caring – Peaceful Reader

Happy Mother's Day!

(Missing one child from far away…)

I hope everyone that is a mother had a wonderful day! Being a mother is truly the hardest job; it comes with a lot of heartache and judgement. My kids are not always happy with me, my ideas, and my suggestions. I want the best for them-always. Even though it is a difficult job I love being a mother and the payback can be amazing.

It’s funny how the day started out as such a humble celebration, it was a way to honor and connect mother’s who sons had fallen in the Civil War and later as a way to promote peace. It’s unfortunate that the holiday became so overly commercialized. I do appreciate the simple things my children do for me. I ‘m happy with a meal together and several hand made cards. Today we went for a walk, out for lunch, and a visit with my own mother. It was a good day. A simple day.

I also made chocolate chip cookie bars for school and folded laundry so it wasn’t like I chilled the whole day. It might be nice to pampered all day. Right now BB is the important event at my house as I write and plan for my day tomorrow.

How ever you spent the day I hope it was relaxing and the focus was more on a shared experience than “stuff”.

Friday Features; Kindness

This week in the library our focus was on kindness. We do have Character Counts! at our school but I really wanted to get at the idea of each of us making another person feel special. The world would be a better place if we could all make that happen.

I read Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud and David Messing to each class except kindergarten (they had Eric Carle). Even the 5th graders listened and it opened up a good discussion of what each of us could do to fill someone else’s bucket. A first grade student said that the bucket is like your heart! Ah, thank you [big teacher smile] He understood the message.

With that book I read one of my all-time favorite picture books, Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon by Patty Lovell and David Catrow. The message and the illustrations come together into one outstanding tale of being true to yourself. We conversed about bucket fillers in this book (Grandma and Molly Lou) but also that Ronald Durkin learns to be less of a bully and more of a bucket filler by the end. I found this great Molly Lou video by Spoken Arts.

I also read Todd Parr’s It’s Okay to be Different and Carrie Weston’s The New Bear at School. I read Todd Parr all the time to kids but Weston’s book was a new read aloud and perfectly transmitted my kindness message. Stay tuned for more as I look forward to more kindness next week.

Do you have book favorites that share this message? Any book suggestions would be much appreciated!

I also finished off a beginning of the year order and sent it off to my secretary just because Jana at Milk and Cookies; Comfort Reading waxed poetically about getting her first school order of books for the year. I had to jump on the bandwagon!

Happy Friday!

Friday Feature (a wee bit late)

Here I was going to be good about writing a post every Friday with some of my favorites from the week. I had a librarian’s district meeting today and completely forgot. I don’t even know if I want to get into how the meeting was so I am just going to focus on the books.

1. Roses Are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink by Diane de Groat-read this to first grade students; I love Gilbert- he makes mistakes-this time he goofs up by writing two mean Valentine poems to classmates. This is a great book about making choices and making amends. Kids laugh right when you read the title-you can’t go wrong with that! 5 stars

2. Louane Pig and the Mysterious Valentine by Nancy Carlson-I read this to kindergarten and first grade students and they solved the mystery! I’m happy to report that at least one child in every class figured out just who gave Louanne her BIG Valentine. But I have to admit I love all the other silly answers that the other kids give…like it was a DOG, her mom (even after it states in the book that the sender was a guy, I know, crazy), Gilbert (yes.) , oh the joy of spontaneous children. Priceless. 5 stars

3. The Valentine Express by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace– Her books-all of them-are beautiful. I love their craftiness (i’m not) and their simple yet delightful themes. Valentine’s Day is not just for romance but for showing how much we care for our friends, parents, and neighbors and this book gently shares that with easily little crafts and caring bunnies. It’s way better than Hallmark, really. 5 stars

Do you have Valentine books you love?

Kids love it but need to be reminded it is about caring about your friends and family not about the mushy stuff. Leave that to the teenagers, like my son who took it upon himself to locate and send flowers to his girlfriend-arriving on the day, a mixed bouquet. Hmmm. On that note I’m finishing my tea and heading to bed. Another busy Saturday awaits me.

**Stop back next Friday…I haveoh, so many Black History books to share.