I have to confess that I thought St. Patrick’s Day was about pots of gold, leprechauns and four leaf clovers. I suppose if I thought hard about it, I would have guessed that St. Patrick was a Catholic saint. So, in a fit of curiosity and because I recently subscribed to a blog, Celebrating Holidays,…
Month: March 2014
How Pi Tells Stories: Happy Pi Day!
Happy Pi Day! To celebrate, we are going to explore the idea of Pi and storytelling. Can the infinite sequence of the number Pi tell a story? Am I nuts to even think this? pi pī noun: the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet ( Π, π ), transliterated as ‘p.’ symbol: the numerical value of pi. pi =3.14159265359……
How to Teach 3rd Grade Boys to Program in Scratch
Scratch is a free programming language and online community where you can create your own interactive stories, games, and animations. It’s created by MIT. I had heard of it years ago from the founder of the company who created my first PragmaticMom blog template. His young son was using it to create games. My son was…
10 Multicultural Picture Books to Sing from Jbrary
I am delighted to have Lindsey and Dana, the two Children’s Librarians behind Jbrary, guest posting today!! They have a wonderful YouTube channel that is all about storytime songs, and today they have a list of picture books you can sing before, during, or after reading! Not only is singing fun, but it is one of…
Skype Author Visit with Jarrett Krosoczka and GIVEAWAY
What’s a school author visit via Skype like? I just experienced two successful ones so I thought I’d share my experience in the hopes that you will be able to get authors to your kids’ school too! Skype is really very easy and kids are surprisingly unperturbed when there are minor technical issues which can…
2014 Asian American Children’s Book Awards & Kid Lit Blog Hop
Have you heard of the APALA children’s book awards? Of course not. I blogged for three years on children’s books seeking out the best Asian American KidLit and I didn’t know about it. That’s a shame because Asian American children’s books are slowly coming into their own, well on the heels perhaps of the Asian…
My Son’s First Fencing Lesson
My son and his third grade buddies have been taking tennis lessons since school started. Now that it’s too cold to play outdoors, they decided to switch to fencing. There is something about little boys and swordplay — my son has been wielding a stick as a sword since he was old enough to toddle….