Hey gals,
Today’s post is a kind of duke’s mixture, as my sweet mom would say. I’m combining my “Sentence a Day” post with my “31 Days of Children’s Books” post so that I fulfill all of my blogging commitments for today in one post. Might be messy but at least we are going to dot all our i’s and cross all our t’s and get both of these posts put together.
Don’t know about you but my September was gone in a flash. The best thing about these “Sentence a Day” posts is being able to reflect back on all that happened over the last month. Sometimes when you are in the midst of living your life, you don’t have time to reflect. Going back and reading these lines and looking at my photos is almost like reliving some of the fun.
So, here’s September in a “Sentence a Day”.
- Yay, it is September 1 which, in my book, means fall has arrived…get out those leafy decorations. 9/1
- Kicked off this long weekend with a good day – swimming, window-shopping (not shopping for windows, but you know), massages (gal about broke my back), and lots of Slitherio on my laptop at night. 9/2
- Second day of #30in30 and I am #2 for 2…two miles in two days. 9/3
- Third day of #30in30 and I am tired but will run two miles tomorrow, I promise. 9/4
- I did run two miles today and wrote two blog posts and cooked two meals and washed two loads of laundry and bathed two kitties. 9/5
- Three, count ’em, 3 engagements on Bachelor in Paradise…doesn’t get more romantic than that. 9/6
- Today is my Dad’s birthday and he would have been 89, it is also my dog Cici’s birthday and she would have been 21…love and miss them both. Today is also my Friday…worked Tuesday and today and now I am off the rest of the week…pedi, scrapbooking, reading, here I come. (Have to do two sentences today) 9/7
- Happily busy all day preparing for Lauren, Lucia and Francisco’s visit this weekend. 9/8
- The kids arrived about 9:00 pm and the snuggling began about 9:01, such a blessing to have them closer to home. 9/9
- Got to babysit my sweet baby girl…we played, read books, had a soaky bath and lots of good loves til her mommy and daddy came home. 9/10
- Sometimes there’s nothing better for cleaning out the digestive track than McD’s cheeseburger, small fries and chocolate milkshake…I feel pounds lighter! 9/11
- I am so grateful to have this opportunity to work at the Jefferson High library. 9/12
- Left with a chill of horror after watching the Fox News timeline of the events of 9-11-2001; God bless America. 9/13
- Spent over an hour on the patio this morning, enjoying the cool, fallish breeze and warm sunshine. 9/14
- Half-way through my #30in30 running for the month. 9/15
- Swam a mile for the second time this month, hope this becomes a habit. 9/16
- Beginning to mark things off my fall bucket list. 9/17
- Tough day, sad and couldn’t sleep so cleaned out my closet…at least I made use of my sleeplessness. 9/18
- Emotional because I didn’t sleep and didn’t sleep cause I was sad. 9/19
- Difficult talks are necessary to build better relationships. 9/20
- Worked three days this week which will be a nice boost to my bank account. 9/21
- Finished my first (in a long time) audio book and started another…what a genius way to READ?! 9/22
- Love making a long and thorough to-do list in the morning and crossing things off all day. 9/23
- Enjoyed a perfect Saturday with a 6.8 mile hike up to the grotto at McKittrick Canyon followed by a soak in the hot tub. 9/24
- Felt useful like a mommy again, drove up to Albuquerque all by myself and will be babysitting my sweet Plumpies this week while Lauren attends a meeting in Chicago and Francisco goes to work here everyday. 9/25
- This baby is so sweet and cute and good. 9/26
- Baby girl is snorky so won’t be taking her to daycare for a few hours until she feels better = more time for grandma. 9/27
- Lucia and I hit Target together today…oh, the fun! 9/28
- My sweet baby girl had such a hard day…she just can’t sleep and is a in constant motion so wears herself out; my poor sweet baby Lucia. 9/29
- Up early to say goodbye to my girls, escorted out of town by hot air balloons filling the Albuquerque skies, almost ran out of gas on the way home but made it safe and sound back to my Prince Charming. 9/30
You guys know how wordy I can be. This is truly an exercise in determining what matters most and figuring out the best words to record those special moments concisely. If you have a “Sentence a Day” post to link-up, join us by clicking below.
We’re going to kind of switch horses now, mid-stream (as my sweet mother would say). Well, not exactly but this is my segue to “31 Days of Children’s Books”. Going to talk a minute about wordless picture books.
With “Sentence a Day”, I am retelling my month with very few words. But imagine telling a story without any words at all. The illustrations have to be so well done, so full of detail that the plot just jumps off the page, clear as day. Kind of the way a storyboard works in the creation of a commercial.
One of my favorite wordless books is Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie dePaola. It is the “story” of an old woman, her cat and dog, who wake in the morning with thoughts of pancakes…for breakfast.
Our grandma consults her pancake recipe and then begins to gather the ingredients she will need for her flapjacks. Right off the bat, she realizes she’s out of the required eggs. Out to the hen house she goes.
Then she’s short on milk. She trudges out to the barn to milk the cow. She churns the milk to make butter. Notice the time on the clock in the background.
Poor dear then realizes she has no syrup. She bundles up to brave the winter weather for a third time to buy syrup from a neighborhood sugarer. On the way back home, thoughts of the breakfast she will soon be enjoying dance in her head.
But she opens the door to find…
All is not lost, though. Check out Pancakes for Breakfast from your local library to find out how the day is saved. Or here’s a video of the book to save you another trip to the library this week!
- Using wordless picture books helps children to develop a larger vocabulary and improve written and oral storytelling skills.
- This book is the perfect springboard for a lesson on procedural texts, even though this book doesn’t use a single word.
- Children can be asked to use the illustrations to come up with a recipe for pancakes.
- Compare the recipe for pancakes on a box of mix with the ingredients in the book.
- This story is sequential and can encourage children to recognize the chronological order of events.
- There is a clear beginning, middle and ending and a problem that must be solved before the story can end.
- Younger children can even retell the story with their own illustrations.
- Or dictate the story to an adult or older child.
Meet author Tomie dePaola, here, on his webpage. I found several resources to use with Pancakes for Breakfast. Check out Watch.Know.Learn.org for a lesson comparing and contrasting the book with another on pancakes. CPalms.org offers a lesson plan that reinforces understanding key details using Pancakes for Breakfast.
And with that, my work is done here. For a post featuring one sentence a day for a month, 1 x 30 = 30 sentences (theoretically) and then a review on a wordless picture book, this has been rather lengthy. Hope you will still come back again.
Hugs and kisses,
Whitney a la mode
I ate McDonalds for the first time in YEARS last night. Haha. I think it had the same effect…
Leslie Roberts Clingan
You know that McDonalds is good stuff when it cleans you out like that!!
Carrie @ Curly Crafty Mom
Congrats on all of the running with the #30 x 30! I am done running now until Sunday when I’ll do the marathon! Eek! You are the best grandma! 🙂
Carrie
curlycraftymom.com
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Starting the #30×30 over again. Could see an improvement in my legs!! Cellulite BE GONE! Thank you for saying I am a good grandma. It is a labor of love.
Andrea@WellnessNotes
I loved reading your Sentence a Day entries (and am sad I didn’t manage to keep up with it; even after you reminded me, I only made it to day 11…). I’ll try again in November!
The book seems lovely – so many great activities you can do with it…
Sheila @ Making the Most of Every Day
I failed to do Sentence a day in Sept and am failing in Oct too. Why???? Loved reading your entries. I’m sorry about your sad days. I’m happy you got to play with grand babies!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Your life has been very, very busy and maybe even upside-down with the weather lately. You will get back on track with sentence a day. Which reminds me…I didn’t write mine yesterday!