Cynthia Lord's Blog, page 108

This Day

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other ~Mother Teresa

Five Things on a Friday

 
1.  I have been looking everywhere for a photo of me as an island teacher with my kids.  I finally found it!  My middle school audiences will find it hilarious because: 

There are only 13 kids and two adults in the whole school.

We're all in 1980s clothes and haircuts. 

 
The entire elementary school!

It was age of Flashdance!  Sing it with me!!!!



But it's also the era of at least some of the parents of the kids I will be speaking to--which will make the kids laugh, I'm sure. 

2.  I made...

Edgy Hamsters

 


I smiled to see Hot Rod Hamster on a teacher's list of Edgy Picture Books For Emerging Readers. 

I wrote phonics stories before Rules was published, and I love books that pull a young child along from listener to reader. I've met preschoolers who can "read" to me every one of the speech bubbles in Hot Rod Hamster.  Sometimes the child is truly decoding the words, but most times, they've memorized them.  But that's how reading first starts for many kids--with some confidence in memorized...

Wordless Wednesday

Freeport, Maine. Photo by my husband, John.


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The NERA Conference of Panic

  I've been firming up details for my September events--including a trip back to the New England Reading Association conference. I'm participating in "A Smorgasbord of Authors," an informal cocktail party of chatting with teachers and signing books. I'm really looking forward to it.   

This conference moves around the New England states and the last time I spoke at the conference, it was in Maine.  That was in 2007 and I was still fairly new to conference speaking.  It was funny to go back...

Finally!

  Yesterday, I spent a fun afternoon with these two! 

Lisa Yee and I have been online and LJ friends for years, but we live on opposite coasts, and we've never managed to be invited to the same conference.  Ever since we've known each other, our conversations have gone like this.

Lisa:  I'll be at NCTE. Will you be there?

Me:  No, but I'll be at ALA. Will you be there?

Lisa:  No.

So when Lisa sent me an email that she was coming to Massachusetts, I knew I wanted to seize the chance to meet her...