Sharing Story with Paula Vaughan

1. 30
   May
   

   Losing Leo Dillon …

   NEW YORK (AP) — Leo Dillon, the groundbreaking illustrator who became the first African-American to win the Caldecott Medal for children’s books, has died in New York at 79.

   Publisher Scholastic Inc. announced Wednesday that Dillon died May 26 at Long Island College Hospital from complications after lung surgery.

   Dillon and his wife and fellow illustrator, Diane Dillon, collaborated on a wide range of children’s projects that helped introduce kids of all races to stories of black people worldwide. They won the Caldecott for best illustration in 1976 for “Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears: A West African Folktale.” They won a Caldecott the following year for “Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions.”

   http://omg.yahoo.com/news/childrens-book-illustrator-leo-dillon-dead-79-193615386.html

   I have always been a fan of Leo and Dianne Dillon’s collaborations. Their artwork is so stunning and evocative. My well wishes to his family, and most of all, his wife.

   • Children's Picture Books
2. 28
   May
   

   Considering Our Humanity - New Curricula Release!

   New Curricula Release for Gifted Learners!

   Considering Our Humanity is an interdisciplinary, humanities-based curriculum devoted to supporting the burgeoning self-awareness and cultural understanding of gifted elementary and middle school students.

   Considering Our Humanity focuses on feelings, experiences, and ideas communicating the understanding that the individual is part of a larger, global community and also, a unique being deserving love and respect. In this way, Considering Our Humanity teaches students to love themselves while expanding this tenderness and care outward. 

   Considering Our Humanity opens dialogue about philosophical ideas relating to age, identity, ethnicity, compassion, kindness, and altruism while also exploring literary terminology and meaning concerning metaphor, symbolism, and poetry. In this way, Considering Our Humanity blends the disciplines of cultural anthropology, philosophy, religion, mythology, and folklore through the use of extraordinary children’s picture books specifically chosen for their exceptional communication of the human condition. These books include a range of cultures, ages, and both genders so that students are exposed to a variety of views and circumstances. 

   Created for gifted learners, Considering Our Humanity is designed to be shared with individual students or within small classroom settings where open discussion is honored and students’ opinions are shared and regarded respectfully. Considering Our Humanity involves a blend of discussion, classroom activities, and independent explorations so that the learning styles and individual needs of gifted students are met. Considering Our Humanity has been developed with the intention that parents, teachers, and students adapt the curricula to meet students’ specific interests and individual skill sets.

   Considering Our Humanity includes the following with each of the extraordinary children’s picture books being investigated:

   • a paragraph summary of the story
   • a brief overview of the concepts being explored through the story
   • a list of words to define and discuss related to the concepts within the story
   • a list of discussion questions 
   • a list of classroom activity suggestions and ideas for how to engage them
   • a selection of related internet links
   • an independent student activity
   • 45 pages, PDF downloadable format

   Available exclusively through CurrClick.com for $9.99!

   • curricula
   • Gifted
   • gifted children
   • giftedness
3. 3
   28
   May
   
   

   “What is life?
   It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
   It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
   It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”

   — Crowfoot (Isapo-Muxika)

   (Source: alphahelicalhair)

   • native american
   • poetry
   • quote
   • Indigenous Peoples
4. 1
   24
   May
   
   

   From Yahoo News - The New York Times published the adorable back story about the photo—which has been hanging in the West Wing of the White House for more than three years—on Thursday, and it’s quickly become the most-emailed article on the Times’ website.

   In May 2009, the child, Jacob Philadelphia, was visiting the White House with his father, a former Marine who was leaving his 2-year stint working for the National Security Council as part of the White House staff. The father asked to take a family photo with the president. Jacob said he had a question for Obama, who was then in his fifth month in office.

   The Times recounts the rest:

   “I want to know if my hair is just like yours,” he told Mr. Obama, so quietly that the president asked him to speak again.

   Jacob did, and Mr. Obama replied, “Why don’t you touch it and see for yourself?” He lowered his head, level with Jacob, who hesitated.

   “Touch it, dude!” Mr. Obama said.

   As Jacob patted the presidential crown, … [White House photographer Pete] Souza snapped.

   “So, what do you think?” Mr. Obama asked.

   “Yes, it does feel the same,” Jacob said.

   As the paper noted, President Obama has largely avoided discussing race during his first term. But the photo “is tangible evidence” that the president “remains a potent symbol for blacks, with a deep reservoir of support.”

   “As a photographer, you know when you have a unique moment,” Souza told the paper. “But I didn’t realize the extent to which this one would take on a life of its own. That one became an instant favorite of the staff. I think people are struck by the fact that the president of the United States was willing to bend down and let a little boy feel his head.”

   BEAUTIFUL. 

   • beauty
5. 22
   May
   

   Summer is a Child’s Time to Dream About the Extraordinary

   Summer means dreams to me - dreams about extraordinary subjects like fairies, mermaids, and Bigfoot. I’ve had a wonderful time teaching summer, gifted homeschooling courses to students about these subjects, challenging their beautiful minds by asking questions about habitat sustainability, sharing folklore that is embraced by cultures as fact, and stirring curiosity about the endless possibilities that we cannot see, but feel.

   Sharing Your Thoughts About the Extraordinary is my emergent writing curriculum based on these teaching experiences. This curricula is ideal for summer writing practice because it’s fun and engages gifted minds in a way that helps them grow. In honor of summer approaching, Sharing Your Thoughts About the Extraordinary is available for $5.99 until September 30. Please enjoy this discount and share it with others.

   

   $5.99 Discount Link -

   http://www.currclick.com/index.php?discount=98252

   Wishing everyone a lovely summer season!
   • curricula
6. 22
   May
   

   What Makes the Perfect Children’s Picture Book?

   What makes an exceptional, extraordinary children’s picture book? The perfect marriage of art and story that transcends age and demonstrates respect and care for the craft and audience. When we read a wonderful children’s picture book, we are as entertained and enthralled as our child. We are treated to lovely memories, engaged in new adventures, or inspired to explore more possibilities with our families. A fantastic children’s picture book is unmistakable in the way it makes us feel and the joy it gives our children.

   My passion and respect for children’s picture book authors and illustrators are tremendous. I pour over each book my daughter and I read cover-to-cover, inspecting both front and back jackets, inside flaps - every square inch of information and image I can savor. Over time, I have collected names of authors, illustrators, and teams of both I really love and find exceptional in their fields. The one quality that all of these creative people share is their work is true art - ageless, without bounds, heart inspiring, and soul attending. These works have inspired my Sharing Story curricula series.

   Children’s picture books offer a wonderful introduction to many subjects and topics for children in elementary grades. Children’s picture books provide both direct and subtle guidance, reaching students through image and text, opening doorways into new thinking. Through children’s picture books, unfamiliar material is processed and understood at levels naturally age-appropriate and personally accessible to each child. Using children’s picture books, educators and parents are able to provide enjoyable, creativity-provoking ideas that inspire children to use their beautiful, brilliant imaginations.

   Children’s picture books within Sharing Story curricula are chosen based on these features applicable to content. These extraordinary features are also helpful when including materials for your own home library.

   • beauty — transcendent, numinous, memorable art that arrests the observer 
   • depth — story and illustrations invoke a gamut of emotions 
   • guidance — respectful, compassionate, non-didactic, non-punitive instruction 
   • originality — ideas and images trample the average and mundane 
   • universality — shared experiences invoke empathy and cultural awareness 
   • joy — plot and characters elicit feelings of jubilance and delight

   
   

   Children’s picture books are a glorious way to introduce literature and art to children while providing a sweet, simple, and gentle way to share ideas and time together. 

   
   

   (Source: sharingstory.com)

   • children's picture books
   • curricula
7. 2
   22
   May
   
   Bigfoot & Yeti DNA Study Gets Serious

   “A new university-backed project aims to investigate cryptic species such as the yeti whose existence is unproven, through genetic testing.

   Researchers from Oxford University and the Lausanne Museum of Zoology are asking anyone with a collection of cryptozoological material to submit descriptions of it. The researchers will then ask for hair and other samples for genetic identification.

   “I’m challenging and inviting the cryptozoologists to come up with the evidence instead of complaining that science is rejecting what they have to say,” said geneticist Bryan Sykes of the University of Oxford…”

   Fantastic read! Very hopeful, exciting, and brilliant way to investigate the current cryptozoological evidence.  I’m looking forward to learning what may come of this study. Fun!

8. 4
   22
   May
   
   

   “When you run into barriers, first of all look inside yourself to see if there is something you can do. Then move beyond that. Let it be their problem. Of course that problem is going to influence you and it’s not necessarily going to be easy. We all want folks to believe in us. It’s difficult as a student if a professor doesn’t believe in you and I think we all face that difficulty, whether we’re minority students or women students or white males.

   That’s where it’s so important to be inside of yourself. It’s nice to have kudos and appreciation, but unless you can look inside yourself and appreciate yourself when people start to take those rewards from you, you won’t be able to move on.

   […]

   My point of view is, if I want to do something, I’m going to do it. I may have to figure out a way around it or through it. That’s also where flexibility comes into play. Maybe I can’t achieve something right now, but I still keep it in mind and I’m going to get it later.

   I haven’t really dwelled on things much because to hang around back there with that disappointment is to carry it forward with you everyday. It’s not that you forget the lessons, but to hang out with them and bring them up at a moment’s notice takes away some of the enjoyment of your present time as well as what you look forward to in the future. Don’t wallow in [the past], but don’t forget it. You see patterns, you see things that happened and you put them in your tool kit.”

   — Mae Jemison, M.D.

   (Source: graduatingengineer.com, via alphahelicalhair)

   • quote
9. 424
   18
   May
   
   

   honeyforthehomeless:

   Charles Bukowski

   • quote
10. 18
    May
    
    

    Master of Humanities, with distinction (4.0 GPA)! All done! Time for life to begin, again!