There’s a great blog tour going on this week about My Dad is the Best Playground by Luciana Navarro-Powell (Random House Kids, 2012). If you’ve not seen the previous stops on the tour, take a minute to click back…and then follow the rest of the tour throughout the week. 6/10: Watch. Connect. Read 6/10: SharpRead 6/11: Home with the Boys 6/12: Nerdy Book Club 6/13: Ruth Ayres Writes 6/14: Book Faerie 6/15: Random Acts of Reading 6/16: BookingMama.com One of the ways I can see using this book in writing workshop is to spark a discussion about tone. Take a moment… Read more blog tour + giveaway: MY DAD IS THE BEST PLAYGROUND →
“If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live” — Lin Yutang I strive for this on summer days. I wake up early, attempting to get my 1000 words in before all of the kids are up. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Often our days don’t have anything specific on the agenda. This is especially true here in the early days of summer because I have a couple days each week for the month of June committed to school.… Read more lazy summer days? (soLs) →
Today’s #TeachersWrite quick write challenge is to put a character in the media center of a school. I love quick writes, because there is always something lurking just beyond the… Read more discovering a new character →
I’ve been thinking about {Discover. Play. Build.} and the way it’ll work for the summer. I’m participating in Kate Messner’s #TeachersWrite challenge. It is a great challenge and one that… Read more {discover. play. build.} changes for summer →
The final part of today’s #TeachersWrite challenge is a paragraph filled with tiny details of a place. My place (actually a character’s place) is reading under a tree. A photo… Read more place quick write (#teacherswrite) →
Last night we had some of our new friends over for a Hoosier night. Andy and I made a traditional Hoosier meal — breaded tenderloins, burgers on the grill, oven… Read more little world; big hole (soLs) →
I’m glad you liked my list on Tuesday. Several people commented on the graphic nature of it. I love to make things look cool. This is true in my notebooks too. I’m always looking for the opportunity to make things look more appealing. It’s a big part of my creative process in many aspects of my life (presenting, blogging, cooking, scrapbooking, writing). Many of you wondered how I did it. Thank you for the compliment and for asking. Usually I use Photoshop Elements 9.0. I’ve been using PSE for, oh…I… Read more the secret →
I was on my way to a meeting this morning when I pulled up to a stoplight behind a shiny black corvette. Around the license plate was a sign declaring: Mamaw’s Hot Rod I was dying to get a glimpse of the driver, but the windows were tinted and the car was fast. Still, it made me think of writing and character development. I wondered about the character that is beginning to take root in my notebook (and maybe in my heart too). Would her grandma drive a hot rod?… Read more hot rod grandma →
I saw a lot of lists around the slice community today. Since it feels like a listy-kind-of-Tuesday, here’s mine. Join us at Two Writing Teachers toread other slices. Just click… Read more a little list (soLs) →
Ruth Ayres Writes 