are home makes my heart so happy! As I approach the door and hear our two littlest sweethearts literally shreik, "GRANDMA'S HERE!!!!!" saves my life for sure every time!

I have some grandchildren who live around the corner, and some who live on the other side of the world. Zoom and FaceTime have saved my life by allowing me to have long visits with each of the sweethearts that I've been unable to see in person since 2019. 

As I move through the snowy days in Michigan, I've been fortunate for the past few years since retirement to get away to warmer places for a little while. Although I discover new things about my Michigan neighborhood every time I go for a walk, warm weather walks such as a recent one in Venice, Florida, are definitely life saving! Although I have taken this walk last year and the year before, this time I noticed the most beautiful and colorful sculptures of seahorses and mermaids scattered throughout the downtown area. They made my walk even more of a dream! The photos and memories should keep me going throughout the second half of this snowy winter!

What saves your life? I would love to hear about it all in the comments below!

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For the original post, go to The Modern Mrs. Darcy's post!

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