Nobody's Princess by Esther Friesner

Esther Friesner imagines the childhood of Helen of Troy.  Helen of Sparta is being trained to be a princess and a bride, but she prefers to learn how to fight and have adventures.

I would recommend this book for girls fifth grade and above.  Our sixth graders learn about ancient cultures and this book would fit perfectly in that unit.



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Quote of the Week--July 16, 2017

"Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them.  If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear."

~Judy Blume

This was my philosophy as my stepdaughter was growing up.  I committed to reading whatever she was interested and talking with her about it.  There aren't many topics we haven't discussed over the years.

Have a good week,

Free Summer Writing Prompt: At the Beach

Five years ago, some unusual debris from a Japanese tsunami washed up on Washington and Oregon coasts.  This prompted my original writing prompt post here.

This year I have been updating many of my writing prompts to make them printable graphic organizers.  "At the Beach" should be a realistic account of what might find at the beach that is unusual. 

To download the "At the Beach" writing prompt, please click here.

Quote of the Week--July 9, 2017

"Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win."
~Jonathan Kozol

Have a good week,

Kahoot's Customer Service is Fabulous

This is a completely unsolicited testimonial of my experience using Kahoot in my classroom this year.  I do occasionally write posts for products when people ask me to, but only for something I have actually tried in my classroom. My opinion is always my own.

My students love to play Kahoot.  

I started having them create math quizzes for each other at the end of a unit.  They were hooked.

Tech sites are great when they work, but not all of them are very responsive when something goes wrong.  I am happy to report that Kahoot got back to me every single time with a helpful suggestion.

My students are on 1:1 Chromebooks.  We log into Google for everything.  The problem started when they changed or forgot their passwords and tried to log in again.

The password reset process is an email sent to the account holder's email.  They problem is our district will not let students receive email from anyone outside our district.  (This is a good policy in general, it just made it a challenge to complete this particular project.)

After several emails back and forth to Kahoot, they gave me a work-around that allowed me to control password changes.  I was very impressed with their helpfulness and wanted to give them a shout out.

Now I love Kahoot!

Quote of the Week--July 2, 2017

"Suffer the pain of discipline, or suffer the pain of regret."

~Jim Rohn

(One of my students had this on a tee-shirt and I had to look up the quote.)

Have a good week,

The Vine Basket by Josanne La Valley

In The Vine Basket by Josanne La Valley, fourteen-year-old Mehrigul has dreams.  She wants to continue to go to school, but her family needs her to sell in the market.  There she meets a woman who admires a vine basket Mehrigul made.  She offers to buy more if Mehrigul will make them.

Mehrigul's mother is depressed and her father discourages her from creating these baskets.  Mehrigul perseveres, because she knows she will be sent away to work in a Chinese factory.





For an explanation of my rating scale, click here.
Find me at Goodreads.