Books for Chinese Orphans

Today was the last day of the Book Fair and the principal wanted to buy some books that she could take to an orphanage in China (it’s an English-speaking orphanage). But she didn’t have time to browse, so she asked the librarian to select some books for her.

This was kind of fun, since I lived in China. Selecting only from the books at the Book Fair, I had to think about which books would be most appealing to Chinese children. My favorite pick was “Froggy Rides a Bike”, not because I’m a Froggy fan, but because he was learning to ride a bike and that’s something everyone in China can relate to! I also picked “Bad Kitty” because it gives words for each letter of the alphabet. “What Pet to Get” and “Where Will Fat Cat Sit?” were also selected because they were funny and we thought they would be good for English-as-a-Second-Language learners.

I didn’t pick books that seemed too American-centric. We think we live in the greatest country in the world, but everyone else thinks their country is the greatest too! I felt it would be better to avoid books that were America-is-the-best-ish. I also stayed away from books that reflected what American children/teens are concerned with, but children in other countries might not necessarily be able to relate to.

I’m going to be on the lookout for other books that would be good, because I know there are so many other books that would be perfect for taking to a Chinese orphanage. This would be a great blogging opportunity for students, don’t you think? The principal is going to China– what books should she take to share with the Chinese children?

Display Name

Hey Taffeta! (And anyone else who’s interested!)
I changed my name! I wondered how you got to be Taffeta and I had to be leejk… Since that’s my user name, I can’t change it. I hadn’t inputted any other names, so Edublogs didn’t give me any other choices for a display name. I added a nickname, Chrysanthemum, which it then let me select as one of the options for my display name. Do you have access to edit “Users”?

I tried to add you on as a user, but it couldn’t find you… Are you registered with Edublogs?

I also tried to change the comment moderation options, so your comments should appear immediately after you post them.

Joey Pigza books

I have to start commenting to myself… My sister read Joey Pigza books (by Jack Gantos) to her 5th graders and they would all just crack up laughing. I haven’t read any of the books yet, but I plan to. They sound like my kind of books!

Robert Munsch’s “Something Good”

My daughters like books that are funny. I don’t know if it’s because I like funny books, so it’s what I’ve raised them with? In any case, we love Robert Munsch’s books, especially, “Something Good”. After reading it for the first time, my daughters made a price tag, taped it to the younger one’s nose, and took her picture. Can you recommend other funny books?

Ella Sarah Gets Dressed

“Ella Sarah Gets Dressed” is one of my daughter’s (age 5) books. As we read it, we substitue her name for Ella Sarah. She’s kind of an independent thinker who doesn’t like people telling her what to do (don’t know if that’s her personality or just the stage she’s in), so we both see her in Ella Sarah. What are your favorite picture books?

Backwards chronological order

Whoa, do you see what’s happening? As I publish more postings, my older ones get pushed down. I can see how this can be good, since the more current postings are at the top. But how do you follow the train of thought, if you don’t know what was said earlier? You can scroll to the bottom of the blog, but what if it’s really long? Hmm, is it just a matter of getting used to this? Kinda like watching a new soap opera, where you just jump in at whatever point the story is at and eventually catch on to the conversation?

Tags

Sorry if I’m clueless, but what are these tags for? Are they like descriptors, so if someone does a search for “sidebar”, my little posting will come up?

Sidebar

The sidebar– that came up in pbwiki too and I didn’t know what to put there. But in edublogs, they gave me choices and I could just drag and drop stuff into my sidebar. But I’m wondering how I would add something to my sidebar that isn’t one of the choices listed? For example, I added del.icio.us to my sidebar, because it was one of the choices. But I plan to check out another social bookmarking site, diigo. What if I want to add diigo? It’s not one of the choices listed.

Changing the template

There were a lot of different templates to choose from, but I really liked this bluebird one. I wonder how I would make my own template? Or could I modify an existing template?

Hello LIS 670!

I ended up creating my blog here in edublogs, because I had a hard time creating a Google account for blogger. All the names with jan and lee were taken, even when I started adding numbers. If I make my user name too far out, I’m going to forget it!

Anyway, so here it is!