April Pulley Sayre's Blog, page 7

Science Books and Films Nov Issue

Science Books and Films’ November 2012 issue has an article by Terrence E. Young, Jr that celebrates  science picture books: “November is Science Picture Book Month.”   Vulture View and Stars Beneath Your Bed are mentioned and there’s a page at the end with a paragraph quote about my view of science picture books.

 

To Love a Toad

Just publishing one of my poems here because. Because why not put it out there? Just dug it out of a little corner, forgotten, of my computer file pile. There are so many poems stuck in there like scraps of paper.

April Pulley Sayre

 

To Love a Toad

 

To love a toad

is to love all manner of wartiness

and melded colors

and cool air that hovers

near mud and shade.

To love a toad

is to laugh on rainy days

at slip slap soundings

to shake your head,

to raindrop fling.

To love a toad

is to kneel knee dirty un caring

to sup with slugs and creature crawl

to watch where you step

in case the toads trust too far.

To dig gently

just in case

a toad’s at home.

Go Go Grapes Salutes Revolutionaries!

Love these folks! They’ll pump you up for changing the world, whether it relates to veggies, or not!

First, here are some inspiring TED talks about vegetable garden power:

Stephen Ritz: A Teacher Growing Green in the South Bronx.

Seriously. You gotta see this guy’s talk through to the end. He’s a wild man, on a mission, empowering so many kids!

Pam Warhurst: How We Can Eat Our Landscapes

Hear how volunteers in one town changed their landscape and thinking.

Noah Wilson-Rich Every City Needs Healthy Honeybees

I’m a fan of native bees because of The Bumblebee Queen but this fellow does the job for honeybees and he is inspiring!

But I don’t have to travel that far for inspiration because there’s a huge community gardening movement here in the Michiana area. Sara Stewart is an amazing leader and there are so many volunteers. See what’s happening in Indiana:  Unity Gardens. I’ll be at their fundraiser tomorrow.

Touch A Butterfly Wildlife Gardening Resources

It’s almost fated to happen. Every time I go to press, I find a flood of books/websites, and the like, which I wish I’d known about so I could include them in my resource section.  Usually, when I’m writing a book, I spend time on my own text and the science and interviews underlying it. I don’t worry much about looking sideways into what other resources are in the field. I just share what gems have come my way…those go-to books that have nurtured me over the years. That, alas, probably misses some more recent ones.

In wildlife gardening, there are so many goodies!  Like this  book I came across:

Birdscaping the Midwest: a Guide to Gardening with Native Plants to Attract Birds by Mariette Nowak. Itchy Cat Press, Blue Mounds, WI, 2007. She has lots of terrific charts, plant lists for a variety of creatures. It’s a perfect complement to my book which, by design, had to be more general about recommendations because it was going nationwide. If you’re ready to dig in to midwest, check out this book.

On a tangent, Jeff and I just visited Blue Mounds briefly to take photos for the field guide he is co-authoring with Kenn Kaufman. So, now I can imagine what a beautiful habitat this little production press inhabits. A good origin, for sure!  Bravo, Ms. Nowak, for your hard work in this field! Hoping many fields of native plants result…

Bear Studies Resources Older Grades

My book Eat LIke a Bear comes out next Fall. It’s a picture book, for young ages, about grizzly bears. But I just read about a curriculum that might interest some educators who want to learn more about bears in order to create related curricula. It’s a STEM based study of bear biology: Curriculum Guide to the Bear Book.  Eight lessons in science, math, and problem solving for high school ages. Perhaps it might be used/adapted for some younger students, as well? I have not seen it, but read about it in a NSTA publication. It’s done by Melissa Reynolds-Hogland, exec director of Bear Trust International. I am not very familiar with the various conservation organizations surrounding bear issues, including this one. So if any of you have experiences with the curriculum, and opinions about it that you’d like to share with me, feel free to contact me so I can update this post.

Ted Talks for Educators

I listen to TED talks as I walk and as I do dishes. Time and again, I  come across ones that I think might be inspiring or useful for educators. So I’m starting this post and updating as I come across ones that hit a chord. Here goes!

Caitria and Morgan O’Neill: How to step up in the face of disaster

This talk is by two young American women who took charge and helped organize recovery efforts after a tornado. It’s about taking charge, stepping up, and finding better ways to do things.

Suitable for probably 4th grade up although I think it would hit middle schoolers and high schoolers best.

Studying weather? Natural disasters? Planning Mapping? Graphing? Variables? I an imagine lots of great math and computer projects in schools as an outgrowth of watching this video. It would be a good kickstart for a Dan Meyer kind of math exploration.

 Sheila Patek clocks the fastest animals

This is a straightforward yet cool science talk by a woman who studies mantis shrimps. There’s something so engaging about her gentle humor. She just loves what she does—science! Science students should see these kinds of talks…just feel how drilling down deeply into a subject can be engaging during a lifetime of study.

Suitable for: 5th grade and up. Middle School, High School

Purpose: fire up kids about science, let kids see models of adults who love intellectual inquiry and experimentation. Study muscles, the scientific method.

Here’s an article listing ten great ted talks about animals.I have not reviewed these.  But if you’re searching for science ted talks, this might be a good start. http://www.bestuniversities.com/blog/2010/20-unbelievable-ted-talks-about-animals/

Thanks, Oprah! (And Expert Librarians)

Rah, Rah, Radishes is on Oprah’s Kids’ Reading List 2012, ages 4-7! What I love is that Oprah.com had serious children’s book experts, folks at ALA-CBC, ALSC choose the 25 books on this list. So the whole list is chock full of good stuff, including one of my favorites, Actual Size, by Steve Jenkins. (Jenkins writes great books and illustrated Vulture View. He’s illustrating my book Eat Like a Bear, which comes out Fall 2013. Yippee!)

 

Upcoming Appearances

Just returned from co-presenting “Read Aloud Wow” with Isabel Baker at NAEYC’s national leadership conference. This Sat, June 23rd, I’ll be signing at the South Bend Farmer’s Market 9am-12. Here’s where I’ll be presenting at conferences the next few months:

June 21st, 2012 ALL WRITE CONFERENCE, Warsaw, IN   3 breakouts

Sept 22, 2012  ALSC NATIONAL INSTITUTE, Indianapolis, IN , Closing General Session

Sept 23, 2012 INDIANA STATE READING Conf, Indianapolis, IN Keynote

Oct 4-6, 2012 YOUTH LITERATURE FESTIVAL, Bloomington, IL school visits and Sat festival talks

Nov 7-10, 2012, NAEYC NATIONAL CONFERENCE, Atlanta, GA, speaking at main author session, just before keynoter Mem Fox

Those Mysterious Fruit on the Tree

I received this inquiry regarding my new book, GO, GO, GRAPES: A Fruit Chant:

Dear Ms. Sayre,
Would you kindly tell me what kind of fruit is pictured on the page that reads: “treats from trees and from the land”?
My son keeps asking me and I don’t know the answer. We think they look a bit like pears but I don’t think pears grow in threes that way. ..
 Thank you,
Julie

Julie and son, you are right. Those three are pears. I checked with the orchard owner but he’s not sure exactly what variety they are. I agree they are unusual in shape!

Go, Go, Grapes: a Fruit Chant released

Go, Go, Grapes: a Fruit Chant, my new book, was released by Beach Lane Books, a division of Simon & Schuster today. Please join me in eating some fruit to salute designer Lauren Rille for her joyful design of this new book! It is available on paper and also in a digital form.