‎"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
Steven Jobs, Stanford commencement address, 2005.

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Melissa Singleton Josef is an MLIS K-12 certified teacher librarian and author of The Suburban Barnyard as well as an environmental education resource blog called The Green Room. She is passionate about education and information literacy in all of its evolving formats as well as good old traditional love of reading. She is eclectic in her interests from science to art and graduated from the University of Delaware in 1991 with an undergraduate BAAS degree majoring in English/Business and Technical Writing and minoring in Fine Arts. She has traveled throughout Asia and the Pacific Islands, the Caribbean, and Europe and speaks both French and Japanese. She is currently in search of a full-time teaching position and spends her time writing novels, children's books, blogging, job searching, and substitute teaching PT in all teaching positions K-12.

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The Green Room

The Green Room
Green resources For teachers from books to DVDs to the web -- a work in progress. Contributions and suggestions are welcome!!!

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

A Children's Book -- Take a Break And Gaze At The Clouds








Last night we spent some time in my creativity and teaching class going around meeting each other and looking at our homemade nametags. I neglected to do my homework this week…mommy overload. My prof let me off the hook. One of my classmates, Erika, had a cute nametag cutout of her name and on it were glued some of her favorite things including some of her favorite children’s books. A book title caught my eye because I’d never heard of it before. It’s unusual for someone to have a favorite children’s book I haven’t heard of. It was called It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles Shaw.

Naturally I couldn’t help myself -- I stopped in the school library this morning and borrowed a copy when I dropped the kids off at school. What I found was a delightful little book published in 1947. It is a simple book with simple illustrations. The entire book is written and illustrated in navy blue and white. It is this simplicity that makes it so delightful.

We live in a time complicated by information overload. Our schedules are jam- packed. Shaw’s simple story brings us back to lying down in a field staring up at the sky gazing at the clouds. He brings me to memories of lazy days with my friends laughing and having fun. Through this quiet little story we can share those times with our children and perhaps allow them a break in their overloaded days to gaze at the sky and see a little spilt milk.

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"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better m- it's not," said the Lorax.

Dr. Suess, 1971