A Girl Scout Paint Class that my daughter, Roxy and I did at a local venue.

We were on location in Mechanicsburg for a paint session with a local Girl Scout troop and here are some of the results. They enjoyed the session and had their own take on how to layout the design and include their own color scheme. Each one is unique and beautiful. 

I appreciated their creativity with this and how they all got so into creating original art!

Super nice and vivid colors that popped with individual expression!

I hope we do another class soon with these creative girls and their troop leaders.

They were sleeping overnight inside a local church. 

Way to go, girls! Let’s do it again soon. 

 

Lessons in teaching Children

I believe the important essential needs of growing into an independent adult should be incorporated into a student’s lessons and they have a huge impact on the person they become later in life.

The need to use control and be humble is very essential to cover in our lessons with children. As the child becomes responsible for their actions, there is a resilience in their image that others note when they encounter them. This creates maturity that is needed later in life and daily as the child grows up. Honesty is essential to strive for and it is also good to point out to reward them for this and this shows the child how important it is, to be honest. I think they will continue this practice if they are shown how important it is to us to see that they are honest and trustworthy. Trust is a building block in every good and lasting friendship along with being a loyal person. These together form a bond that leads to true love and lasting relationships.

As these traits become developed in their personality, it prepares them for their adult life with others and sharing becomes natural as a trait in their personality.

Self-control helps them to restrain from impulses later in their lives and also lets them avoid poor choices. Saying “no” to a child will help to develop this self-control. A parent and a teacher must mean it when they say no. This shows the child that they don’t always get what they want and prepares them for this fact later in life.

Children need to understand that actions have consequences and that the lack of self-control can cause undesirable results. They must do what is required in their classes to reach their goals without acting out and causing disruptions. It is important to establish priorities and stick to them. It is important to complete lessons before play. Recreation can serve as a reward for completing their lessons.

Self-control has better outcomes. Remaining calm while dealing with displays of anger can help in this process; however, it can prove to be very difficult if the behavior keeps happening and is not addressed by all the adults involved in the child’s life.

Giving the child an assigned area to think about these unwanted actions and also to reflect on what has occurred between them and others involved seems to work in my experience if this is practiced each time the child acts out against using self-control.

Being respectful to others in the classroom and their teacher should always be stressed. A teacher must be firm with the rules of the classroom and address those students immediately that are not following them and redirect them to follow the classroom procedures. If not, most likely, the whole classroom will become a disorganized mess.

Do not let students become arrogant and think the rules don’t apply to them. They should not think they are special or rather that they do not need to follow these guidelines because they don’t in other places. They must acknowledge that there are limitations in the classroom and they must be humble and respectful at all times.

Learning to be humble, will help the child both now and in the future. Avoid misleading maxims when speaking with children. Always stress reasonable goals and how it is important to work towards these to achieve them. Encourage children to apologize when they are wrong and hurt others. Stress to speak to others in a positive manner and to be appreciative when they are with other students in a classroom setting. A grateful spirit is wonderful in our world. This is better than being jealous and thinking one is superior to others around them. Building on these skills can be a building block in humanity and is essential to our natural world around us.

Expect the child to help out daily. Duties daily will help them grow and be responsible. These should be completed before playtime. Emphasize how important it is to help out around the house and the classroom. This develops respect and encourages the child to be more mature and to have a positive identity in their community.

A resilient person bounces back after dealing with obstacles. Disappointments will be overcome with only occasional setbacks. Corrections are vital to learning in a child’s life. They need to understand what are the facts and how to deal with failures. Confidence is built as they overcome them. It is important to teach the child how to gain perspective on what has occurred.  The child’s strategy will improve as this is addressed. The child will take charge of the problem and will not play the victim. Avoid fixing problems for them, instead help them to form a plan to solve it. Life is often unpredictable. As a parent, we protect our children from danger. But, we can’t always shield them from all that takes place in our world.

Constructive criticism is not bullying. It is guidance when it is needed for a positive change to take place. Teach the child to accept corrections so the child can learn. The benefits will come from this and they will not be miserable just because they were corrected. The benefits will appear in their new behaviors. They will learn from it and be happy in the end with what occurs because of it. Balance is needed and it reaps many positive improvements. Teaching in this manner is beneficial to their development.   Errors in judgment have to addressed and corrected to overcome and be resilient.

Being responsible in life is being involved and completing tasks. A child’s capable cooperation begins with teaching. Cultures and parenting are involved in this learning process. Be eager to teach this lesson. Assigning chores and tasks to complete can help to nurture this process. Place value on the completion and always address how much it is valued by others and the community.

Adult guidance is essential to a child’s development. Interaction with the child is a fulfilling role. Teachers are often interacting with children to fill an empty void and also to mentor them. Instruction and guidance are so important. Grandparents are an important asset in a child’s life. Viewpoints, experiences, and influence come from family relatives.  It also forms a child’s attitude and behavior. Major influences can provide strength and advantages in the long run. Learning to listen to elders can be so beneficial. Mentors can provide knowledge, natural inclinations, and the ability to be a leader. Peers in a child’s life will benefit from this respect and these values. Valuing adult guidance is very important and makes a teacher’s job go more smoothly.

Moral values are very important to teach and address in the classroom.  Children that encounter distorted messages and morals can see this influence as a way of life. They become confused between right and wrong. They will accept media pressures as a good influence even if they are not to be considered a true source. Consistent teaching must involve the stressing of morals in life. A child must develop a conscience and a sense of logic.  Honesty is essential and crucial.  Commend good behaviors in the classroom. Correct bad behaviors daily and address them with discussion. Then, the child will develop correctly and they will value the morals gained by these teachings. Discuss the differences with the children in the classroom. Moral codes are part of their identity if they taught well. Comment on good behaviors as well as bad. Compare the two and address what should happen. Adhering to good values brings benefits.  A value system is a matter of good teachings.

Do not let abusive speech patterns be present in the classroom. Actions and words need to be addressed when they are not positive or correct. A path of guidance can be so essential to children in a learning environment. The adoption of values is crucial. Clearly, training begins with the right principles provided and the correct influences apparent in life. Consistent teaching brings forth positive behavior. I enjoy teaching in this manner and seeing the results in my youth in the classroom.

Daisy, the Donut Fairy

This cute volume was a big hit in my Pre-school reading group during table time. 

Daisy and her friends fill the pages. The book was created by Tim Bugbird & Lara Ede. These fairies spend their days making colorful donuts together. Pirates enter the story bringing with them mermaids. Unexpected friendships form on the pages. In the blue seas, Daisy, Dolly, and Dee have days filled with swimming, flying and giving out donuts. Fairy wands help them. So, after reading this together, we made fairy wands as a table time activity. We used colorful pencils, foam stars for the tops, and ribbons. We also decorated them with stickers.

Pancake Pete entertained the boys in my reading group with his mates and their bird. Overboard goes some of them with donuts. Floating in the waves together, they bob to shore with the fairies and octopus. Grateful pirates are rescued by the fairies.

Lara Ede is an illustrator and a designer from the UK publishing and retailers. She loves patterns and color. Her work is often featured in children’s books. She lives in Newark.

This book became a great companion book to my pirate stories and mermaid stories. We built on our themes in our class with this one!

 

A Fairy Friend by Sue Fliess

I read this book to my Pre-school group, and they seemed to like the story and the graphic depictions of a fairy and her friend.

It is illustrated by Claire Keane. She is known for work as a visual development artist at Walt Disney. Her work is connected to some popular films such as Tangled and Frozen. She lived in Paris, France to study graphic design. Now, she lives in Venice Beach, Calfornia with her family. She created the Once Upon a Cloud picture book, too. Check out claireonacloud.com. 

The story is an enchanting world with playful fairies and friends living in blooms and taking up residence in trees. Very poetic in nature and the style of writing. Dragonflies, bees, niches, and nooks fill the pages. Tire swings grace the trees with wagging dogs chasing butterflies. Cotton floors and Sparrow feathers adorn the rooms.  Mushroom caps, mosses of green, and pebbles make up the little houses. They eat flower-petal stew and swing from branches in nutshells. They light up the forest skies at night. Safe and fancy-free journeys together as friends become alive on the pages. This is a wonderful book for group readings and sharing knowledge about nature and the magic it can bring to one’s life with a little imagination and building fairy houses.

 

 

Alice the Amber Fairy by Sarah Creese

What little girl doesn’t like to read about a fairy and her Showstopper Spectacular?

The Sparkle Town Fairies are alive with make-believe ideas and music store dreams on these pages! What a wonderful way to read to little girls with this colorful book.

Lara Ede is an illustrator and her art is featured inside this book. Lara Ede combines her love of art with patterns with such quicky, vibrant images inside this story.

Join the Sparkle Town streets and see the interactions of these cute characters as they dance across the pages.

If you know a little girl that wants to meet some fairies, pick up this one at your local library or bookstore.

Alice is quite amazing to meet and to learn about while practicing reading.

She has a bunch of friends that grace the pages with her.

 

Teaching Preschool-age Children to Love books & reading

I enjoy finding very interesting and well thought out books to read to children learning from me. It is fun to find books that connect to each other and ones that also connect to the young minds, too where they want to listen and also browse at the colorful pages as I present the story inside to them.

I read Pirate’s Lullaby Mutiny at Bedtime to a group of varied ages and they responded well to this beautifully laid out story. It is by Marcie Wessels and the pages are filled with artwork by Tim Bowers. Wessels holds several degrees and she has taught Spanish at the University of San Diego. Bowers studied at the Columbus College of Art and Design and worked for Hallmark. He lives in Granville, Ohio.

This is an intriguing volume of Pirate’s talk between characters that engages the children and I am glad that I was able to read it to them together during a circle time activity. If you are looking for reading material for your class, consider this one.

When I teach Preschool, I like to include Science with Reading.

During my class, I wanted to study the life of a butterfly and how it goes through changes to become a butterfly. To do this, I read The Butterfly House to my class. Then, we did some artwork to represent our study and we also decided to go outside and look at where butterflies live and how they use the flowers as food. This book is by Eve Bunting and Greg Shed provided the artwork for the pages inside it.

As we read about the life of a butterfly we also discovered the role of the caterpillar and how it is also important in this cycle of life–a life that is not that long.

This is another book that keeps the children interested and also provides a science lesson to them as the teacher reads it to the class. The lyrical words are featured with Shed’s sun-kissed paintings and nature comes to life on the pages. A girl and her grandfather take the reader on a journey about larva on thistle leaves and making it a butterfly house to live in as it does its magic inside the box the girl uses to house it. She makes it a comfortable and colorful box to rest inside. This girl wants the larva to be safe. The chrysalis is kept from the outside world. They move the Painted Lady later to a new location. They say goodbye together. The breeze takes the butterfly to a fig tree. There is a magic inside the pages of this book and the garden is alive year after year with its coneflowers, marigolds, and Painted Ladies that flutter in to sip on the nectar present there.  Sunflowers grace the borders and the young girl is now grown but still gardening and caring for these butterflies.

Included in the back of this book is a guide to raising a butterfly from larva to butterfly. Feeding instructions are there, too.

I came across some very interesting Childrens’ reads this month.

The first one is titled, Mermaid Dance by Marjorie Rose Hakala and it is full of lovely images by Mark Jones.

I read this to my preschool class and they enjoyed the connection between the mermaids and nature with the party it forms by the sea filled with wonder.

If you have a child that loves fantasy characters, the water, and beautiful images this is the book for you to read to them!

Our class was focusing on the seasons and we were in summer when I read this one to them. We followed up by focusing on the moon and this book addresses both areas and bringing in a new season. The mermaids have a solstice party featuring the moon and everything that surrounds them.

We read Twas the Night Before Summer next by Anne Margaret Lewis and it is full of eye-catching art by Wendy Popko.

This book introduces children to the magical Luna Bee May and her voice of knowledge about the stars, owls, bears, and her bug ship enters the story to sail over rooftops and trees.

This is a very colorful story with summer in mind and it has a very intriguing character leading the story. Imagination and dreams are apparent with campfires and dancing.

As our class continued to study the season of summer and the moon, we read Nature’s Lullaby fills the Night by Dee Leone and Bali Engel’s art fills the pages.

The pages are filled with the creatures of the night and their sounds of activity during the moon’s presence. Starlit waters containing the life of fish and how nature says goodnight with the moon above our world are explored and included in this cute storyline about the night with a full moon.

As my class continued their journey with the moon and the dreams it often brings, we read Dreaming of You by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater and Aaron DeWitt illustrated the pages of this book.

This a fun little book to read aloud to classes for preschool-age children because it is so poetic in nature. You can visit amyludwigvanderwater.com for more like this and also visit aarondewittillistration.com for more of his artwork.

Sweet dreams with the Moon featuring animals that run free and forest nights lit by fireflies are featured with an owl in the trees and farm scenes present under a dark sky filled with stars and the glowing moon.

As my class completed this study of summer, the moon, and hidden fantasies containing mermaids in the sea, I featured a book titled, Over and Under the Pond by Kate Messner and the art is by Christopher Silas Neal. This book is a gem to link to a science lesson, too!

The hidden world under the boat is so alive with darting life containing beavers, minnows, and turtles. Secret worlds of little ones and also bigger creatures move right under the boat as it sails across the surface of the pond with its passengers. However, there is life above them too. As the cattails sway in the wind, they see birds building nests and flying away. The author has included a note about the ponds and the wetlands. The ecosystem is alive with nature’s gifts and this writer thought to include more details in the back of the book about this and each animal. Further reading is included with listed websites and a book list. The resources are included to help with science lessons in the future for your class.

Flossy Figtree

Welcome to The Storyteller, with me, Your Host, John Kavanagh. These are story poems by a wonderful writer named Flossy Figtree.

 

The Promise by Ann Weisgarber

Well, it started very intriguingly with “Promise” but I felt very troubled after finishing this one…

Pick up this book, if you want to read about Galveston and its history while learning about the struggles in a close community. I would recommend her first novel, too because is an excellent read and very informative, too.

Ann Weisgarber uses her research knowledge well in her fiction works with intriguing characters and she creates a great depth for a sense of place inside her books. I will be reading more of her written words in the future. She makes a reader think deeply and want to know more after shutting the cover of her novels. 

By the way, this cover on this paperback version matches mine and I love it. It conveys the true image of the story once Catherine arrives in Galveston. Galveston is also a main character once the story is set on this island with the dairy farm and the close sea water in the view from the veranda of Oscar’s house on stilts situated on a small rise.

Weisgarber’s first novel was beautifully crafted and I could not put it down. The historical characters in it were very well formed and I couldn’t forget them. They were convincing and that is something I missed this time around with some of these characters along with the situations in which they interacted and how they reacted. The results of some of the scenes were troubling for me. Oscar’s loyalty is real and Nan’s feelings towards him are also very strong. Catherine reveals her true feelings, too towards Oscar in her final actions.

The two narrators did not work for me in this story because I loved Catherine’s voice and Nan’s voice grated on my nerves! She is very negative and a real killjoy to this story. Nan Ogden becomes the real main character, not Catherine once Mrs. Williams is introduced into this saga of characters in Galveston. Nan is in the Prologue, and she returns as a narrator that doesn’t bring anything to this but sorrow, negative opinions, and jealous thoughts. Her personality is that of a villain.

The characters do make plenty of promises to reflect back to the title. However, the promise to take care of Andre is not totally revealed at the end along with other loose ends where the reader must draw their own conclusions about what really happened to some of these characters.

Catherine is new to Texas and she arrives on the island trying to bury all the hurt her life has brought to her back in Ohio where the community turned up their noses at her because she let down her guard and loved the wrong man. A man tied to another woman that was not fulfilling his desires the way Catherine could for him. A marriage doomed because of some uncontrollable forces bearing down on it. Catherine feels trapped, alone, and she decides to leave the area by going off to marry a man from her past that she has not seen for years.

Catherine becomes Andre’s saving grace and he does appreciate her actions and her direction. Andre is starting to care about her and her presence in his young life. She is a beautiful woman that does what she has to do to protect this small boy during a battering hurricane and in my mind, she is the hero of this story. Andre is comforted by her singing, her actions, her protection from the tragic events around them as they seek shelter at a higher level together. She provides this boy with nourishment, even though, she has no experience in this area or much knowledge about raising children. Catherine does what comes natural to her in this time of need for Andre. She puts him first as a mother would do and she guides him through this tragic event even when she tells him to go the Nan’s homestead and leave her behind to wait for Oscar to return. She is always thinking about other people and their needs, not her own.

Oscar is a dear man that truly loves Catherine and he puts everything aside for her but his farm commitments and the community he lives in are still what makes him tick and what is most important to him. His passion for his animals is beautiful. Social taboos do not stop him from loving this woman and being very understanding with her needs. She is starting anew with him and I think he is doing the same in this setting in Texas with his second wife. He values her input and her company in this unforgiving setting.

Nan has a lot of her past still in her thinking, such as troubles with close relationships and bad experiences involving men in her life. However, she doesn’t let them go. She never tries to move past them. Nan keeps them on her sleeve. Her personality is altered by these bothersome experiences with men she has loved and lost. Nan will not bend or change. I think she is smart in the areas of dealing with her geographic surroundings because of her experience in this area of the country. She warns Catherine about the snakes in the beginning of the story. What still bothers me is why didn’t Nan remove the poison from Catherine’s hand and arm when she is caring for her after the incident in the pasture? Did Nan purposely leave it as is? During the conclusion of this fiction story, the reader is brought back to Nan’s voice and point of view. She is cleaning and thinking about what to do about Andre. I feel she wants Andre for herself because of the “Promise” she made in the beginning to his mother.  I think this is why the book ended the way it did because Nan is the focal character and she gets what she wants in the end!

Music is a symbol in this story often along with setting the time period in the 1900’s. Classical songs are featured with Catherine and Nan both being musicians. I felt this was the only thing they had in common.

Nature, animals, and pelicans in the area are referenced. Child-rearing in the 1900’s is also a key element. Nan’s approach and Catherine’s are very different. I felt Catherine was a better mother and had a tender side that I admired with a wonderful teaching method.

Oscar is a man that conveys trust, honor and being committed always to his community of people. He has strong values and lives by them daily in the story. Catherine tells Andre about his father’s childhood and his life back in Ohio. She instills this family history in Andre.

I did not expect the story to end like this and I felt empty after finishing it. It brought about a void to me. When the storm grows strong and the air turns bad with the humming and shattering noise, it brings death to mind. The salt in the air and everywhere it is not wanted because of the rising sea waters, and Catherine takes Andre to the attic stairs, I felt her pain and her confusion during this scene. Nan was strong but in that scene, Catherine was also very fearless at times by comforting Andre when she didn’t feel quite sure what to do. She never let him know how truly afraid she was inside her mind and that was what a true parent does for a child in a situation like this and she wasn’t a female that had carried a child inside her body. At least, it is not said that she ever did. I thought maybe she was expecting an infant and I was hoping she could tell her husband this news when he came back. But, that never happened.

I did not feel Catherine longing to return to Ohio. She thought of her mother and even thought about writing her mother. The social rules of the 1900’s stopped her from returning to that former life and writing her mother in Dayton. Nan’s inability to read is visited through her questioning the information in the letters she encounters while she is cleaning up after the storm. The differences between the two women and their voices are very opposite. Nan is an unpolished woman and a no-nonsense type. Catherine is a very polished female in her appearance and her manners. The isolated landscape on the dairy farm is not what Catherine is accustomed to but I think she tries very hard to make the most of it. I felt she had courage in her heart to try to fit in while also keeping some of herself the same because Oscar admired her for the woman she was when he knew her in Dayton.

The history in the novel is valuable and intriguing to read about now. The setting in Texas is well done with the details about the surroundings where Oscar farms and cares for his community.