This year, I am trying to increase my awareness of the many good things that happen, which are frequently overlooked by me. To help me, I am joining Ruth Ayers' Celebrate This Week.
Today, I am celebrating people and conversations. Over the course of July, I have had numerous conversations with author, Melissa Stewart about nonfiction books and writing and learning. Yesterday, that conversation continued some on twitter and Carrie Gelson joined in. Here is a snippet of the conversation.
I love that it not only inspired Carrie to do a 3 part blog post on how she is using nonfiction in the classroom but these conversations have been the inspiration for thinking and learning and future blog posts for Melissa and I. These conversations also prompted me to reach out to my Common Core IRL buddies (Mary Ann Scheuer, Cathy Potter, Louise Cappizo, Amy Koester, and Jennifer Reed) to access the hive mind.
This past Wednesday, I had a lovely opportunity to hang out and have coffee with author/illustrator Arree Chung (Ninja!) before his visit at Vroman's Bookstore. We continued the conversation for a little bit upstairs where he introduced me to his buddy, Brian Won (Hooray for Hat). I loved chatting books and more with both of them.
Below is Brian drawing his own ninja character along with the audience.
Since Wednesday seemed to be a book day, I attended the Fierce Reads Tour at Barnes & Noble at The Grove. It was fun to listen to YA authors - Leigh Bardugo, Marissa Meyer, Anna Banks, and Ann Aguirre.
But the bonus was getting to meet Mary Van Akin, publicist for Macmillan Kids Books. I don't always get a chance to meet the wonderful people behind the scenes and Mary and I have been emailing back and forth for months about different books and authors, which is one of the reasons I met Arree Chung. So, to be able to chat and visit with her and celebrate books was an extra special treat.
Though it may look like all my conversations were on twitter or at book events, I also spent three days in a training for Project-Based Learning. Listening in on conversations and sharing ideas with teachers from different school districts was also stimulating and gave me a few interesting ah-ha moments.
I am thankful for ways that all parts of my world collide at different times and that I can celebrate the people and the conversations.