A small selection of posts I have enjoyed over the last few days and I hope you will head over to enjoy in full.
The first post is from Pete Springer who shares the background to Olympic gymnast Suni Lee and her Hmong community… also the news in the last day or so of the stepping down from one of the events by the gold winning Simone Biles. This has resulted in the worst example of human nature the vicious trolling of this young athlete.
Suni Lee—Heart of a Champion
Every Olympics, there are human interest stories that capture my attention. I don’t follow women’s gymnastics, but I always enjoy the spirit of competition. One Olympic athlete we may hear more about in the days to come is American gymnast Sunisa “Suni” Lee.
There are many aspects of Suni Lee’s story that I find fascinating. She is the first Hmong American athlete to compete in the Olympics. The Hmong are an ethnic group that originated in Southeast Asia. They haven’t had a country of their own. There are between 9 and 11 million Hmong people in the world today. They lived in southwestern China for thousands of years but began immigrating to other neighboring countries in the 17th century. As a teacher, I taught several Hmong children.
Head over to read the rest of this excellent post: Pete Springer – Suni Lee Heart of a Champion
The next post is from another teacher who delights in bringing innovative projects into her classroom of small students.. In this series Jennie Fitzkee has been sharing the expoits of Milly in the classroom.. a lovely character who is a loving friend to all the children. In this particular post, singing and artwork are ways the children share their patriotic spirit and one of their favourite projects.. a new quilt.
Milly – Part 5
In Part 4 the Peace Quilt became part of the permanent collection at the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia, and Milly became an important part of my classroom. Children adored her. She loved singing, and Milly’s favorite song was our favorite song, too – “God Bless America.”
Part 5
“Jennie, can we sing again? Can we sing “God Bless America?” This was what I heard from children, every day. I sing many songs with children, all kinds of songs. So, why was this particular song the favorite? I don’t know. But, what I do know is to pay attention to children and what they gravitate towards. My lesson plans might be terrific, but I know intuitively that what children are drawn to, is far more important. I paid attention. And it grew. When children were in the playground they started singing on their own for other children. They sang all the time for Milly. She joined in, and she loved it!
I had to do more, because the children wanted, needed, more. Veterans Day arrived and we invited soldiers into the classroom to say Thank You, and of course to sing.
Head over to enjoy the rest of this delightful post: Jennie Fitzkee – Milly part 5
The final post today is by Jacqui Murray who writes the most amazing pre-historic novels that I can highly recommend. Jacqui shares the complexities of researching a time that is unknown in many respects and papers and books on the subject often hard to come by and few online. The post is hosted by Kathy Steinemann.
Today we have a guest post by Jacqui Murray, who tells us how she writes books about prehistoric times even though there’s no recorded information about those times.
Her technique could be applied to other types of fiction as well.
How to Research What No One Knows: By Jacqui Murray
Good research feels like a satisfying detective story. You have a mystery, how something did or didn’t happen, and follow the clues until the dots are connected. But as the author, how do you research what no one knows well enough to explain it in your story?
I’ll use my series, Man vs. Nature, as an example.
This multi-book saga explores pivotal points in history when man would either thrive or become extinct depending upon events. The first trilogy — Dawn of Humanity — is that era when the earliest versions of man were about as far from the alpha on the landscape as possible. The second trilogy, Crossroads, addresses the time when man conquered fire, discovered clothing, invented weapons, and the many other innovations that enabled them to dominate nature. The next trilogy, Savage Land, deals with a recent time in man’s history (75,000 years ago) when nature almost beat us.
For each, I had to research the events that made these happen without benefit of books, recorded notes, or even apocryphal stories, because the only clues were rocks and artifacts.
Head over to discover more about Where to Research What No One Knows: Kathy Steinemann – Guest post by Jacqui Murray
Thanks for dropping in today and I hope you will head over to enjoy the posts in full.. thanks Sally.
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