A New Year - A New Twist on the Blog

A new year brings a good time for making minor changes to the blog! Hopefully, everyone will agree that this is for the best! For the holidays, I received a really cool teacher's resource titled, The School Year 2008-2009 Teacher's Calendar: The Day-to-Day Almanac of History, Events, Holidays, Famous Birthdays and More!.




This book is a wonderful resource for not only teachers, but parents and librarians as well! Because of this, I have decided to use this book as the basis for my 2009 blog plan! Beginning Monday, January 5th, my week-day reviews will focus on whatever topic I pull from the book to use for the day. It could be the birthday of a famous person, a holiday, information about something in history or a random fact... whatever it be, the book reviews for the day will focus on that topic.

For example:

• Tuesday, November 25, 2008 was Marc Brown's Birthday. I would have chosen and reviewed several different pieces by Marc Brown - perhaps, D.W. the Picky Eater, Arthur Helps Out, Buster and the Great Swamp, and Dinosaur's Divorce.
• Monday, December 1, 2008 was Rosa Parks' Day. If A Bus Could Talk: The Story of Rosa Parks would have been my review for the day and I would have provided a link for a crossword puzzle about Rosa Parks.
• Friday, December 12, 2008 was Poinsettia Day. I would have provided a review for The Legend of the Poinsettia, by Tomie dePaola and provided a link for creating a poinsettia craft.

Weekends will bring miscellaneous reviews. Perhaps I have received something in the mail that needs reviewing or maybe I've stumbled upon a book I'd just enjoy sharing with everyone.

While I understand that my posts may be too late for your classroom use this year, I will make sure that the reviews are something that can be used from year-to-year, so they can be saved for future use in a classroom. I am also going to try to have my posts prepared ahead of time and will try to post a weekly run-down of topics on either Saturday or Sunday. That way, if you really find something that appeals to you and that you'd like to use in a classroom, library or even just at home with your own children, I will try to have it prepared so I can send it your way just a bit early! Along with these posts, I will continue to post lesson plans and book activities that may coincide with the books I've reviewed!


Please don't hesitate to post comments/thoughts/suggestions about this new blog format. I always love to hear input from others and will take kindly to your words.