September 19, 2013 by plemmonsa

Talk Like a Pirate Day 2013

Ahoy thar maties! Today be national “talk like a pirate” day. What better way to celebrate than dressing up like a pirate, reading some stories with classes around the country, writing some fun pirate sentences to practice saying, and creating some pirate stories.

That’s exactly what we did in the Barrow library. The planning started last weekend, when I started looking for classes in the school who wanted to participate. As class signed up, I used twitter to locate some special library friends around the country to connect with.

Over a couple of days, the schedule took shape for us to connect with:

Shannon Thompson at Stroud Elementary in Athens, GA
Jenny Lussier in Durham, CT
Okle Miller in Tampa, FL
Edie Crook in Gastonia, NC
Shannon Miller in Van Meter, IA

The plan during each connection was to:

look at a google map of where we were connecting and talk about distance
say hello with a few pirate words like “Arrrrrrrrrgh!”
take turns reading pages of a pirate story so that voices in each location were heard. Sometimes it would be the librarian and other times it would be the students reading.
Say goodbye
At tables, write pirate sentences using a pirate vocabulary sheet. Students could stretch out an -ar word or they could use actual pirate vocab.
Students moved to do projection areas to have an adult type their sentence onto a padlet. Throughout the day, any school could add to the padlet as they had time.

Our pirate padlet

We started our day with Mrs. Boyle’s Kindergarten class. They have been learning how to tell stories from pictures. Today was the launch of our storybird project, so I decided to focus our storybird on pirates. After warming up with some “Tell Me a Story” cards, we searched for pirate pictures on Storybird. We made a simple story with a beginning, middle, and end. It was a challenge to link our story together between pictures, but the students did a great job working together. Be sure to read their story here.

Our Storybird cover

Next, we skyped with Shannon Thompson at Stroud Elementary in Athens. Shannon and I took turn reading A Pirate’s Guide to First Grade by James Preller. We both read in our best pirate voices. Following our skype, we disconnected and students added sentences to the padlet. We reconnected on skype and students shared their sentences with one another in their best pirate voices. We had a few sound issues, which led me to switch the webcam I was using.

At 10 & 10:30, Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Ramseyer’s 2nd grade classes connected with Jenny Lussier’s 4th graders in CT. During one session, we read Bubble Bath Pirates by Jarrett Krosoczka and during the other session we read How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long. It was fun to hear our different pirate voices and share the many costumes that both of our groups of students were wearing.

At 11:45, Mrs. Yawn’s 2nd grade class had a special triple skype. We connected with Okle Miller in FL and Edie Crook in NC at the same time.

Okle and I read How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long and Edie Crook read A is for Arrr! by Laura Salas. Okle had on a great pirate costume, and Edie’s students had made great pirate hats to share, too. It was fun to know our voices were connecting from 3 different southeastern states.

A is for Arrr! with Mrs. Crook

At 1:15, Shannon Miller’s students connected with Mrs. Em’s 1st grade students. We read How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long. Our students also took time to share what was going on at our schools today. In addition to pirate day, our students had a walking field trip and Shannon’s students had dot day, Homecoming, and a color challenge. Shannon’s students took time to add to the padlet after our connection, while Mrs. Em’s students added sentences that focused on words that used sounds they were working on in class.

Finally, at 1:45 Mrs. Choate’s Kindergarten class connected with Edie Crook in NC. I read Bubble Bath Pirates by Jarrett Krosoczka and Pirates vs. Cowboys by Aaron Reynolds. It was a challenge to switch from pirate to cowboy while reading the book. It would be a fun book to read over skype if both schools have a copy because you would only have to keep up with one accent. I loved hearing Edie’s students make connections between the two books.

It was a fun-filled day. We made connections. We read text and had great discussions. We practiced reading fluently and with expression. We practiced our sentence writing. I’m exhausted. Now off to Krispy Kreme for some free donuts. They are giving away a full dozen of donuts if you are dressed like a pirate!

May 1, 2013 by plemmonsa

Same, Same but Different: Skyping with Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw

What an exciting day! Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Ramseyer’s class had the chance to Skype with incredible author/illustrator Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw. She was simply amazing! Today’s Skype came about because a few months ago, Shannon Miller and I began a blogging project with our second graders. The whole project was started with the book Same, Same but Different. Our classes skyped with one another and began writing blog posts about our world to share with one another. Shannon and I both shared this work on our blogs and shared the project on Jenny Sue’s Facebook page. Jenny Sue reached out to us and wanted to connect with our students to share her work and talk about their work. We had a few email exchanges and test call to prepare for today’s session.

For today’s skype, students wrote some questions in advance. I went through and selected about 10 of them to have ready for today, but I let the students know that I would remove any questions that she answered during her talk. Students in both classes also drew pictures of “their world” just like Kailash and Elliot do in the book. They added a sentence to describe what was in the picture just like in the book. The teachers and I selected about 10 of these for students to share during the Skype.

We also took time to look at a Google map to see how far it was to Taos, New Mexico from Athens, GA. (1,491 miles & 22 hours 47 minutes in a car)

Our session started with Jenny Sue sharing her process for making Same, Same but Different. We heard about her travels to Nepal. She reached over and pulled out her journals to show the kids how she collected ideas, sketches, and research in her journals. After collecting all of these thoughts and sketches, she started working on the story. She said she probably made at least a hundred different versions of the story before she had the idea that she really wanted. Jenny Sue showed the students the book with the rough sketches of the illustrations as well as how those rough sketches changed in the final book. She even pulled out an original painting from the book and shared it with us. I loved how we felt like we were sitting in Jenny Sue’s living room and every time she thought of something to share with us she could just reach right out and get it. I also loved that she was sitting on a bouncy ball while she Skyped! We learned how her publisher didn’t really like the ending of the book that she sent to them and how she tweaked it just a bit to satisfy what they wanted in the book. She shared that even the smallest change can make a world of difference.

Next was one of my favorite parts, students came up to the rocking chair that my dad made and shared their own art with Jenny Sue. I loved how she took time to look at each piece of art, considering what it had to offer and what story it told. She gave each student an acknowledgement of their hard work and pointed out a special quality of each piece. She even took pictures of some of the artwork to remember.

We used a similar format for students to come up and ask questions. I really liked having students sit in the rocking chair right in front of the camera so that they could be seen and heard. It felt like they were having a 1 on 1 conversation, even though 2 whole classes were watching.

This will be a day I will cherish. Same, Same but Different has become a book that I love to use when connecting with other schools and in my lessons about culture. I am so grateful to Jenny Sue for taking time out of her day and busy writing life and family life to share the love of reading, writing, and illustrating with our students. If you haven’t read this book, please take some time to check it out from your library or better yet, purchase several copies from your local book stores! You won’t be disappointed.

Listen to a snippet of our visit!

April 29, 2013 by plemmonsa

El dia de los ninos: Connecting Libraries and Making Connections

Over the weekend, an opportunity popped up on Twitter. Mrs. Crook, elementary librarian in Gastonia NC, tweeted that she wanted to connect with some class in honor of El dia de los ninos. This day, celebrated on April 30, honors many cultures, children, and books. It’s a day to celebrate reading, celebrate our uniqueness, and celebrate the joy of reading in many languages. Mrs. Crook had many great ideas for celebrating the day.

Athens, GA to Gastonia, NC

We chose to celebrate with her by connecting 2 Kindergarten classes through Skype and doing a shared reading of Book Fiesta by Pat Mora. Before our Skype, I showed Mrs. Li’s Kindergarten class a Google map of the distance from Athens, GA to Gastonia, NC. We learned it was about 181 miles away and would take about 2 hours 50 minutes to drive there. In our connection, I read the English pages of the book, and one of Mrs. Crook’s students read the Spanish pages. It was so much fun to hear the pages spoken in 2 languages. Mrs. Crook had several students who spoke Spanish and many of them began sharing their words in a chorus of voices. Mrs. Li had 2 students who spoke Chinese. I was so happy when Mrs. Li stepped up to the camera and said hello in Chinese to all of Mrs. Crook’s students. She even taught them a few words and had them repeat them back. We said “adios” to one another and disconnected.

After our Skype, we talked about several other books in our library collection that are bilingual. We also listened to this Dia Day song.

Later in the day, Ms. Spurgeon’s 3rd grade class came to read the book Tomas and the Library Lady. This book had a wonderful connection with Ms. Spurgeon’s work this year with diverse literature and literature that raises discussions about poverty and still achieving your dreams. The book also connected with their discussions of Cesar Chavez and migrant workers. I have my own connection to the book because I am friends with Tomas Rivera’s daughter. As I read the story, I couldn’t help but think of Ileana on every page and how grateful I was to the library lady in Iowa that gave her dad access to books no matter what the circumstance. I was also grateful to Tomas Rivera for persevering to bring new stories to his family and becoming such a leader in education. This story gave many of our students a positive example of someone striving for their dreams in life no matter their background, living conditions, or social status. We read the book to celebrate Dia and to talk about the importance of summer reading, but I think we left the lesson with many more conversations flowing in our minds that could not have been predicted in advance.

Tomas Rivera’s daughter, Ileana Liberatore signed this copy of the book.

April 25, 2013 by plemmonsa

Kindergarten Tux Paint Consultants

Today Mrs. Kelly Hocking’s Kindergarten students had so much fun Skyping with Shannon Miller’s Kindergarten and 1st Grade students in Van Meter, IA. Shannon’s students are planning to embark on a similar project as Kelly’s students by making their own stories in Tux Paint and recording them with a screencasting tool. The purpose of today’s Skype session was for Shannon’s students to ask Kelly’s students about what they did.

Shannon’s students watched our videos in Van Meter, IA before our connection

Before our connection, Shannon showed her students our Tux Paint videos made in Screencast-o-matic, including the instructional video. She let me know on Twitter that they were ready.

When we connected, Shannon’s students applauded Kelly’s students’ great work on their stories. Then she guided them in asking questions about the process. They asked questions like:

How did you decide what to write about?
How did you work together?
How did you learn to use Tux Paint?
What screencasting tool did you use?
How long did your story have to be?
and more

Each time a question was asked, Mrs. Kelly called on a student to answer, and sometimes she answered the question or added additional insight. We had a computer ready with Tux Paint in case we needed it to show something. The students also had their planning paper, which they showed to answer one of the questions. I had a USB webcam plugged in so that I could move the camera closer to students as they talked. Although, my camera skills weren’t great, I think the kids enjoyed seeing themselves closeup on the screen.

Now, Shannon’s K and 1st grade students plan to use Tux Paint to make their own stories and use a new screencasting tool to record them. We ended our time by agreeing to come back together to Skype and share our work with one another before the end of the year.

Shannon, Kelly, and I could have all easily just done the teaching of Tux Paint on our own, but giving the students this ownership of the project and sharing of expertise between schools means so much more. I think that they now look at themselves as experts with knowledge to share. Not only do they have the knowledge, they have the support that it is ok to take a leadership role in the classroom and teach alongside the adult teacher. They also know that they have an authentic audience that their work immediately impacts. I hope that this idea blossoms into other opportunities for students to demonstrate their knowledge and become leaders in technology and learning for our school and beyond.

April 2, 2013 by plemmonsa

Skyping with Anne Marie Pace

Back on March 6th, we celebrated World Read Aloud Day with Skype sessions with authors and schools around the country. On that very same day, a major winter storm was making its way across the country creating chaos, power outages, and librarians frantically rescheduling connections. Anne Marie Pace was scheduled to Skype with Ms. Wright’s and Ms. Yawn’s 2nd grade classes. We had read Vamperina Ballerina and written several questions to ask her about writing and the book. However, the snowstorm knocked out Anne Marie’s power. Fortunately, we were able to find a time to reconnect and the students were so excited to finally meet her on Skype today.

We did a brief “hello” and then Anne Marie read us Never Ever Talk to Strangers. She had the book on a presentation so that the kids could easily see the pages as she read. After that, the students begged to hear Vamperina again. Because our schedule wasn’t so rushed today, we had time, and Anne Marie graciously gave the kids a 2nd reading of Vamperina Ballerina.

We printed all of the students’ questions from a Google Doc so that they were prepared to quickly ask their questions. Here’s a look at our questions:

Natalie: Who is your publisher?

George: Why did you make Vamperina Ballerina?

Tykeria: Why did she turn into a bat in the story?

Lucy: Is it a long process to make a book or does it depend on the book?

Nikolas: Do you only write picture books?

Olonix: Do vampires change into anything else?

Grace: How did you come up with the details?

Myles: Why did you put the vampire into the spotlight?

Sam B: What are your other books?

Sam G: Why did you put a vampire in a ballerina class?

Miles: Do you make chapter books or comic books?

Mr. Plemmons: Do you feel like the illustrator drew what you were thinking when you wrote your words?

Ms. Wright: Did you have to write multiple drafts of the book?

Harper: How do you know so much about vampires?
Danny: Do you ever have writer’s block?

Repp: Have you ever messed up on a published piece?

Eddie: Do you have more books than 3?

Jeremiah: Why do you like books so much?

Diana: Who inspired you to write books?

Ty’Najia: How long does it take to make a book?

Tom: How did you come up with these book ideas?

Xander: If you do have chapter books, how many do you have?

Mrs. Yawn: How young were you when you first started writing?

This year we have been so fortunate to make so many connections through Skype. I can’t wait to incorporate it even more next year. The students left this session energized about reading and writing. I just know this will translate into what they do in the classroom. Thank you, Anne Marie Pace, for making our day so special! We can’t wait to read the Vamperina sequel!

March 6, 2013 by plemmonsa

World Read Aloud Day 2013

Wow! Even though a major snowstorm was making its way across the country, we celebrated World Read Aloud Day with multiple authors and classrooms around the country. Educators around the world have been orchestrating this day for quite some time through multiple social networks. Through Twitter, Facebook, Google Docs, Skype in the Classroom, and Kate Messner’s excellent author website we have planned day-long and even week-long reading events for our students.

Twitter was buzzing this morning with authors and librarians having to reschedule due to the snow, but here at Barrow most of our scheduled stayed secure. Matthew Winner had to cancel due to snow impacting his flight to NC, so Kathy Schmidt and her students stepped in for us. Anne Marie Pace, author of Vamperina Ballerina, had to reschedule since the Virginia snow shut off her power. It’s pretty amazing that we were able to pull off so many connections even with bad weather.

Highlights from the day included:

Okle Miller, librarian in Tampa Florida, and I read We Are In A Book. Okle was Piggie and I was Elephant. Kindergarten students loved it! We tried to play into the cameras in order to look at our audiences.
Kathy Schmidt in Gwinnett County, GA had students listen to me read Same, Same but Different and talk about what was the same and different about living just 48 miles from each other.
The amazing Laurel Snyder shared a favorite picture book with 2 fourth grade classes and then gave them a sneak peak of a new chapter book.
Jesse Klausmeier, author of Open This Little Book, skyped with our students and Shannon Miller’s students in Van Meter, IA at the same time. A favorite question from one of our students for Jesse was “Did it make your family happy when you wrote your book?” We all almost teared up. So sweet!
I shared a favorite story by Colleen Sally called Epposumondas Saves the Day with Mary Priske’s 4th grade in Mt. Vernon, IA and Mrs. Griffith’s 3rd grade joined in too. Students in both states chanted “sody, sody, sody sallyratus” as I read.
Laura D’Elia, librarian in Massachusetts, and I read Same, Same but Different and compared living in GA with living in Massachusetts. Students in Massachusetts had 1:1 iPads while we have 1:1 netbooks.
Lisa Waggett at GoForth Elementary in League City, TX and I read Same Same but Different to 1st grade classes and compared our 2 states.
Mrs. Brink & Mrs. Ramseyer’s 2nd grade students read poems in 2 voices with Jeff McHugh’s 4th grade students in Arlington Heights, IL. Our students had a lot of energy and it was fun to combine our voices across the miles to read poetry.
Jody Feldman, author of the Gollywhopper Games, read aloud to our 5th graders and allowed them to ask questions. She also gave them a preview of the sequel.

What a packed day filled with releasing words into the air across the country. Skype is such a powerful tool to connect us beyond the walls of our school. It was so interesting to see how much our students don’t know about beyond the boundaries of Athens. I predict that the work that we did today will lead to many long-distance collaborations with libraries around the country. Let’s continue to share the power of reading, connect our students, and understand what it truly means to be part of a global community!

March 1, 2013 by plemmonsa

Read Across America and the World!

We can’t just celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday and Read Across America Day in one day at Barrow.

Look at all these readers!

The Trufflemakers, our winning 5th grade team

Making a game plan

On Thursday, we kicked things off with our 5th grade battle of the books. Five teams competed in 3 rounds of competition. The Trufflemakers and the Fellowship of the Books made it to the final battle. I didn’t think either of them were going to miss a question. The scores ended up being so close, but in the end, the Trufflemakers came out on top. Prana, Gabriel, Sarah, Taylor, and Cassie will now move on to the district competition. Good luck team!

Today, we held our annual Dr. Seuss Day with more guest readers in classrooms than I can count. Ever year just when it seems we won’t have enough people, we end up with 2-3 readers in every room! Many thanks to Kim Ness who took over this project for me and recruited all of our readers. She was such a huge help in this fun day! We had parents, community members, Sigma Phi Epsilon brothers, and even UGA athletes read Dr. Seuss books to our students.

I’m even more excited about what we have coming up next week. March 6th is World Read Aloud Day.

It’s a day to unite our voices around the world, celebrate the joy of reading, and change the world! Through twitter, facebook, and a Google Doc, I’ve collaborated with authors and libraries around the country to have a skype session every 30 minutes with lots of class is our media center. Just take a look at our schedule:

8:30	Carney K, Vertus-K	Okle Miller Tampa, Florida
9:00	Boyle – K, Li K	Matthew Winner Maryland
9:30	Freeman- 4th	Laurel Snyder, author http://laurelsnyder.com/ Atlanta
9:45	Hocking – K	Jesse Klausmeier, author http://www.jesseklausmeier.com/ & Shannon Miller’s Students
10:30	Olin- 4th grade	Mary Priske 4th grade Iowa
11:00	Yawn – 2nd gradeWright-2nd grade	Ann Marie Pace, author http://www.annemariepace.com/ Virginia
11:30	Selleck-4th	5th Grade Laura Beals D’Elia Massachusetts
12:00	Stuckey – 1st grade	Lisa Waggett GoForth Elementary League City, TX
12:30	Watson-1st	Kathy Schmidt Gwinnett County
1:00	Ramseyer – 2nd Grade Brink – 2nd Grade	Jeff McHugh Arlington Heights, IL
1:30	5th grade	Jody Feldman, authorhttp://jodyfeldman.com/ Missouri

I can’t wait to connect our students with so many students, libraries, and authors around our country. In many of these experiences, we will do a shared reading. I will read parts of a book and the skyping guest will read part of the book. Also in each session we will have time to make connections with our guests. We’ll find out a bit about where they live, what they like to do, etc. With each experience, students will broaden their world beyond the walls of our school and beyond Athens. I can’t wait to see what happens!

February 28, 2013 by plemmonsa

Skyping with Little Free Library

Our 5th grade Little Free Library Project is moving ahead. You can read about our progress here and here. A few weeks ago, I talked with Rick Brooks, co-founder of the Little Free Library movement, on the phone. He contacted me after seeing my Youtube video introducing the project to our 5th graders. After a few emails and facebook posts back and forth, we finally had a long phone conversation where we discussed other Little Free Library projects in schools as well as some potential ways that technology could be incorporated into our Barrow project. I shared with him how our students were working in teams where each student had a specific job to do such as researching, writing, designing, and presenting. During our call, he offered to help us in any way he was able to, so I suggested a Skype session with our students. He was happy to do this.

On Tuesday and Thursday, Rick skyped with researchers, writers, and task managers from Ms. Cross and Ms. Slongo’s Class. He told them a bit about the mission and vision of Little Free Libraries, shared specific parts of the website students might visit, and suggested some videos for them to watch. The kids were able to ask Rick questions about things like green building techniques, location of little free libraries, and which libraries seemed to be more popular than others. We even had a student have a conversation with Rick in Spanish.

More than anything, this Skype session made the project more “real” for the students. They left the session with a new energy for the project. Rick is following what we do, and we appreciate the time and energy that he has put into this worldwide movement and especially for taking time out of his busy schedule to support our small project here in Athens!

February 21, 2013 by plemmonsa

“Same, Same but Different”: Making Connections through Blogging with 2nd Grade

983 miles to Van Meter

I’m so excited about the project that two 2nd grade classes are working on right now. Mrs. Ramseyer and Mrs. Wright’s classes are connecting with Shannon Miller’s 2nd grade students in Van Meter, Iowa. Right now, our 2nd graders are working on opinion writing. The idea for this project started there, but it has grown into so much more through email and face-to-face conversations with the teachers and tweets, emails, and Google Docs with Shannon Miller.

Yesterday, the 2 second grade classes came to the library to kickoff the project. We looked at Google Earth and mapped the distance from our school to Van Meter Elementary in Van Meter, Iowa. It is 983 miles and would take over 15 hours to drive there. Students were also curious about how long it would take to walk there, so Google Earth showed us it would take about 304 hours! With the approaching snow storm, I’m not sure I want to try that one!

Next we talked about what it means to blog. I showed them the library blog and how it is read by people all around the world. We even looked at the Clustr map showing where our blog readers come from. I was trying to build their understanding of how large your audience is when you publish your writing online.

The students will use Kid Blog to create their blogs. This tool allows you to quickly create multiple accounts through an Excel spreadsheet upload. No email addresses are required. Then, all students have to do is go to the blog, select their name, and type in their password to type their posts. We took a look at this, and you should have heard the excitement when they saw that their names were already on the screen.

Writing our paper blogs

Finally, we had the kids brainstorm with a partner what they might write about in a first post. We wanted the focus to be “About Me”. Before we sent them to tables to write, I reminded them of the importance of not including personal information such as full names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. At tables, each student wrote a paper blog post about themselves. Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Ramseyer, and I all walked around and conferenced with students on their posts. We were impressed with how much students were willing to write. I was reminded of the importance of kids having an authentic audience for their work and how motivating that audience can be to even the most reluctant of writers.

Same, Same but Different will be a theme for our conversations

Today, we connected via Skype with Shannon and her students. We read the book Same, Same but Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw. It was such a perfect book because it pushes the notion that all over the world we do things that are the same but they might look a little different. During our Skype, we paused and let the kids talk about Iowa and Georgia. They stepped up to the camera and asked questions about one another about the weather, activities, and school population. They made several connections to the story. For example, in Iowa it is about to snow a lot. It takes a major snow for them to get out of school. We get snow here in GA, too, but we get out of school if there is just a dusting. Same, same but different! As we blog with one anther, it is our hope to share our favorite books and opinions as well as continue to explore the idea of how connected we are in the world even though things might look and sound a little different. I have a feeling students will continue to say “Same, same but different”.

On Monday and Tuesday, our 2nd graders will type and post their blogs. We will mail our paper versions of our writing to Iowa so that Shannon’s students can practice commenting on them before they actually comment online. She will do the same with her students’ writing so that we can practice commenting, too.

From there, we hope to connect some more through Skype and through the continued writing of our blogs.

This is going to be a very rich experience for these students, teachers, and librarians!

Students stepped up to ask one another about living in Iowa and Georgia

February 20, 2013 by plemmonsa

Connecting Libraries with Extra Yarn (Part 2)

Today, Ms. Seeling’s students had the chance to connect with another Kindergarten class in Van Meter, Iowa. Librarian Shannon Miller and I read the book Extra Yarn once again and students made bookmarks to send to one another. It was another magical time.

I made some fun observations this time:

Students wondered if Shannon’s students could read the same letters that they do.
Students wondered if they would get their bookmarks in the mail by this afternoon.
Students wondered if Shannon’s students were in another country.
Students had personal stories for each of their bookmarks.

Any of these wonderings would have been great next steps of investigation in the library or in the classroom. The personal stories really made me curious, so I grabbed my phone and tried to capture a few of the stories. Each student had a reason they were using particular color and shapes. Many were trying to tell the Van Meter students something about themselves through their artwork. It really made me wonder how many stories we miss from students about the work that they create when we don’t stop to listen. I want to do better capturing these kinds of stories.

Bookmarks are almost ready to mail to Iowa.

Since Shannon and I connected our 2 classes, I’ve had some brainstorming going on with teachers and other librarians about other activities to do with the book Extra Yarn. Today, Ms. Seeling talked about doing a compliment web using yarn. A student gives another student a compliment and then tosses the yarn to that student. This continues until students have made a big web of yarn. Kathy Schmidt in Gwinnett County brainstormed with me on twitter. Now I really want to read the book again and try some of these new activities. There’s always next year. Who wants to connect? It’s not too early to start planning 🙂