Quick Six on Saturday

It has been an overwhelming week. Like all of you I am trying to balance it all and I thought I would turn a 4 on Friday into a quick six on Saturday. Quick because it is late Saturday evening and I think I might actually have time to read for pleasure while the kids are in bed and my husband it out of town for the night.

1. This weekend is Educator's Weekend at Border's and I stopped by to get a 25% discount on some buys. I picked up a new and possible "Halloween" book recommended by Franki called I'm Looking for a Monster by Timothy Young. It is a pop up book about a boy in search of a monster to play with him and his other monster friends. It is a short book with little text on each page and it is just plain fun.


2. I also purchased 2 new books for my "cat and dog books" basket. I find that first graders (especially ones with pets ) love this basket. Just this week I had a little girl explore this basket in the morning and she found 2 new books she added to her books bin. Off the top of my head, some of the dog books include titles like...Unloveable, Bad Dog Marley, Harry the Dirty Dog, I love dogs, Bark George and a bunch more. Cat books include...I love cats, My cat copies me, The Cat Barked, Ginger and others I can't remember. Anyhow, I purchased two new books for this basket. The first is Be Gentle with the Dog,Dear! by Matthew J.Baek. Tag , the dog, is a gentle lap dog. He is loved by his family, especially little Elisa who squeezes him, pulls his tail and even tackles him. Tag begins to feel miserable about all this love and his owners intervene when baby Elisa is too rough. The book ends with Elisa and Tag learning to play and love each other. Elisa so sweetly falls asleep with Tag on the floor until she opens an eye and begins to notice the cat. The story is sweet and again very little print on each page with a mix of a few picture reading pages. It is perfect for first grade.
Boris and the Snoozebox by Leigh Hodgkinson is the other book I purchased. It is about a cat who decides a cardboard box is the perfect place for a nap until he is accidentally shipped in the mail to many unexpected recipients. As Boris begin to nap in the box..."suddenly stamp stamp scribble scribble...this box seems to be slightly less dull. Boris in-the-box blinks, baffled in the dark." He ends up with Grandma Flapjack who has always wanted a cat. The author/ illustrator plays with font, language and I love the mix of real photography with her art.

3. Remember how I was complaining about just passing my husband by last week? Well, I surprised him by asking a friend (thanks Lauren) to watch the boys on Friday night (hence no 4 on Friday). We had dinner and then looked at each other with exhaustion and started laughing about how we were ready to go home. We made ourselves stay out longer. I dragged him to the teacher store (how romantic) because I was in serious need of post it tape. We also picked out some wire shelving for one of our closets at Home Depot. We left at 5:30 and were home by 8:00. I have to say we were both pretty happy to have had time to ourselves and still be home on a Friday evening after working all week.

4. We are preparing for our "Family Night" this Wednesday where parents , brothers, sisters and students will be celebrating our first published pieces from Writing Workshop. One of my writers said on Friday, "Can we have two writing workshops a day Mrs. DiCesare?"

5. I finally finished Breaking Dawn (the Twilight series) today after saving 50 pages because I didn't want the book to end. I was happy with all four books. I have my favorite and least favorites but that is for another post. I can't wait for the movie this fall!

6. This was so not a quick six...I'm off to read.