Wanda Luthman's Blog, page 42
October 31, 2016
Carolyn Howard Johnson’s Gift to Me
A great big thank you to Carolyn Howard Johnson for posting this review of A Turtle’s Magical Adventure on her new site The New Review! (click on highlighted words The New Review for the review)
Howard Johnson is a multi-award winning author with a wealth of knowledge and she is an incredible supporter of Indie Authors.
She has a new book coming out soon called How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally & Ethically. My book, The Lilac Princess, is mentioned within it! I’m incredibly humbled and fortunate for this gift from someone like Howard Johnson. She’s amazing!
And if you haven’t found her book The Frugal Book Promoter and you’re an author, you need this book! She has written other “frugal” books to help authors, check her out on Amazon.
Also, check out her website and sign up for her newsletter Sharing with Writers (the link is in the upper right column). You don’t want to miss a word she has to say!
Thank you, Carolyn, you are wonderfully generous! All the best to you and your new book!
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson
“articulate, gifted, insightful, iconoclastic, and a truly impressive literary talent . . Imperfect Echoes (http://bit.ly/ImperfectEchoes ) is an inherently fascinating, thoughtful, and thought-provoking read . . . highly recommended . . .” ~Jim Cox, Editor-in-Chief of Midwest Book Review
Instructor for nearly a decade at the renowned UCLA Extension Writers’ Program
Author of the multi award-winning series of HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers
Amazon Profile: http://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile
The Frugal Book Promoter: http://bit.ly/FrugalBookPromo
Web site: http://www.HowToDoItFrugally.com
E-mail: HoJoNews@AOL.com
Facebook: http://Facebook.com/carolynhowardjohnson
Twitter: http://Twitter.com/FrugalBookPromo
Pinterest: http://Pinterest.com/chowardjohnson
October 27, 2016
Upcoming Event/Family Fun Night
I’m looking forward to this year’s Family Fun Night at Challenger 7 Elementary School!
Tonight–Thursday, October 27th from 5:30-7:30PM at Challenger 7 Elementary School, I will be at there.
Come visit my table–I’ll have a free craft and a fabulous giveaway that will be drawn at the end of the night!
October 26, 2016
3 Positive Character Traits Your Child Needs to Be Successful
Thank you, www.Hoorayformoms.com for posting my article on the positive character traits children need to be successful! You guys rock!
Check out the article here
October 24, 2016
Character Ed., What is it?
My blog is focused on helping children be the best people they can be and helping the adults in their lives figure out how best to teach and encourage them. I often do research, share blog posts, and write my own thoughts about this topic in order to be a resource for you. So, today, I’m sharing with you an awesome website I found.
It’s called CharacterEd.net and it has a great list of Positive Character Traits with explanations of each one and an overarching reason for why schools should teach Character Education .
In short, this website gives 10 positive characteristics plus Patriotism. The 10 character traits are the following:
Respect
Perseverance
Caring
Self-Discipline
Citizenship
Honesty
Courage
Fairness
Respect
Integrity
The reason for teaching Character Education in schools is based upon The Golden Rule (known in this article as reversibility and universalizability). The Golden Rule of “Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You.”
These traits are agreed upon due to their ability to protect individuals as well as the common good of everyone. If we can encourage these traits in our children, we develop good citizens of society and even the world and thereby create a sustainable community that can grow and improve and thrive.
I encourage you to read the definitions of each character trait as well as the definition of character education at this website http://charactered.net/main/traits.asp
It is truly inspiring!
I’m glad to be part of helping you help your child or students and encourage any dialogue you’d like to have or resources you are aware of to further enhance my own knowledge.
October 21, 2016
Author Interview
I’d like to introduce you to Cheryl Holloway’s blog. She’s a very active blogger and does great interviews with authors.
Today, I was fortunate enough to be one of the authors she has interviewed. I really enjoyed participating and hope you enjoy the read.
Here’s a snippet
CH: Today’s Guest Author is Wanda Luthman. She shared her thoughts on writing, “The best thing about being a writer is getting to put all those thoughts and stories in my head down on paper and other people reading them and loving them.” Welcome to my blog, Wanda.
CH: Can you tell us in one sentence, why we should read your book?
WL: My book is a beautifully illustrated, sweet story about growing up that relates to every child and parent.
CH: What inspired you to write this charming children’s book?
WL: My daughter went off to college 3 years ago and I had horrible empty nest syndrome. I wrote this first as a story and then as a poem. So, I decided to make it into a book to share the journey with other parents and children.
Check out the full interview here, http://www.cherylholloway.net/blog/2016/10/21/guest-author-interview-wanda-luthman/
Feel free to leave comments and share! After all, sharing is caring!
October 17, 2016
Halloween: Tricks & Treats for Learning
I’d like to welcome back our favorite School Psychologist, Dr. Valerie Allen, who has some fun activities to do during this Halloween season that can also be used for teaching moments with your children.
Halloween: Tricks & Treats for Learning
by
Dr. Valerie Allen
Those teachable moments can happen any time, any place, on any occasion. As we move into the holiday season, one such event is Halloween. Aside from your personal, school, or community activities, Halloween can be a prime learning opportunity. Here are six ways to turn Halloween into an enjoyable learning experience to share with your child.
Vocabulary: There are many words related to Halloween which can be categorized as nouns or verbs. Words can be alphabetized. They can be used to create word pictures or to find rhyming words. They can be sorted by number of syllables. Some words to consider: black cat, boo, broom, candy, costume, Fall, Jack-o-lantern, October, pumpkin, scary, treat, trick, and witch.
Big Word into Little Words: Using only the letters in the word Halloween, make as many small words as you can in five minutes. You can offer points for the total number of words, with a bonus for words of five letters or more. Some of these words include: he, hen, hall, all, an, law, lean, low, eon, no, own, we, and when.
Real vs. Make Believe: Encourage critical thinking about facts and fiction. Discuss fairy tales and characters in children’s books. Decide which parts of a story are about real things and which parts are pretend. Urge you child to use creative story telling. This can also be an opportunity to discuss social issues about truth, misinformation, lies, and deception.
Creative Imagination: Talk about costumes and who they represent. Discuss how people dress in different countries and those who wear uniforms. Talk about the difference between styles of dress and costumes. Use a story character and make up an adventure story. Discuss the purpose of clothing to offer protection from the elements, safety, and identification with others in a group or organization.
Cultural beliefs. Research the history of the celebration of Halloween. There are significant religious, cultural, and agricultural roots in the celebration of Halloween. This can open discussions about differing beliefs, understanding, cultural diversity, and tolerance.
Food Celebrations. There are certain foods we enjoy during specific holidays. You discuss their cultural significance. There are simple, no-cook recipes for children to make and enjoy together. Discussions can include favorite holiday foods. You can talk about the ingredients used in pumpkin pie, apple pie, and mincemeat pie; which items are the same and which are different. Candies can be counted, sorted by texture or color, or by flavor. Other foods might include maple syrup, apples, cinnamon, and cider. This can also lead to a discussion of sharing food and candy with others in the community.
When you open your door to those cute little Trick or Treaters, you can also open the door to Halloween learning experiences.
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Dr. Valerie Allen is a child psychologist, author, and speaker. She has published two children’s books, “Summer School for Smarties” and “Bad Hair, Good Hat, New Friends.” Oh yes, she has also raised six children!
October 13, 2016
Canute: Using Braille to make ‘Kindles’ for blind people…
This invention is truly carving a new path for our blind friends. I’m grateful to these caring people to create such a wonderful instrument and for making it affordable.
Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog
Extract of an interesting article from The Memo site:
Canute is tackling the decline in Braille literacy – and everyone should care.
Being able to read is one of the most precious of skills: Books free the imagination and inspire creativity – they allow people to learn independently, and relax after a hard day.
But not everyone has that luxury.
This week is National Braille Week: a week dedicated to the raised dots that allow blind people to read letters, numbers, punctuation and words.
But Braille is on the decline.
In the ’60s up to 50% of blind school children in the US were able to read Braille, but this figure is now closer to 10%.
Today one company hopes to turn this around, with a device that’s fit for the digital age.
Get ready to meet Canute.
Continue reading at:
Like a kindle for blind people
October 10, 2016
Keeping Children Safe with Technology
You may have heard of SnapChat where people can share pictures and messages with others but then the picture and message disappear. This is worrisome for parents because it creates a sense of anonymity in which children may be tempted to share inappropriate pictures and/or bullying type messages believing that it cannot be traced back to them. Of course, we know that nothing is actually lost in cyberspace (even though we feel it is).
Plus, taking bold chances like this can encourage even more risky behavior. Or imagine being on the receiving end of those bullying messages and the message disappears so you can’t show or prove it to anyone, but the pain is still there. Of course, predators know about these and use them to try and find a child who will interact with them.
Now, there’s a new app out called BurnNote according to Hillary Smith on the Anxious Toddler. In her article called Should Parents Be Worried About BurnNote, she explains that this app allows users to delete the message after it’s been read once or to set a time limit on how long the receiver has to read it before it is gone. Smith continues explaining that there are two others features specific to this app that make it even more troublesome. Users can send a message to someone not using the app and it only shows one line at a time and therefore a screenshot can’t be taken. This app was designed for the business world to send confidential information to business partners, but it’s entered the world of children now. You can read the full article here.
Smith mentions two other similar apps–SlingShot and CyberDust. As you can imagine, these are popping up all the time. I’ve been to several CyberBullying Inservices working in the school system. There are many apps and websites out there that our children have access to that are inappropriate. It’s very important to stay vigilant with your children. Check their phones, their computers, and most importantly talk to them. You have to educate them.
Stay safe cyberfriends!
Have you Heard of Burn Note? If Your Kid has a Phone – You Better Learn!
October 8, 2016
Hurricane CATegories
After Hurricane Matthew and fortunately no damage or flooding, I can laugh at this!
With strong hurricanes in the Caribbean, and the possibility that they’ll strike the U.S., it behooves us to review the various CATegories of storm:
h/t: From Instagram via reader jsp
October 4, 2016
October is National Anti-Bullying Month
About one out of every four U.S. students will report being bullied this year, making bullying the most common form of violence experienced by young people in the nation. Many of you are charged with preventing and responding to bullying, and we want you to be equipped with the knowledge and tools you need to […]
via Enter to win resources for National Bullying Prevention Month! — Free Spirit Publishing Blog
