I am truly honored to be joining my friend "Mr. Greg" in a day of professional development on the horizon. We are just about a month out from my joining the great traveling Smorgasboard of training.
Over the last several years I have had the great good fortune to make annual author visits to Greg's school(s). We have established a mutual admiration society for each other's work and approach to working with children.
These next several images are some of my favorite EV!ER! I have shared them previously and they have made their way into my power-point presentation and I shared them again this weekend, while speaking at FL-AEYC in Orlando.
If you follow Greg's blog, you're aware that he opened up his classroom quite a while ago -- and his students often can be found working on the floor and other less traditional manners.
Here you see his squad working on preparing their own AUTHENTIC ART responses to the graphic illustrations from my first picture book, "You're Wonderful." {If you look carefully at the top of the classroom rug, you can see my book.... being used as reference material.}
Here are six of the original responses.
Each unique.
Each special.
Each original.
Be still my heart.
There is still time to join us.
As I type, there is still space available.
Greg's first such day sold out!
Don't wait a whole lot longer.
WE WANT YOU TO JOIN US!
Find a friend and come together!!!
Take a peek at the outline of our day together.
I'm going to get things started in the morning.
My goal is to motivate and inspire.
I will be sharing ALL three of my picture books:
their songs, the sign language to support them
and encouragement to pursue your own AUTHENTIC responses.
Fifteen. Fifteen years. Fifteen anniversaries. Fifteen.
I know I remember the specific shade of blue of the sky on that Tuesday.
I know where I was.
I know what I was doing.
Our annual Artist-in-the-Schools open house was cancelled.
I know that you remember as well.
I know you remember connecting with loved ones the first time after you learned.
Every memory is etched into our collective memory.
Watching the news coverage.
Being unable to move away from the unfolding details. Disbelief. Shock. Horror.
I remember all too well the sense of helplessness I felt.
Picture from Clyde, OH. Thanks to Principal Peggy Stickney for this extra-ordinary welcome!
Friday of that week, fifteen years ago, I was leading worship for Tot Shabbat at the New Albany, JCC preschool in central Ohio.
I had a bag of flags.
I had the four year old children wave them,
while we stood together on the steps of the synagogue.
Everyone gathered sang:
'Red, White and Blue.... I love you.'
It took me a couple of years to flesh out a full arrangement of the simple phrase. With the help of Tom Martin's arrangement and my friends at Amerisound Studios, it became a full fledged song. The first time I heard our arrangement, was driving around the outerbelt of 270 in the midst of fireworks of the Fourth of July.
Fitting. Tears. Gratitude.
As soon as the song was recorded it could be performed without my participation. With the simplicity of the arrangement and the repetition -- even very young children can sing it and pay honor to this day.
Today and all of this coming week, I have put the digital download version of the song on the DEEPLY discounted, reduced price of one dollar.
My hope is that offers you sufficient incentive to go to TeachersPayTeachers for a copy for yourself. I hope that you can use it to honor this day. I hope that it offers you a new resource for your young children that can be used throughout the year to instill a sense of patriotic pride and for you to reflect on this day.
Once the song began to have a life of its own, I began to think about bringing it to life in picture book format. Soon I began gathering the fabrics and designing the quilts.
It takes 16 quilts to create a 32 page picture book.
It took years to bring the project to full fruition.
It was interrupted twice by my diagnosis with Breast Cancer.
In the end I was fortunate to persevere and bring the project to fruition.
Once we got the book into print format, I submitted it for consideration for awards and received the Indie Award for Excellence!
About that same time, as a result of my being able to take the book to NAEYC in California, I received an invitation to travel to Europe to visit a series of our Army bases in Germany and Italy.
I taught my simple patriotic song to the children of our troops stationed abroad.
And since then, I have been able to take the quilts and the book format to schools from coast to coast, teaching the song.
I have included some of the classroom responses below.
There are times when thoughtful teachers send me a memento of our time together.
I am so grateful to receive snail mail with quilted patriotism.
Just a reminder.
My digital download of the song will be on the deeply discounted price of one dollar
