I pulled three cards from my prompt deck, and all three are pretty good, I think. Interestingly, I took a workshop that required a reflection paper on the one about adding value to relationships (one point: humor is necessary for genuine connection). But since I had to write an actual paper on the topic, I…
Yesterday, I read a well-known book with my first-grade group called Is Your Mama a Llama? It’s about a llama looking for others like him, who would have a llama for a mama, told in a fun and predictable rhyming pattern. “Is your mama a llama?” I asked my fried Dave. “No she is not,” is…
Learning to read is a magical process: we recognize letters and assign them sounds and then smash the sounds together into words. Then we read many words in sentences and in paragraphs, not only decoding the them but extracting meaning from them. It’s pretty trippy if you dwell on it too long. Seeing as learning…
Last week, my fifth-grade reading group and I finished a classic novel. I’m not going to say which one it was because I’m not going to say very nice things about it. The story itself was fine. It followed a classic narrative structure and was occasionally gripping. The problem was… Well, it was boring in…
This morning, I taught the third grade class in the kids’ area of my church. The lesson was about Biblical figures who persevered through difficult circumstances and those who encouraged them along the way. To go along with that, we completed a seriously cool project with the main point being this: when times get tough,…
Yesterday, I read this great article by Nat Russo about how important it is for writers to master the craft before we start defending our style. Click on his name to read the whole thing (which I recommend), but here’s a chunk of it: You’ve heard people do this. When you offer constructive criticism, they’ll…
Earlier this year, I published this post about songs featuring various forms of figurative language. It has been one of my most popular posts to date, but you wouldn’t know that from looking at it. Two people liked it, and one commented. So why do I say it’s a popular post? One thing I get…
My friend’s daughter started kindergarten a week ago, and yesterday he sent me a concerned message. Him: My kid is social and fun and outgoing, but I worry that when she gets in these classes and clubs she just sits there and isn’t making any friends or whatever. In her preschool, the two teachers loved…
Have you seen this movie yet? If not, go see it. Do it now. I’ll wait. Because I may or may not post spoilers. It’s probably trendy to write posts about the movie right now, but I don’t care. I have thoughts about it. Thoughts that I think will help parents and teachers make the most…
Have you looked at a picture of yourself, and you swear you don’t look like that? That’s because we generally have an inaccurate perception of ourselves. Part of it is because our mirror images are always reversed. I think the rest has something to do with the inability to control the elements around us. Like…
Allison Maruska 