A New Year

Posted on December 31, 2021 by Jennie

As the sun sets on 2021,

May we have
Hope, Health, and Happiness
in the New Year

Happy New Year!

Jennie

Posted in Expressing words and feelings, Inspiration, wonder | Tagged , , , , | 110 Comments

Goodness

Posted on December 29, 2021 by Jennie

Frank at Frank @ Beach Walk Reflections recently wrote a post about Good.  You can read it here: https://beachwalkreflections.wordpress.com/2021/12/29/101-time/.  It’s important, and it made me think.  Frank’s posts always make me think.  I immediately replied, “Goodness is the root of humanity”, and this has been on my mind.

Goodness and good are slightly different.  Goodness is the ‘state of being good’.

Doing something good is where it starts, goodness is when it sticks.  Bingo!

Is goodness the root of humanity?  You bet!  It takes many good deeds to create goodness.  As a teacher, I do good things.  Every teacher does good things, yet s/he should aspire to make those good things stick – give children goodness.

I do that – especially by reading aloud.

When you read aloud to a child you are educating their heart, giving them the seeds of goodness.  After all, it takes far more than knowledge to become a good citizen.  The givers and the doers, the mothers and fathers, teachers and leaders and workers all have a commonality.  That begins with words, language, and stories.  Good books impart everything from discovering the world, to the subtleties of making choices and decisions, with words woven carefully through characters.  The point is, hearing a multitude of different stories is building one’s self.  Books and stories show you the way.

Perhaps John Phillips, founder and benefactor of the renowned school Phillips Exeter Academy, said it best of all more than two centuries ago:

“Goodness without knowledge is weak and feeble, yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous, and both united form the noblest character and lay the surest foundation of usefulness to mankind.”

Educate the mind and also the heart.  Read aloud.  Make a difference.  Grow a reader, and you grow goodness.

Jennie

Posted in Early Education, Expressing words and feelings, Inspiration, reading aloud, teaching | Tagged , , , , | 45 Comments

Fire and Ice

Posted on December 26, 2021 by Jennie

Ice storm on Christmas Day


It lasted…and lasted.

The only thing to do was start a fire.

Fire and Ice, Football, and Leftovers.
Life is Good.

Jennie

Posted in Expressing words and feelings, Inspiration, Mother Nature, Nature, wonder | Tagged , , | 65 Comments

‘Tis the Season to Be Kind

Posted on December 24, 2021 by Jennie

This gallery contains 15 photos.

Originally posted on No Facilities:
My one-liner is inside the video below. That’s my favorite Christmas commercial, and has been on the air for the past 39 years in the Greater Pittsburgh area. Some people say it isn’t the Christmas…

More Galleries | 44 Comments

Giving – Dollar General, Kelly Clarkson, Dolly Parton, and Me

Posted on December 23, 2021 by Jennie

It is the season of giving.  I can’t tell you how much it meant for me to give to Read Aloud West Virginia.  This would not have happened if I hadn’t been a guest on the Kelly Clarkson Show.  Her mother was a teacher, and grew up in West Virginia.  We have a terrific connection.  Kelly is a genuine giver.

This newsletter from Read Aloud West Virginia tells the story of me, back home.  More importantly, it tells the story of Dollar General.  The co-founder was functionally illiterate.  It was his grandson who wanted to give to literacy in light of his grandfather, and founded the Dollar General Literacy Foundation.

This is just like Dolly Parton!  Her father could not read.  She has been instrumental in giving books to children and her Imagination Library.

Appalachian roots are strong, from West Virginia to Tennessee.  Giving is, too.  I’m glad I brought some of that along with me when I moved to New England.  Giving is everything.

Dollar General gives $50,000 in honor of longtime supporter Jennie Fitzkee

by
with no comment
DonorsNewsSupporters

By Amanda Schwartz

Photo courtesy of The Kelly Clarkson Show, NBCUniversal Syndication Studios
Jennie Fitzkee, center, is surprised by the announcement of Dollar General’s generous donation on The Kelly Clarkson Show.

When The Kelly Clarkson Show chose to celebrate preschool teacher Jennie Fitzkee ­­— a West Virginia native and longtime Read Aloud WV supporter ­—Read Aloud’s Executive Director Dawn Miller was asked to video call in to the filming as a surprise.

“Anything for Jennie Fitzkee!” she replied.

Miller was excited to be part of recognizing a dedicated supporter and local literacy champion, but had no idea there was a surprise in store. Both Fitzkee and Miller were shocked and deeply touched by Dollar General’s announcement of a $50,000 gift to Read Aloud in honor of Fitzkee and World Teacher Day.

Fitzkee became involved with Read Aloud in 2012 after the passing of her childhood friend, Read Aloud champion Candy Galyean. Fitzkee (born Jennie Lively Lytton) grew up with Galyean in Huntington, but moved to Groton, Mass., where she has been a preschool teacher for almost 40 years. When her sister sent Galyeans’s obituary in 2012, Fitzkee saw it suggested donations to Read Aloud West Virginia.

“I thought, ‘This has got to be someplace else!’” Fitzkee recalled. “I just can’t believe this! I never knew about this wonderful place.”

Fitzkee called and spoke with Read Aloud founder and then Executive Director Mary Kay Bond. They had much in common, including an inspiration, Jim Trelease, author of The Read Aloud Handbook, first published in 1979.

Eager to give back to her home state and support her friend’s legacy, Fitzkee began collecting books. She and her students and community gathered so many she and husband Steve Fitzkee rented a truck and drove them all the way from Groton, Mass. to Charleston.

After that momentous donation, Fitzkee has continued to support Read Aloud, nurtures readers through her blog “A Teacher’s Reflections,” and has contributed to this newsletter.

“This gift means so much to us,” said Executive Director Dawn Miller. “It is an acknowledgment of the lifelong value of our work to help children develop an intrinsic motivation to read, and it will help Read Aloud to stay strong and flexible, of course.

“But with this gift the Dollar General Literacy Foundation also recognizes the efforts of every volunteer, every teacher, every school coordinator, every principal, every donor ­­— every friend of Read Aloud who has contributed to the effort to help children discover joy in reading,” she said.

“On top of all that, we are touched and honored to still be part of remembering Candy Galyean, who even now plays such an important role in bringing us together in this cause.”

Over the past 28 years, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation has donated more than $203 million to provide funding and resources to support literacy advancement and has helped more than 14.8 million individuals learn to read. In both 2020 and 2021, they granted funds to Read Aloud to support shipments of self-chosen books to low-income children across the Mountain state, keeping them reading through the pandemic and beyond.

Dollar General’s co-founder, J.L. Turner, was functionally illiterate and never completed a formal education. In 1993, J.L.’s grandson, Cal Turner, Jr., founded the Dollar General Literacy Foundation to honor him and support others’ educational journeys.

Dollar General and the Dollar General Literacy Foundation’s $4.5 million investment to help students, teachers, and nonprofit organizations working to support and improve youth literacy across the country includes more than $3 million in youth literacy grants from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation and a new $1.45 million partnership with education nonprofit Donors Choose.

To watch the announcement and Fitzkee’s heartwarming reaction, click here.

Posted in books, children's books, Early Education, Giving, Inspiration, Jim Trelease, literacy, reading, reading aloud, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 88 Comments

Best Children’s Christmas Books – and a New One

Posted on December 21, 2021 by Jennie

Red and Lulu, by Matt Tavares is the story of two cardinals who live in a mighty evergreen tree.  They love their home, their tree.  Best of all, they love it when winter arrives and Christmas carolers sing close by.  Red leaves to get food, and when he returns, the tree is being cut down and hauled away.  He tells Lulu to stay, and he desperately follows the truck as it drives the tree away – but he can’t fly fast enough.  The tree becomes the tree at Rockefeller Center, and the story behind finding Lulu and what happens is fascinating.  It’s Christmas, nature, love, adventure, and never giving up.

This is a repost of my favorite Christmas books.  Every year they grow stronger, because children love them.  These are the books children and adults want to read over and over again.  That’s why they’re the best.  Please, go to the library if it is open.  Get some of these books and read them aloud to your children.  You will be hooked, too.

I want to share with you my favorite Christmas books.  I love books, and I love reading to children.  After a gazillion years, these are the ‘tried and true’, stories that children love. Me, too!

Grab tissues, laughter, and wonder, and some history.  Some books you will recognize. Others might seem new, but they’re not— they’re just better.

The first time I read The Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg was in 1985, when the book was published.  I was at a huge family Christmas gathering. Someone put the book in my hand and asked me to read it to the crowd.  This was a new book for me, and as I read the words I was on that train ride.  The ending was hard to read aloud with my heart in my throat. The movie is good, but the book is superior.

On Christmas Eve, by Peter Collington is a captivating wordless book, in the style of The Snowman by Raymond Briggs.  It is based in England, with fairies and Santa Claus traditions.  It is fascinating to follow the fairies helping Santa!

Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree, by Robert Barry is a delightfully predictable tale of a tree that is too tall.  Each time the top is snipped off, it goes to someone else who has the same problem, and so on.  The mouse gets the very last tree top.  The story is done in rhyme, always a delight to the ears of children.

Morris’s Disappearing Bag, by Rosemary Wells is the story of Morris, the youngest in the family, who is too little to play with his sibling’s gifts.  He discovers one last present under the tree, a disappearing bag.  I wonder if J.K. Rowling read this book- perhaps it was the inspiration to create Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak.

Carl’s Christmas, by Alexandra Day is one of the Carl book series.  It is beautifully done with full color illustrations.  Of course Carl is a dog who is often left to look after the baby.  That beginning alone is a story grabber.  Best of all, it is a wordless book, leaving much to speculate and talk about.

Santa Bruce, by Ryan T. Higgins is the newest book on this list.  Bruce is a grumpy old bear, and is again the victim of mistaken identity.  He is not the real Santa, yet all the animals are convinced that he is.  The book is absolutely hilarious.

If I had to pick only one out of the pile of books, it would be Apple Tree Christmas, by Trinka Hakes Noble.  The story takes place in New Hampshire in the 1800’s.  A blizzard, a farm, a tree, and a child who loves to draw.  It is thrilling from beginning to end… grab the tissues, it’s a true story.


My almost number one book is The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, by Gloria Houston.  The story takes place in rural Appalachia, close to my roots.  It is a story of rural traditions, WWI, a train, and what a mother does on Christmas Eve.  And, it’s a true story. Recommended for kindergarten and above.

Merry Christmas, Strega Nona, by Tomie dePaola is a favorite. Everyone loves Strega Nona and Big Anthony.  This book incorporates the culture of Italy and Christmas, and the lessons of life.

Night Tree, by Eve Bunting is a modern tale that tells the story of a family and their tree in the woods.  Every Christmas Eve the family bundles up and heads from their house to the woods.  They find “their tree”, the one they have decorated every year for the animals.  It is a well written story, weaving adventure and giving, and family being together.

Dr. Seuss has always been one of the best.  He outdid himself with How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  The message of the true meaning of Christmas shines through in this book.  Please skip the movie, it doesn’t hold a candle to the book.

Every adult should read these books.  Period.  They are that good.  Then, spread the joy and learning by reading aloud these books to children, young and old.  They will love the stories.  You will, too.

Merry Christmas!

Jennie

Posted in Book Review, books, children's books, Giving thanks, Inspiration, literacy, Nature, picture books, preschool, reading, young children | Tagged , , | 64 Comments

An Arcing Contrail Against a Full Moon

Posted on December 20, 2021 by Jennie

At school, December has been a month of learning about the planets, stars, and light.  We have watched a video of the Atlantis Space Shuttle launch in 1985, and hoped to see the new James Webb telescope launch into space.  Unfortunately that has been delayed.

Just when we were filled with knowledge about the sky, we looked up last Friday evening on the playground to see a perfect arc.  Perfect.  It started against the full moon and ended on the opposite side of the sky.  It was a contrail, but unlike any I have seen.

Children were ‘star struck’.  Nothing is better than the real deal, looking up into the sky.  What a fitting finale to our December unit of study.  Eyes on STEM at its best.

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” 
– Carl Sagan-

Jennie

Posted in Inspiration, Learning About the World, Nature, Quotes, Teaching young children, wonder | Tagged , , , | 48 Comments

Best Christmas Commercial – From Darlene Foster

Posted on December 19, 2021 by Jennie

Thank you to Darlene at Darlene Foster’s Blog  for sharing this wonderful Christmas Commercial!  Yes, I recommend having a tissue on hand.

Merry Christmas,

Jennie

Posted in Expressing words and feelings, Family, Giving, Giving thanks, Inspiration | Tagged , , , | 39 Comments

Best Christmas Commercial

Posted on December 19, 2021 by Jennie

Here is my all-time favorite Christmas Commercial.  I have watched this hundreds of times, and it fills me up – always.  I hope it brings you the same joy.  You might want to have a tissue handy for those happy tears.  Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

Jennie

Posted in Expressing words and feelings, Family, Giving, Inspiration, Love, music | Tagged , , , | 77 Comments

The Library – Reading and Book Bears – Part 2

Posted on December 18, 2021 by Jennie

In Part 1, I introduced how reading aloud at the last few minutes of Book Bears became a ‘thing’, something very popular with the children.  That year the book was “Summer of the Monkeys”.  A few minutes of reading aloud turned into ten and fifteen minutes, often more.  This has since become a mainstay.

A few years later, the book I read aloud after Book Bears was “Bob”.  Part 2 tells the story:

Book Bears is my library reading group.  These second and third graders read a book each month, and we have a discussion about the book.  We talk about everything.  Everything! Let me tell you, this group is terrific.  Everyone is different.  I sit back and watch as they talk and laugh.  The best part is that I’m included in the group.  Reading is a magnet.

In September, our first meeting of the year, everyone brings their favorite book they read over the summer.  Me, too.  I brought “Bob”, by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead.  Frankly, I think it’s the book of the year.  Fingers were crossed for a Newbery nomination.

I picked a random page to read aloud, and I watched the children as the words went into their ears.  Oh, those words were hitting their brains.  They were wide-eyed and silent. Finally one child asked, “So who is Bob?”

I had hit the trigger to the brain.  They had no idea the trigger to the heart would come later.

“Bob” is the story of a girl, Livy, who travels with her family to visit her grandmother in Australia.  The problem is, Livy is eleven years old, and the last time she visited her grandmother in Australia, she was five.  She doesn’t remember much, and when she finds Bob in the closet, she certainly doesn’t remember him.

He remembers her.  And the story unfolds.  The back of the book cover are Bob’s words.  While he was in the closet waiting for Livy.  It reads:

  1. Counted to 987,654,321.  Six times.
  2. Built a Lego pirate ship.  Sixty-three times.  In the dark.
  3. Played chess against a Lego pirate monkey and still lost most of the time.
  4. Tried to do the hokey pokey like Livy had taught me, but there’s not much room to turn oneself around in this narrow closet without hitting the walls.
  5. Cried.  But only once.
  6. Okay, twice.  Each day.  But only for the first year.
  7. Thought of all the reasons that might explain why Livy didn’t come back for me.

The chapters alternate between Bob and Livy, in their own voices.  Each one has a story to tell, and reasons for remembering and not remembering.  The story line is gripping and real, and the writing is so well done that putting the book down is nearly impossible.

I only read the books I really love to my Book Bears.  This one is a winner!

The Book Bears decided that at the end of each meeting they wanted me to read aloud “Bob.” And I did just that.  They know when it’s 4:30, time to finish and go home.  We decided together that at 4:25 I’d read “Bob.”  Five minutes.

Well, it didn’t worked out that way.  By 4:20 the clock watchers get ready and start to bang the table, chanting “Bob!  Bob!  Bob!…” in the best of ways.  That is the most genuine testament to a good book!  Of course I keep reading, and those five minutes turn into fifteen or twenty, all in what feels like an instant.

“Education is not filling a pail but the lighting of a fire.” -William Butler Yeats-

Jennie

Posted in Book Review, chapter reading, children's books, Diversity, Expressing words and feelings, Inspiration, literacy, reading aloud | Tagged , , , , | 41 Comments