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According to the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development “Character education involves teaching children about basic human values including honesty, kindness, generosity, courage, freedom, equality, and respect.”

Sharron McElmeel is a leading expert in this field and she’s done just about everything including publishing a 220-page book called Character Education: A Book Guide for Teachers, Librarians and Parents.

As part of a discussion on character education and her other projects, Sharron McElmeel answers questions that help reveal some of her powerful advice which includes make your house a “book house”, include a book on every gift-giving occasion and we must all move out of our classrooms and living rooms to spread the joy of reading everywhere we can.

Links to Ms. McElmeel’s resources and books mentioned:

• Sharron McElmeel’s website
• McBookWords - a resource for schools, educators and librarians
• McBookWords blog
• Character Education: A Book Guide for Teachers, Librarians and Parents
• Authors in the Kitchen: Recipes, Stories and More
• Authors in the Pantry: Recipes, Stories and More

Children’s books mentioned:

• Where the Wild Things Are
• A Snowy Day
• Virginia Lee Burton books including Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel
• Value Tales Series
• Pink and Say
• Nail Soup
• Stone Soup
• The Gingerbread Boy
• A Ghost, a Witch and a Goblin

Photo: http://mcbookwords.blogspot.com/

The finish line is in sight. Two more days.

We finished GOONEY BIRD GREENE today. She's no Clementine, but the kids did love trying to figure out what was absolutely true about her stories. I might read her first in the fall next year and start with story telling as our first unit of study in writing workshop. But I'll wait to see what the new District Language Arts Binder has in store for me before I set that in stone.

The reading assessments and math fact assessments are done and scored. The spelling assessments will be done tomorrow. Report cards will be done tonight before I sleep and printed tomorrow morning. Awards are ready for tomorrow's assembly. Six iMovies of our two years together as a looping class are done (not without near disaster and an unwanted learning experience) and about 1/3 of the 25 dvds are burned. The end of loop party is planned and ready for Wednesday. Students took home everything but their supply boxes today.

Mom's 80th birthday party is on rails -- some supplies have been mailed out to her, rental chairs are ordered, cakes will be ordered later this week, the soundtrack needs just one more tweaking and it will be perfect.

Yesterday we planted the rose bush that Bess' doggie play date buddy, Bender, sent in memory of her short but joyous life.

I beg to differ with T.S. Eliot that "April is the cruelest month." This year, May was. We couldn't flip the calendar pages over to June fast enough. As if to distance itself from May in every way, June has cooled down, substantial rains have come to break the drought, and, not to repeat myself, but...

The finish line is in sight. Two more days.