The book giveaway continues 
If interested in any of the titles pictured below, let me know! I will mail them to your home at no charge. Help children become lifelong learners by nurturing them and fostering a love for reading at an early age.
The Ramona book is a hardcover and is large so it can be read to a classroom of children.
If you would like to support my initiative to get books into homes, go here
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The next book I am giving away is I Spy Fly Guy! hardback by Tedd Arnold. Geared for ages 5-8. Contact me at lyeager@bmoreschools.com if interested, or leave a comment!
About the book: “The 7th book in the bestselling Fly Guy series–with fun foil covers!
When Fly Guy and Buzz play hide-and-seek, Fly Guy hides in his favorite place–the garbage can. But as Buzz finishes counting, the garbageman drives away with the garbage and Fly Guy, too! A very worried Buzz follows the truck to the dump, where he sees zillions of flies. Where is Fly Guy?!
Time after time, Buzz thinks he spies Fly Guy, only to be snubbed, boinked, or bitten. Then he realizes they’ve been playing a game. He yells, “I give up. You win!” And Fly Guy leaves his new hiding place–he was on top of Buzz’s hat all along!” – amazon.com
To support the initiative to send books to children’s homes, go here.
The following 2 books are available for giveaway: Julian Rodriguez Episode 1 – Trash Crisis on Earth (softcover) and Nancy Drew – The Hidden Staircase (hardcover).
If you know a child who is interested in either book, let me know! I will mail the book to you at no charge. Thank you in supporting my attempt to increase literacy in the home.
Descriptions: Meet Julian Rodriguez, an extra-terrestrial genius trapped in the body of an eight-year-old human boy. A hilarious, fully illustrated series for young chapter-book readers that’s out of this world! (good for ages 7-10)
Teenage detective Nancy Drew uses her courage and powers of deduction to solve the mysterious happenings in an old stone mansion. (ages 8 and up)
I have two Horrible Harry books to send to a home. There is no catch. The books are yours to keep. These chapter books are great for grades 1-3. This first set goes to the first person to request it, so let me know if you are interested! You can live anywhere in the United States to participate.
To support the initiative to send books to children’s homes, go here.
UPDATE: This books have found a home in an elementary school in Michigan.
I now have a Leap Frog My First Spelling Bee Game Tin available for giveaway. If you know a child who needs more literacy games in the home, let me know! The game is for ages 5 and up.
More info about the game: “Your child will master spelling with this fun and challenging LeapFrog Spelling Bee Game. Spelling bee learning game helps your little one fine-tune their word recognition, spelling and listening skills. Versatile grow-with-me format provides six levels for both first and second graders. Bold graphics encourage younger children to recognize images, while words with example sentences help older children with their spelling. Hourglass provides a limited amount of time to answer. Game tin includes: 480 cards, hourglass and game chips.”
I have been involved in education for most of my career, and I am passionate about promoting family-literacy and getting kids to actually enjoy reading. Educating children and inspiring them to become life-long learners is crucial to the success of our country and is the best way to help them grow up to obtain jobs rather than live off of welfare.
I am raising funds to help start a program where children will receive free books that will be sent directly to their homes. Book drives and giveaways are great, but I want to reach families who may not participate or may not have transportation to get to those events. Also, some children may receive few to no gifts, so receiving a book in the mail may make a child very happy.
I plan to collect donated books and keep my eye out for gently used books at library book sales, thrift stores, and yard sales. I will have a website up soon as I begin to get this project off the ground.
I am thinking I can send children (or teens) a book and a stamped post card, and have them return the postcard after writing or drawing something they enjoyed about the book.
Thank you for your support! Let me know if you want to participate in any way!
In addition to an article I wrote on Examiner about how the Baltimore community perceives Baltimore City Public Schools, I have created my own poll! Please take a moment to provide your feedback. Thanks!
In addition to education, I also have a passion for photography. I just started using my new Nikon D7000 and am interested in practicing using it! If you know any schools, youth programs, etc. who could use a volunteer photographer, I’d be happy to snap some photos. Check out pictures I’ve taken at my photo blog!
One of my Facebook friends recently posted the question, “What should be a law?” I responded that “I think all parents should be required to attend classes on how to help their children develop literacy skills. Maybe they could go a few weeks a year until their first child is 7 or 8. That would make a huge impact on how educated our country is and in the end would be financially worth it.”
I posted the idea on the Bmoreschools Facebook page and received some interesting responses, so I thought I would create a blog about the idea.
I also asked the question, “Parents, would you attend workshops to learn additional ways to help your children develop literacy & academic skills? If not, why? If so, what would you like to see in the workshops? How to motivate children? How to use the Internet as a learning tool? How to engage your children in reading? How to best help with homework? Something else?”
I had the opportunity to observe and to lead parent workshops while I was a graduate student at Towson University. I gave a presentation on ways parents could help their children visualize as they read. For example, children can listen to a poem read aloud to them and can draw their interpretation of what they comprehend. My graduate partner and I read the poem “Band-Aids” by Shel Silverstein and gave the parents the opportunity to draw images they were able to visualize as they listened to the poem. I even explained how parents can learn from older children’s drawings. For example, I teach developmental college reading students, and I have them read a description of a house and the surroundings and draw as many details as they can. Something in the description is compared to being “as big as a football field,” and a path “snakes” around the house. If my students draw a football field or little slithery snakes, I know they were not reading carefully or had difficulty comprehending the description.
We always linked what we presented to research we had done on the topic to help the parents understand why what we were discussing was important and beneficial for their children. For instance, research has been done to show that practicing visualization strategies helps children improve their reading comprehension (and the goal of reading is comprehension). We shared specific quotes from different articles to the parents to show the support from the research.
I think sharing information such as the above examples with parents is a great way to equip parents with many strategies they can use to help their children learn. All parents, no matter their education level, can benefit from attending workshops. If I was a new parent, even though I have a masters degree in Reading Education, I feel I could still benefit from attending workshops. In addition to learning strategies from educators, parents can also discuss what they already do at home to help their children, and parents can learn new ideas from each other.
The workshops could be a half hour to an hour long. Maybe parents could be required to attend a few sessions and then could decide if they wanted to continue attending? Also maybe workshops could be offered online as well as face-to-face, or they could even be offered in families homes (of families who were willing to host them). I know parents don’t like the idea of attending mandatory workshops, but I really think the benefits would be worth having everyone participate.
As parents, educators, community members, or students, what do you think of the idea of parent workshops? I am very interested to hear your ideas, so please respond here or on the Facebook discussion.
Last week, I was given a tour of the Forbush at Glyndon school. The school is a part of the Sheppard Pratt Health System, and it serves students with emotional disturbances and students with autism. I was there interviewing for a teaching position, and the principal was nice enough to show me around the entire campus.
I noticed that the school had some really great features. For one, the cafeteria had ping pong tables and air hockey. The cafeteria also had an area where students could sit and eat outside, weather permitting. Another difference about the cafeteria is that the students actually prepare and serve the meals. I love that idea because students can take ownership over the food. The principal said she hears comments like, “Did you try the soup today? I made it.”
The school also has a wood-shop class and a very nice greenhouse. Students even sell plants and wood products they have made in local stores.
I wonder if more schools incorporated features such as the ones found at the Forbush school, students might feel more of a sense of ownership towards their school and might enjoy their school day a little bit more.
What do you all think? Ping-pong tables for every cafeteria in Baltimore?
I am giving away two sets of Nancy Drew books. The first set includes the books “Without a Trace” and “A Race Against Time.” The second set includes “False Notes” and High Risk.” They are mystery books geared towards 4th-7h graders. They are in excellent condition!
If you are interested in the books, simply like the Facebook page and comment on the Facebook or on this blog letting me know you are interested and if you have a preference for which set of books you’re interested in. First to respond gets ‘em!
I will mail the books to you at no charge. I can even address them to your children.
Thanks for supporting Bmoreschool’s effort to bring the community together to discuss education in Baltimore
