Maria's Mélange

 I'm highly motivated by goal setting. Unless those goals involve getting my butt on the elliptical, or keeping my house clean, or cooking dinner every night. Wait... let me rephrase that. I'm highly motivated by setting reading goals. I got through all the Newbery books in under 2 years. I've hit my Goodreads goals each year (with the help of some great picture books and graphic novels). So when I decided to pick thirty-six books for my Must Read challenge, I knew I could do it. As it turns out, I may need to add more books to the list. I'll decide on that after second quarter. Here's what I've read so far from my challenge list, with the most recent on the top. Comes out in July. I absolutely adored Sidekicked... and this one was almost as good. HOW did I miss this lovely tale by Laurel Snyder? So very good. A magic wall that transports kids to new locations? Genius! Good, but not great. I didn't buy the romance angle at all, though, and m...

It is so funny that the main Slice post includes The Beatles song "The End" today, since I've had a song stuck in my head for several days as I considered what to write today. I'm clearly not cool enough for it to be The Beatles, though. Yeah, so "Looks Like We Made It" doesn't exactly fit with what we're doing here. It doesn't even fit my life... at all. Still, the title works, right? So congrats to those of you who are here today. Whether you "made it" through all 31 days, or just managed to write as much as you possibly could, congratulations. For those of us who teach writing, it's so important to know just how kids feel when we hand them a pencil (or pen, or keyboard) and say, "Just Write". I certainly lived up to my blog name this month. "Melange" mé·lange noun \mā-ˈläⁿzh, -ˈlänj\ : a mixture of different things Full Definition of MÉLANGE : a mixture often of incongruous elements "Mél...

 Once again, it's been a few weeks since I stopped by (so this is NOT a single week of reading!) The Slice of Life challenge kept me hopping. I'll also do a year-to-date #MustReadin2014 update tomorrow. Carrie decided that quarterly updates would work out well, so many of the MustReaders will be sharing. Come back and join the fun! Since Last IMWAYR... Batty About Books! Kathy and I finished reading The Archived. Thanks to any of you who stopped by our brand new Facebook Page or left messages on our blog posts. We have moved onto Not a Drop to Drink now, and will post about the first 95 pages on Saturday the 5th (we posted our thoughts about the cover this past Saturday) #MustRead This comes out in July, and is another great one by John David Anderson! Not quite as much action as the first, but I still love his voice and the deeper messages in the "super" genre. Wow! How had I NOT read this one before? Seriously, it is great! A wal...

I finally did it. I gutted my closet. Sadly, this is probably the hardest post I've written yet this month. It's hard to grieve the me I used to be... "Hail and Farewell" Hail and Farewell   to the sweet little skirt and top I last wore 15 years ago. While the colors are still lovely,    it's time to wish you well with your next partner. Hail and Farewell    to the little black dress from the cruise. May someone who can zip it    now enjoy the splash of sparkle in the cleavage. Hail and Farewell    to all the little summer tops with the built in shelf bras. It's not you... it's me. Hail and Farewell     to the thick and toasty sweaters gathering dust. May you each find a home with     loving arms that don't experience daily hot flashes. Hail and Farewell to the     hope of "someday" Two children and many years have passed and     I deserve to look amazing   ...

It can be hard to make huge changes in a lifestyle. I can't ride my bike to work, and buying an electric car is way out of my price range. My children and I are fairly picky about what fruits and vegetables we will eat, so it's much hard to just eat things that are locally grown when it isn't the right season. What I try to do, though, is make little changes. Reminders to turn out lights that aren't in use. Turning the thermostat down (or up) a degree or two. Packing my lunch with reusable containers and non disposable utensils that come back home instead of being thrown away. My latest "little change" is for my Keurig. Yes, I'm spoiled. I adore my coffee maker, and I don't intend to give it up. All of those little plastic containers that head to the landfills were adding up to a pretty large guilt trip. A few weeks ago I picked up a reusable insert. Now I can use (cheaper) bagged ground coffee. Instead of throwing out several little K-cups a da...

Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis  Welcome to all those who decided to do a read-along with Batty. Welcome to those who are just stopping by the blog to hear about Not a Drop to Drink . Today’s post has no spoilers at all (and we strive to keep even our discussions of the book sections as spoiler free as possible). Want to join in the fun? Check out our… Facebook Page Tumblr For those of you who are new to our Batty Chats - Maria’s thoughts with Kathy’s responses are hosted here on the Melange. Kathy’s (aka @thebrainlair) thoughts with Maria’s responses reside on The Brain Lair . Take a peek at both of sides and add your own voice into the mix! It’s time! It’s time! The Batty About Books dynamic duo is venturing into a post-apocalyptic world where clean water is almost non-existent. Today, as has become our tradition over the past few books, we begin with some thoughts about the cover.  You still have time to jump in and grab the book. We’ll hold...

I've seen several people do "blackout poetry", so I decided to give it a go. It was a lot of fun, but honestly took longer than just crafting one out of the words swirling through my own head! I’m participating in a writing community at Two Writing Teachers . We write about a little "slice of our life" each Tuesday. In March - we attempt to write a slice EVERY day! Head over to their blog for the link up. If you stop by and have written your own slice, please leave the link in the comments so I can easily find your post!

Some days I wish I had an idea machine. You know, like a candy machine but with the most amazing story starters or controversial statements I could use as springboards for writing. Pop a quarter in the slot (hey, it's my dream, I can decide how much it costs). Push a button and watch the most amazing ideas slide forward on that metal spiral... closer... closer... almost ready to drop into my eager hands. Of course, with my luck I'd have a defective quarter that the machine refuses to accept. I'd buff it, turn it, but nothing. In... clink... back out the change slot it would come. Or that delectable idea would spin forward on the spiral and get stuck. Hovering just out of reach, taunting me on the other side of the plastic. No amount of banging or shaking the machine will pry that puppy loose. Maybe an idea machine is a terrible idea. It would probably be filled with high calorie, high fat comfort ideas. Ideas that make your mouth water but don't bring any ...

My "Green Eggs and Ham" Everyone has that one (or two) thing they just won't eat. For me, it's always... always... always been mint combined with chocolate. I do not like it as ice cream. I do not like it in a cookie.     (sorry, girl scouts) I do not like it as a gooey     minty center surrounded     by delicious dark chocolate... At least, that is what I thought. Until one fateful day last week, when I was desperately digging through my desk for that last little remnant of my emergency chocolate. Come on, I know I can't be the only one with a stash in the back of a drawer. That small bag of Lindt that was placed on my desk by loving students at Christmas? The handful of Dove chocolate that was taped to a Valentine card? Yeah, you know what I mean. There was no chocolate remaining in the basket on my principal's desk, either. I was just downright out of luck. Until... I remembered the last few pieces tucked in the very back... that were ...

Okay, so the post title is only a little bit misleading. What I'm pondering this morning is how and what we project into the world. You see, one of the many "rules" I've just had to sit through during state testing training is this one: -- You will have a positive attitude about testing. Maybe I'm just being pedantic, but I disagree. No one can tell me what kind of attitude to have. Especially after sitting through videos that treat me like a delinquent. The training materials seem to believe that it's only their wonderful rules that will prevent me from flat out cheating to ensure my students do well. Umm... no... how about the fact that I'm an ethical educator and what I really want out of this testing is to see how my students do on their own? (Putting aside, of course, my many professional concerns about the material on the test - which I'm not allowed to even know about even afterward or actually ever look at. Or my concerns about the fac...

Many of you followed along with my lamentations over Dino Day preparations. I pinned and pinned ideas. I sorted the ideas, and couldn't settle into a plan. I bought little plastic dinosaurs to embed into excavation eggs, then decided it was too much work... then went back and did it anyway. I'm sure what you are all dying to know is the answer to one, lingering question. "Was it worth all the work, Maria?" I'm happy to report that the answer is an unqualified.... "The boys loved it." Here's what I ended up with as my stations. 1) Excavation Station This is where all those little "dinosaur poop" bundles landed. The boys got to excavate a dino egg, and then they had to locate the information page about their dinosaur (See the papers at the top of the image?). They got to keep the little dino and their paper. I even had one boy, who usually has trouble staying excited about tasks, come up to me after and ask if there were a...

Yesterday was a great day. You see, I'm almost 42 and I have a decent amount of teaching and life experience under my belt at this point. Until recently, though, I never really felt that I had anything to teach -- at least not to adults. Several colleagues keep gently nudging me. "You should present," they say. "You have things you can share with others," they insist. I always feel like the things I do in my classroom are things *I* learned from others. Things that other people should rightly be the ones to share in front of "big people". This past summer, I answered the call of the district tech department and ran a session on being a connected educator. We discussed and experimented with Twitter, Skype, Kidblog, etc. Yesterday, I joined a colleague in presenting at a symposium for preservice teachers. I met Janine several years ago (we actually had trouble yesterday figuring out exactly which year we met) through our master's program at...

I almost didn't write today. There's really no excuse. Fodder for writing? My cup runneth over. Presentation today - fabulous (and yes I'll write about it soon) Dinosaur Day - Cubs loved it. (I promise to share that, too) Inspiring novels? Check Quiet house? Check So what is the dam in my stream? Sometimes I feel like I only get a certain number of words in a day. Or a week. Today, the well ran dry. I’m participating in a writing community at Two Writing Teachers . We write about a little "slice of our life" each Tuesday. In March - we attempt to write a slice EVERY day! Head over to their blog for the link up. If you stop by and have written your own slice, please leave the link in the comments so I can easily find your post!

It's quiet in my house. Too quiet. No, it's not the scary quiet of toddlers who may be playing in the toilet. Or the dreaded middle of the night quiet when you are startled awake by a random noise but then can't hear a thing. There is the soft tapping of the keyboard, of course. There is also the soothing hum of the dryer that should have run this morning and now my husband didn't have a second pair of jeans to take camping and I know he's really annoyed. (Wow, my high school English teacher would have an aneurism even thinking about that sentence. I apologize to all the editors in the crowd.) No, the silence that has fallen is not the kind I won't remember, forcing me to draw tally marks on my arms and face to keep track of when I've seen them. (Further apologies are now bestowed upon those of you who have no idea that these creepy bad guys are from Doctor Who but will now have nightmares because EEEEK they are creepy!) The silence is that...