Misc – Page 11 – Welcome to lizbooks.com

Calling All Parents! Encourage YOUR Kids!

How Parents Can Encourage

Their Children to Become Good Readers &Writers

1. Read to your child. (Obvious, but often overlooked in our busy lives.)

2. Kids not enthused readers? Set their bedtime twenty minutes later IF they use that time reading.

3. Create family reading time. Techno-gadgets off!

4. Game night! Play Scrabble, Charades, Pictionary, or any game that encourages thinking and creativity.

5. Be prepared. Everyone waits. Doctor offices, restaurants, in lines . . . Have kids bring their books to read, or an activity book to do. Or play a game like Story Building, where one person begins a story and the next person continues. Play I See . . . Person sees something and others ask him yes or no questions to deduce what it is.

6. Watch movies together. Afterwards, discuss. Movies are stories. What was the best part? How did people in story reveal their characters? What choices did they make? What were the conflicts or problems in the story? How would your family react in similar situations?

7. Make scrapbooks. Kids collect and take photos, cut pictures from magazines and newspapers that represent things they love, create art projects, write poems, stories and personal narratives (true stories about themselves) . . . etc.

8. Listen to stories on CD in the car.

9. Visit your local library as often as you can. Do your children have library cards?

10. Design Art for Author! After reading a book the child enjoys, he/she creates art about the story for the author and writes the author a letter. (We love mail from readers!) Send the letter in care of the publisher. Their address can be found online or by calling your local library.

11. Have children make fun lists: wish lists, favorite lists, books you have read lists, movies you want to see lists, travel destinations!

12. Help your children build their own library. Every special occasion you plan to give your children gifts, make sure at least one of them is a book. Find inexpensive books at used bookstores, library book sales, and thrift stores.

March 8, 2010/0 Comments

Essay, Misc

The Near Future. . . Books on IPAD

http://gizmodo.com/5485150/penguins-incredible-vision-of-books-on-the-ipad-doesnt-look-anything-like-books

Then read the article here: The Fate of Books After the Age of Print

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/steve_wasserman_on_the_fate_of_books_after_the_age_of_print_20100305/

March 5, 2010/0 Comments

Misc

Happy Birthday Dad!

This Sunday would have been my father’s 91st birthday. His goal during the last several years of his life was to make it to age 90. He did, with charm, dignity and grace.

He was the most positive person I’ve ever known. I can’t write this without getting teary-eyed, and he’s been gone from this earth since mid May.

Before he came out to California, I didn’t know him as well as my mother. My father was a quiet man. So we hadn’t bonded in the way my mother and I had.

My mother and I had much in common: books, philosophies, politics, spirituality. My father and I shared most politics, but his conservative Catholic beliefs and my liberal spirituality did make me feel apart from him. But I didn’t know until he moved out here, that is made no difference to him at all. He respected and loved me for exactly who I was.

Not for one moment, did he try to change me. Not for one moment, did he pass judgement on me or any of my friends.

And that has taught me about my own failings, as I try to become the person my dad was. Not in his conservative beliefs, but in his non-judgemental ways.

He had a delightful sense of humor, too. Dry and understated. Once, a friend asked me who I was most like between my parents. The friend, Dad and I were at lunch. I said, “Oh, I’m like Mom. Thank God!”

Dad roared with laughter. Thank God.

After a moment of pure horror, I laughed too. He absolutely knew what I meant. He knew I wouldn’t be happy as anything but me.

February 26, 2010/2 Comments

Misc

Art Contest For Grades K – 12

Design a Bollywood Movie Poster – Art Contest for Youth Grades K-12

	Create a movie poster for a fictional Bollywood movie (NOT a real movie, regardless of when it was released).First Prizes: One first prize winner will be selected in each of five grade groups: K-1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-8, 9-12. Each winner will receive: – A signed hardcover copy of “All About India”, a lavishly illustrated 64 page non-fiction book, when published in Fall 2010. – Poster published in a gallery on the book’s web page. One of the five will be selected as the Grand Prize winner. Grand prize: In addition to the above, the grand prize winner will receive: – Winner’s (or other designated child’s) portrait on canvas. See Gallery for sample portraits. – Possible placement of the poster in a city scene in the book “All About India” (pending the winning entry’s approval by Tuttle Publishing). Entry rules: – Artist must currently be attending a public, private or home school in the United States in grades K-12. – One entry per artist. – Entry size 8.5″x11″, portrait (vertical), without a mat, frame or border. – Two dimensional artwork only. Any medium. – Place movie title on poster OR allow space in design and write title on contest entry form. – No signature, initials or text other than movie title on the design. – No violent or adult themes, please. – Submission deadline is 5pm Pacific Time, March 31, 2010. Entries will be judged on originality, humor, composition, color use and believability as a Bollywood movie poster. Do a web image search with the keywords Bollywood Movie Posters for inspiration, but copying an existing poster will automatically disqualify your entry. Preferred: Scan in full color at 300 dpi and email high quality jpeg file, along with contest entry form, to the email address on the form. Alternate: Mail original or color copy flat (not folded or rolled), along with contest entry form, to the snail mail address on the form. Use a sturdy envelope and mark it Do Not Fold. Must be postmarked by deadline. Entries will not be returned. Not responsible for entries damaged or never received. Contest Entry Form will be available as a pdf here by March 15, 2010. Get started now so you can create the best poster possible! http://www.laralakshmi.com/contest.html

February 26, 2010/4 Comments

Misc

Video – Dare to . . .

First Drafts and Writing

http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers#p/u/3/Nyhv80HDSj4

February 17, 2010/2 Comments

Misc

A Food Memory

Thanks to an online sight that allows people to connect with people from their past, a friend from elementary school and I found each other. She posted a note about how she remembered us playing together at my house and my mother making the best hamburger she had ever eaten in her life!

Why do I not recall this moment in my history? Perhaps because I ate my mother’s great cooking all of the time. But it’s interesting to note that the sense of taste brought a memory of our time together back to her.

When in your writing could the sense of taste be used? (Don’t just stick in the sense of taste – – only if it is appropriate.) Or perhaps a particular taste is so wonderful or so horrible, it will move you to write a poem about it?

Right now, the thought of my mother’s cooking, reminds me to add this in my own writing. And to hit the kitchen for a mid-morning snack!

February 12, 2010/6 Comments

Misc

Doodle For Google Contest!

If I could do anything, I would...

…Figure out a cure for cancer
…Build a movie theater on the moon
…Be an underwater explorer

Welcome to Doodle 4 Google, a competition where we invite K-12 students to work their artistic will upon our homepage logo. At Google we believe in thinking big and dreaming big, so this year we’re inviting U.S. kids to exercise their creative imaginations around the theme, “If I Could Do Anything, I Would …”

We’re looking forward to the kids’ answers too. Gather those art supplies and some 8.5″ x 11″paper and encourage your students to enrich us all with their creative visions for what they would do in the world, if they could do anything.

Entries due March 31, 2010.

For more information see http://www.google.com/doodle4google/index.html

February 9, 2010/0 Comments