Let's Celebrate Reading and Writing!

It's time to CELEBRATE This Week with Ruth Ayres from Discover. Play. Build.  Every week Ruth invites us to share our celebrations from the week and link up at her blog. What a fun way to reflect on everything there is to be thankful for. 

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This week I'm celebrating !

*throws confetti*

I've been in such a funk lately when it comes to writing and setting up blog posts even! But I'm here this week. That's almost cause enough for celebration!

I actually do have something to celebrate! I led a series of book discussions on Ruth's book Celebrating Writers. It was so fun to share this with colleagues in my new district and really connect with people over talking about writing. I heard from teachers that there was more self-reflection than they anticipated but I think that's exactly where we need to start when we're looking at writing instruction. Writing is such an act of the heart and I believe wholeheartedly that teachers need to understand the myriad of emotions that come with living the life of a writer. We even got to Skype with Ruth and it was awesome to have her there in loving color to share her stories. I even created a Celebrating Writers in District 75 Google Site to document our journey reading and celebrating together. (I'm honestly not a super fan of Google Sites and it's been a learning curve for me...but I'm definitely getting more and more comfortable with the platform.)

My plans for World Read Aloud Day are also in full swing! I'm such a fan of World Read Aloud Day and you can see how we've celebrated in 2011, 2012, 2012 again, 2013, 2013 again, and 2014! It's always one of my favorite celebrations of the year. Now I get to celebrate with classrooms in my new district! We have teachers from kindergarten through eighth grade who were interested in Skyping with an author of illustrator and I thrilled. 

I've been helping to coordinate dates and times for all the Skypes and we are so lucky to have over fifteen authors and illustrators who will be connecting with over twenty classrooms across our district. We're starting our celebration early with come classrooms connecting on Monday, February 22nd and then others joining in on Tuesday and Wednesday. And look, I even made a WRAD in District 75 Google Site! ;) So fun!

Of course, I always have to celebrate with my own kids at home but I haven't decided which book we'll be celebrating yet! Both Snappsy the Alligator (Did Not Ask To Be In This Book) by Julie Falatko and Pink is for Blobfish by Jess Keating are waiting for me at my local Indie so I may have to plan a party around one of them! Do you have either or both yet? I'm so excited for these books!!!

What are you celebrating this week?