SkyMall enabled air travelers to leaf through the pages of a retail fantasy. From curious kitchen tools to ghastly lawn ornaments, it offered everything we could ever imagine or not need. Fly our friendly skies as we remember the legendary in-flight publication and write poetry.
Search Results for: reading
Life Notes: Superbuns!
What happens when Callie Feyen goes shopping for bras? With a five-year-old? Only one word for it: Superbuns!
Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks: The Golden Shovel Anthology
“The Golden Shovel Anthology” has been published by the University of Arkansas Press to honor poet Gwendolyn Brooks, with a new poetic form.
Learn to Read! — Beautiful Art for a Predictable Sentence Chart
You can teach children to read and write important high-frequency words by creating “predictable sentence” charts that are personalized for them and their friends. We’re helping you add beautiful art!
Eating and Drinking Poems: Stephen Murabito’s “Alone with the Artichokes”
For poet Stephen Murabito, artichokes are a food of regret. Laura Brown prepares them a little differently, with Murabito’s poem “Alone with Artichokes.”
Committing Prufrock: Taking a Stand Against Forgetfulness
Sandra Heska King concludes her Committing Prufrock poetry dare with the completion of memorization of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
Spending Take Your Poet to Work Day In and Out of Pocket
We celebrated our 5th annual Take Your Poet to Work Day this week. Check out all the fun places our favorite poets hung out!
Literacy Never Melts: ‘The Snowy Day’ by Ezra Jack Keats
Come explore how literacy can start with a snowball and why The Snowy Day has been in print for 55 years with Megan Willome as your guide.
Poetry on the Brain: It’s Take Your Poet to Work Day!
It’s Take Your Poet to Work Day! Not surprisingly, we’ve got poetry on the brain today.
The Poem as Modern Myth: “Evangeline” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Evangeline” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow resurrected an almost forgotten event in Canadian and American history and helped shaped a regional people.
Life Notes: Dragon Scales to Go, to Stay
Remember what it was like to be a harried mom in the shoe store? (Or was that just yesterday?) In this Life Notes edition, L.L. Barkat recalls all too well — with dragon scales as part of the deal.
Our Best-Known Patriotic Poem: Longfellow Visits a Church
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow climbed the stairs of the Old North Church tower in Boston in April, 1860; the result was America’s best-known patriotic poem.
Writing Workshop: Words You Can Taste!
In this delicious food-writing workshop, you’ll have a chance to look at popular favorites (potatoes, bread, cakes, anyone?) and a rainbow of foods you may or may not have ever developed a love for (eggplant, olives, sugar-coated rose petals?). Come write words you can taste!
The Wild 100 Summer Book Challenge
What do you think is beautiful? What is wild about the color yellow? Join Callie Feyen and her kids in a summer challenge to read 100 books and find out.
The Grandfather Stories: Goldilocks and the Three Brothers
Reading to our grandsons has taught us that the “social time” of reading is just as important as the reading itself — reading tells them they matter.
“The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens” by Paul Mariani
In “The Whole Harmonium,” biographer and poet Paul Mariani tells the story of Wallace Stevens, poet, philosopher, insurance executive, and family man.
Life Notes: The Secret to a Happy Marriage Is Not What I Thought It Was
The secret to a happy marriage might have something to do with cartwheels. Or not. Find out the real deal in this humorous Life Notes, from Megan Willome.
Literacy Extras
High-Frequency Words The Top 10 Words in English The Top 100 Words in English Teaching Methods 4 Reasons Your Child Needs Building Toys for Language and Creativity Development 10 Surprising Ways to Help a Child Learn to Read Building Minds: Block Play as a Writing, Thinking, and Math Tool Emotional Literacy in the Preschool Classroom […]
The Top 10 Words in English
Did you know that just 10 words account for almost a quarter of all the words we regularly read and write in English? Of course, then, a beginning reader should have these high-frequency words at his or her fingertips. 3 ideas for teaching the top 10 words in English 1. Make a poster with the […]
The Top 100 Words in English
One of the most wonderful gifts you can give a beginning reader is the gift of his or her first 100 words. Anyone who can read and write the top 100 words in English has really made strides, because these 100 most common words comprise almost half of all the words we regularly read and […]