Fruit Pizza

I hosted a small dinner party last week (just me, Marci, McKell, and Lexi). For dessert I made this fruit pizza. It was really yummy and I think it looks pretty. After taking this picture, I added the pineapple glaze. So good!!!!

Mice and John Lennon

Today I finished reading a darling book on my kindle; Bless This Mouse by Lois Lowry. It's a story about a group of church mice who have to avoid the Great X (exterminator) and manage to get back to the church in time for the blessing of the animals. A cute story with beautiful illustrations!

I also want to mention a painting I found in one of the art galleries in the Grand Canal Shoppes. It's a painting of John Lennon by Stephen Holland. The picture above doesn't do it justice. It's simply amazing in its detail and use of color. I kind of fell in love with it. If only I were rich enough to buy expensive artwork!

Writing Process +2 (What I Learned in Vegas)

I'm at a teaching conference in Las Vegas and they're talking about blogs, wikis, and twitter. I realized that it's been a year since I last posted on this blog. Yikes!

I learned something cool that I plan on using next year. Usually, when you teach the writing process, the steps are: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, publishing. One of the presenters I had this morning suggested adding two steps. The first is to add "talking" after prewriting. Students are to tell their story, essay, whatever to a partner, referring only to their graphic organizer or prewriting. The partner can then ask questions and help the writer add details to their prewriting. This also helps the student to consider organization, etc. The other step in the process is "Referencing and Re-reading." This happens during the drafting phase. Students re-read what they've written, and reference their graphic organizers and rubrics. These are two simple ideas that I think are brilliant and I'm excited to try them out.