Middle School Transition Can Be Tough

It's no secret that moving from the safe confines of elementary school to the mean streets of middle school can be a difficult and even scary transition.  I'm always on the lookout for books that use this theme so the fifth graders in the Bailey Bubble can have a look at what is on the other side of elementary.  Hopefully by reading them they learn that it's not as bad as they imagine, but that it won't be easy either.  33 Minutes Until Morgan Sturtz Kicks My Butt by Todd Hasak-Lowy is a good one for my collection!

People change as they get older and friends grow apart.  Sometimes it's just a gradual parting of the ways and sometimes, as in the case of Sam Lewis and Morgan Sturtz, it's a more drastic event.  Sam and Morgan are best friends all through elementary.  They are inseparable, always together, and they make a great team.  When a new kid, Chris, moves to town trouble starts.   Chris is pretty much unsupervised and has everything a kid could want.  Morgan and Chris start spending a lot of time together, and Morgan begins to change.  As is the case with middle school, some boys grow and others wait a while.  Morgan grows and becomes the football star, Sam doesn't and becomes the mathlete star.

Eventually there is a time when they just don't see eye to eye, and instead of just going their own way, words are exchanged, and a note is passed accidentally with Sam mocking Morgan's lack of math ability.  The threat is made and the clock is started.  Each chapter is a time of day with a countdown to the butt-kicking.  Typical middle school hyjinx occurs, with food fights, popular kids and bullies.

In the end, the fight does take place and the boys are brought to the principal's office and that may be the real strength of this book.  Instead of wrapping it all up in a nice Brady Bunch ending, Todd Hasak-Lowy offers up alternative endings.  The reader isn't really sure which it is but they are all possible and realistic.  It's up to the reader to figure out which fits for them, great discussion starters.

The author does a wonderful job of describing middle school, it's personalities, teachers, atmosphere and students.  I'll be recommending this a fun informative summer read for my fifth graders.

Timmy Failure Will Be a HUGE Success!

As usual, my friend Beth at Cover to Cover was right on the money with her suggestion of Timmy Failure Mistakes Were Made by Stephen Pastis.  I will be purchasing it on my next trip to my favorite bookstore and I know it will not stay on the shelves in our library.

Much like Wimpy Kid or Big Nate, Timmy Failure is done in a journal style including drawings and handwritten notes throughout.  Timmy is an interesting kid who has the unfortunate last name of Failure.  He lives with his mom and starts his own detective agency from his mother's closet.  His sidekick and business partner is a polar bear named Total.  It is unclear whether Total is real or imaginary, I suppose that will be up to the individual reader to decide.

Timmy's detective agency is called Failure, Inc. and the book is the published history of Timmy's life as a detective.  He proves to be a little short sighted in his investigations, keeping the reader informed of all of his discoveries with excerpts from his detective notebook.  For example when he is asked to investigate a classmate's missing Halloween candy and sees the little brother, Gabe, covered in chocolate with a pile of candy wrappers surrounding him, he writes, "Gabe not tidy."

Timmy's adventures continue and his gift for missing the obvious answers to the mysteries he wants to solve provide a lot of reasons for laughing out loud.  There is also the other story that sneaks in occasionally.  The story of Timmy, the son of a single mom who is having a little difficulty making it.  They move out of their house into a one bedroom apartment and Timmy deals with it in various ways including denial, and doing poorly in school.  All of it is handled in a way that kids will understand, but not be put off by. 

Stephen Pastis is the creator of the comic Pearls Before Swine which most elementary students won't be familiar with, but the humor and story telling in Timmy Failure will appeal to elementary readers in grades 2 and up.  I think it certainly has a wider age appeal then Wimpy Kid and will be a very popular series.

Grand Discussion Rules!

Last Thursday evening, Joyce and I gave up one of our favorite things, NCAA March Madness to host the second Grand Discussion of the year.  Since the book Rules by Cynthia Lord was our choice this time, we originally planned to do it before her visit.  However, middle school meetings and snow days got in the way and it had to be postponed to after her visit.

The turnout was good, 41 folks all together, but the thing that really excited us was the fact that there were more boys than girls, a Grand Discussion first!  We have been working to choose books that are appealing to all of our students, trying to get more boys and fathers involved in our little book group and the numbers have grown steadily over the years.  It was very satisfying to look out at 13 boys and 7 girls along with their parents for our final discussion of the school year.

As usual, the conversation was good and insightful.  I am always impressed by what good thinkers our kids are.  They surprise their parents many times and we are all reminded that we need to listen to these kids because I promise you, we, the adults, always learn something.

Since Cynthia visited us recently the kids really had a new take on her book, they knew things about its creation that their parents didn't.  I was very pleased to hear the conversations sprinkled with Cynthia Lord trivia that they learned from her presentations.  Just one more testament to the importance of exposing our children to talented authors and giving them an opportunity to hear the inside stories only the author can share.



At the conclusion, I realized once again that the Grand Discussion and Newbery Club are two of my favorite things about my job, both are fun interactive times with smart people.

New Bed - SOLC #14

After many months
of pondering, researching,
and "test-driving"
we finally made a decision
to get a new mattress.

Seems simple, right?
Not so much.

For our wedding present
almost 28 years ago
my dad lovingly
constructed, sanded,
and stained a headboard and
footboard for our bed.

This heirloom
is not only precious
for the love poured into it
but for the timeless beauty
I see every time I
walk into our room.

But it's queen size
and hoping for more restful
and prolonged sleep,
the decision was to have more room
so king was the choice

Today was the day the mattress
and new headboard were delivered.
It looks fabulous
but there is a part of me
that knows the headboard
so lovingly created all those
years ago and now residing
down the hall
will miss me as much as I miss it.

Hoping for sweet dreams
in our new bed tonight,
but will probably be
dreaming of the sweet bed
made so many years ago.


 Thanks to Ruth and Stacey for hosting us again for the Slice of Life Challenge.  Head on over there to find out what other "slicers" have to say each and every day.

Booking Travel - SOLC #13

I love to travel.  Because of that, there is something quite enticing about the pre-planning and organizing of a trip.  The planning is a tantalizing taste of wonderful things to come. 

Tonight, 30 parent-teacher conferences under my belt last night and today, and 14 more to go next week, it was time to savor the small joys of planning a few trips.

We leave in a week for Hilton Head, so I began to look for a place to stay along the way since we can't leave until a bit after noon; a perfect distance to get many miles behind us on Friday (but not too many), so that the drive to the island on Saturday will be a breeze.  Being the planning geek that I am, I have "google mapped" (do others use this phrase as a verb?) several different possibilities looking for just the right hotel.  Bingo!  Rock Hill, South Carolina it is!

Our daughters are joining us on Tuesday in Hilton Head, and though we will be picking them up at the Savannah airport, our oldest will be driving herself back to Savannah to catch a plane at the end of the trip, so I spent some time looking for best one-day car rental prices for her.

Then, looking ahead, at the end of May, we will be joining friends in Florida for a long weekend of golfing, relaxing, and spending time walking in the waves.  Southwest was my go-to for this piece of planning  Looking for that non-stop flight that gives us the maximum amount of time enjoying life was my goal. (And is there anything better than an airline with a great personality and 2 bags free!)

This little bit of planning was just what I needed to decompress from the week, and look forward to those wonderful get-aways ahead of us!

Thanks to Ruth and Stacey for hosting us again for the Slice of Life Challenge.  Head on over there to find out what other "slicers" have to say each and every day.

Cynthia Lord is Amazing!

So I went home last night after dropping Cynthia off at her airport hotel with the intention of posting about the amazing experience the students of Bailey just had.  Driving home I was organizing my thoughts and trying to narrow down the many memorable moments from the last two days.  When I got home I realized two things, I was tired and didn't have a post in me right then, and, I had forgotten to bring home the right cable to connect the school camera to my home computer.  I took it as a sign from the blogger gods that I was supposed to wait until this morning to put my thoughts down.

I don't need to say anything about dinner on Monday, Karen nailed it.  The only thing that Karen didn't share, was that the flat bread pizza was delicious, and I wasn't willing to share!

Over the two days it was obvious that Cynthia Lord loves kids!  She is a teacher at heart and can pull a group of 100 or so kids in and hold them there with ease.  Even our youngest students, kindergarten and Pre K were mesmerized by her story telling and especially her reading of the Hot Rod Hamster book.  Using hand gestures and noises she allowed the kids to choose right along with Hamster as he worked through the books.  We were even privy to a preview of the next Hamster book coming out next year, but that's all I'm allowed to say.  The Hamster swore me to secrecy!

In the Bailey author visit tradition, my fabulous PTO chair person Amy Proctor hosted dinner at her house.  I am amazed how easy Amy makes this look when I know she has been working hard to provide a warm and inviting atmosphere for the 15 or so guests.  Amy had a wonderful assistant, Christine Sinfield, who will step in as the chair next year.

The second day was another busy day, 3 sessions with the students of Bailey and a pizza lunch with our Newbery Club.  Once again, these kids did not disappoint with their insightful comments about which books they had read and loved as part of the Newbery experience.  We were all intrigued by the behind the scenes info Cynthia was able to share about how the winner is picked, and even some details she heard from the year Rules won an honor.



After that she signed wall in THE PIT, inspired by her friend Kirby Larson to use the letter C in welcome.  I hope I don't have keep looking for authors whose name begin with the leftover letters, that could get tough!

As the day wound down, we had one more special moment, and for me it was perhaps the most meaningful.  One of our Newbery kids, Ashley, is an amazing writer and wondered if Cynthia would be willing to look at something she had written.  Being the teacher that she is, and being the gracious person that she is, Cynthia was thrilled.  So as I went about my end of the day tasks, she sat with Ashley for 15 or 20 minutes and talked, author to author.  In the end she left Ashley looking a bit star struck with these words, " I want you to keep working on this.  Go home and tell your parents that a Newbery award author said you are a writer, keep at it!" 

WOW!  I get a little water in my eyes today as I write this thinking of the impact Cynthia Lord had on not just Ashley, but all of the kids at Bailey.  Thank you Cynthia!

 My friend Maria wrote about more of the nitty gritty teacher stuff here.

Four Slices for Price of One - SOLC #12

Since I confessed yesterday to being a list maker in crunch times, I thought a list for this post just seemed appropriate.

My four slices of the day:

1) Skype with Kate Messner.  Frantically try to remember my Skype name so we could connect.  Be proud of how articulate students were when she asked them for questions.  Gasp in awe as she shared her view, and showed us where Vermont was across the lake.  Giggle when kids asked how she came up with the name for Senator Snickerbottom.  Groan when it was time for her to leave; I could listen to her forever.  Smile as students asked me what other authors I could arrange to Skype with; they love connecting with authors.

2) Get hair cut and colored.  Collapse into chair at the end of the day.  Take a catnap as the foils were being put in.  Begin to read the latest (and last) Maeve Binchy book while waiting for color to process.   Purr like a kitten as my head was massaged during the shampoo.  Appreciate the color that comes to light when hair is being blown dry.  Leave with a hair style I love, but will never be able to replicate.

3) Receive a text from one of my daughters "just because".  Know that we will pick her and her sister up in less than two weeks at Savannah airport and we will have our first family vacation in over six years.  Delight in the fact that grown daughters reach out across the miles to say, "Hello, I'm thinking of you."

 4) Prepare conference forms for the next two days.  Reflect on growth students have made this year.  Concentrate on the work we still have left to do.  Celebrate their learning.  Know that conversations with parents help build that home/school connection.  Embrace that collaboration.

Thanks to Ruth and Stacey for hosting us again for the Slice of Life Challenge.  Head on over there to find out what other "slicers" have to say each and every day.