On of my favorite things to hear is children giggling. Even thinking about kids laughing and chuckling makes you smile, no?! An author study that I love to do in my classroom, that ALWAYS brings lots of giggles, is Mo Willems. Reading one of Mo Willems' books is entertaining no matter how old you are. {Sometimes I probably think the books are even more funny than my students do!} A few weeks ago I posted this picture on instagram. My class was having a little BIG issue with using the restroom correctly {YUCK}, so I went to the library and checked out this book. Who knew a book with the word "pee" in the title could work "Bathroom Miracles"!? :) Thank you Mr. Willems. Time to Pee! After reading the "Pee Book" {as it was referred to by my students} my kids were so excited to start our Mo Willems Author Study. We mastered many of our ELA standards, just by focusing on this one author. Mo Willems makes reading fun! Here are some of the activities that we did... We learned all about Mo Willems and examined what he does as an author and illustrator. As we worked through this unit we tried to be an author and illustrator just like him. We examined characters in Mo Willems' books and compared their adventures and problems in the stories. Of course one of our favorite characters was Knuffle Bunny! Pigeon was a big hit too! The kids loved changing their voices while they were reading to sound just like Pigeon. Probably one of the favorite characters that my students got to know was Wilbur from the book Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed. They were so creative when they got to dress their own Naked Mole Rat! Piggie and Elephant {my personal favorite Mo Willems' characters} were a huge hit! The students are still selecting these books for in their independent reading book baskets! If you don't have Mo Willems books in your classroom library...they are a MUST! I recommend purchasing hardcover ones, they will be read over and over again--getting lots of wear and tear! As we read Mo Willems books we discovered that as an author he uses his characters to teach us lessons. Even though we are done with this unit, my students still refer to books and characters that we read during our author study. I will randomly hear, "You should share like Piggie." or "I am a leader like Wilbur." Melts my heart! :) If you are interested in doing a Mo Willems Author Study, I recommend this unit to you... Included in the unit is all the chart parts, printables and crafts shown in this post! Click on the picture or HERE to go check it out! The best part of Mo Willems' books are the joy and fun that he brings to reading...something that is so important as we develop our students as "Reading Lovers"! Here is a little FREEBIE to help you celebrate this amazing author!

Find out what triggers panic attacks, what they feel like, and the after math of them in this how to guide for writing panic attacks.

This post is actually about an activity we did a few weeks ago. {I'm trying to catch up on all my posts!} I have seen on other blogs where teachers have students sort the books in the Scholastic catalogs that we all have lying around. I decided to incorporate that into our author's purpose is as easy as pie theme with this super fun activity. We have visited author's purpose throughout several units this year, so students were already very familiar with the concept. I had saved the Scholastic catalogs from October and gave each student one. They cut out each book cover and placed them in a pile. I picked up the pie pans at the Dollar Tree. Each table got three pie pans. The students were so excited when they came in and saw their "baking" gear laid out for them to use. I placed bulletin board paper on their desks to prevent the little book covers from falling in the floor. The cute chef hats are made from sentence strips and tissue paper. Once they had their book covers cut out, they got to sorting! We had to have several conversations throughout the activity to clear up any confusion with some of the trickier book covers. And they were having conversations of their own, debating on which pan to place some of the books. It was so interesting to hear their take on author's purpose! At the end, we pulled out some of the books and discussed whether or not we thought that pan was a good choice for the books. Some groups decided to make changes to their sort. I was so excited to hear them using the language I had taught them and applying what we had learned. If you are interested in doing this little activity, you can download the author's purpose labels by clicking on the pic below. I just printed them on cardstock and folded them. Graphics by Melonheadz This was our anchor chart students referred to all throughout the unit. The mini posters are from my Author's Purpose Unit. We were so lucky to have a snow day today! I got caught up on so much and got to stay in my sweatpants all day! Win, win! Have a great rest of the week!

Looking for delightful Pinterest boards for authors and writers to follow? Here are 30 Pinterest boards specifically for you.

Teaching ideas, lessons, resources, activities, and helpful classroom information for teachers in elementary, middle school, and high school grades!

I started this blog to share my real, regular life as a disabled person. I travelled, I tried to write, I got married, and had a kid. The fact that I’m a wheelchair user makes life interesting, but not undoable. I don’t try to overcome my disability, I prefer to work with it. I don’t want to undo my Cerebral Palsy, a positive outlook won’t change it, and I don’t want to. I am disabled and proud. My frustrations spring from inaccessible buildings, closed-mindedness, and the opposite of inclusion. On this blog, my wheels weave into everyday life. I don’t mention them in every post for a few reasons. I don’t think about my wheels every day. They are a fact. Like my big hair and my dirty laugh. A part of me that mostly isn’t any bigger than the other parts. I mentioned my wheelchair on my About page, and wrote about the rest of my life. When I redesigned the blog, I added an Author photo on the sidebar that includes my wheels. I began to write about my disability more often. Several people responded: I didn’t know you used a chair. And that worried me for a […]

We’re well into week three of our Tomie dePaola author study and knee deep in Strega Nona’s world! My class has fallen in love with the characters in these books. Their folkloric quality, Big Anthony’s bumbling, Bambolona’s brusqueness and Strega Nona’s endearing ways have captured their hearts and their attention. We began this part of […]

Are you getting ready to teach inferences but you have no idea what picture books you can use to solidify their thinking? This blog post does just that!

This year I updated some of the activities in my writing center and I am pretty excited about the changes! I have most of my writing centers in a pocket chart (the pocket chart you can find HERE and

Please give me a follow at: Learning Thru Play In TK I hope you enjoy this cute Owen craft. This will make an adorable bulletin board display after reading this sweet story to your littles. Approximately 12" tall. YOU MAY: *Use free and purchased items for your own classroom students, or your own personal use. *Reference this product in blog posts, at seminars, professional development, workshops, or other such venues, ONLY if both credit is given to myself as the author, and a link back to my TpT store is included in the presentation. *Purchase licenses at a great discount for other teachers to use this resource YOU MAY NOT: *Claim this work as your own, alter the files in any way, or remove copyright / watermarks. *Sell the files or combine them into another unit for sale / free. *Post this document for sale / free elsewhere on the internet (this includes Google Doc links on blogs). *Making copies of purchased items to share with others is strictly forbidden and is a violation of the TOU/law.

Join my Pinterest Group Board for authors, readers and everything books - increase your followers - increase your traffic - meet others in your niche.

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently did a huge website overhaul to make sure my blog was appropriate for a fancy author sort of person. Also, since a lot of you seem to like my blog post about author business card designs, it seems that sharing a few tips from my research […]

Ok, just because I've been gone from 'blogging land' doesn't mean we haven't been working hard in 4B. I've definitely been documenting a lot of what we've been doing! To start, it was clear to me that our old way of peer conferencing just wasn't working. Kids seemed to be goofing around, not really helping each other, and it was a waste of everyone's time. It frustrated me when most of my one-on-one conference time was spent managing unruly PEER conferences. I knew something had to change. I decided to revamp our workshop so that our peer conferences would hold both the author and the peer more accountable AND work on our 6-traits language. I introduced our 'new' method for peer conferencing using this anchor chart to document our process. After students finish drafting, they are to grab a 6-traits peer conferencing sheet and assess themselves by circling all the descriptors for each trait that they feel match their own writing. Mind you, we did a lot of whole-class practice with scoring writing based on the 6-traits criteria so students would feel comfortable doing this process on their own (and being HONEST!). Through our mini-lessons we've learned that it's possible to have high scores in some traits but lower scores in others. That's how we grow! Here you see Devin circling where he thinks his writing falls on our 6-traits rubric. (Note: The link to the 6-traits peer conferencing sheet above will bring you to an even more updated version than the one shown in this blog posting! Just FYI!) Here's another student assessing her own writing after she's drafted. This student has finished assessing her writing using our rubric. She decides on a final number score and circles it to the left of the descriptors. Then it's time to meet with a peer. (We have a peer conference sign-up sheet in our room which helps students know which other students in the room are also ready to peer conference.) Here you see this author reading his story to his peer. After he's done reading, he will explain to his peer the scores he gave himself and why. It's important for the peer to listen carefully to the author because it will soon be her turn to assign a score to this author for each trait . On the lines on the rubric, she will write to explain the scores she gives him. The peer needs to follow the following sentence stems in his/her scoring response: * I give this a writer a ___ because... * This writer needs to work on ... This process requires peers to truly work together, hold each other accountable, and it gets the kids using our 6-traits language a lot more. The second sentence stem helps the writer establish a goal for what to work on when revising! To see more of this peer conferencing process, watch a clip of us practicing this stage! Our focus lately has been on the trait of organization. We've been looking thoroughly at different beginnings and endings of both student and published writing. Here is our anchor chart documenting what we noticed! In other Writer's Workshop news, these are a few additional anchor charts we have in our room to help keep our writing organized. This anchor chart reminds us of powerful words to use to spice up 'said'! In reading we have been working hard on purposeful talk.This is so very important to the social construction of knowledge in any classroom! It's essential to teach students purposeful talk behaviors before even considering literature discussion groups (LDGs). The majority of kids talk like...well, KIDS! So, if we expect kids to talk like mature young people about different texts they read, we need to explicitly teach them how! Talking about Text by Maria Nichols is a great place to start if you're interesting in learning more about purposeful talk behaviors. I taught each of the behaviors individually through two separate mini-lessons - one day to explain 'hearing all voices' in a concrete way (without text), and a second day to practice 'hearing all voices' using text. Then I taught 'saying something meaningful' in a concrete way without using text, and the next day we practiced 'saying something meaningful' using text , and so on. Eventually all of the purposeful talk behaviors kind of blended together and kids started to discover that we often need to use all of these things at the same time in order to truly talk purposefully about anything! We did a lot of practicing, and I've been taping students in this process. Here is a clip of students practicing their behaviors while they talk about their families. (We had read a few books about different kinds of families to foster a safe environment to celebrate the fact that we all have different kinds of families!) We also had students practice their purposeful talk behaviors while discussing their best or worst memory in school (which helped warm up their brains for a timed writing activity we did during writer's workshop). Here is a clip! As a class, we watched these video clips to analyze our body language and other purposeful talk behaviors. I think taping and analyzing is a very effective way for students to learn how they should look and sound in an LDG. 'Keeping the lines of thinking alive' is a tough concept for many youngsters. Sometimes what happens is that students take turns talking, but they don't really build on what the person before them said. In other words, they don't really DISCUSS, they just share and listen. We applauded the first group in this clip because they had good body language and were respectful as listeners, but we discovered their conversation needed to be more 'alive' by asking questions and making connections to each other's ideas and thoughts. Mrs. Pierce and I taped ourselves doing a weak LDG and a strong LDG. As we watched each example, we used dots and lines to 'map out' our conversations (see chart below). In the weak LDG, we discovered Mrs. Pierce and I shared a lot of individual thoughts. The thought started, and then it stopped. There was really no discussion about anything we said; and Mrs. Pierce wasn't even looking at me during part of our time together! How rude! ;) In the strong LDG example, we mapped out a lot of dots and lines that were connected because we took each other's ideas and built on them. We truly discussed the text to dig deeper. We introduced several conversational moves for students to use to help get their voice heard in a conversation. Students also have these conversational moves on a bookmark that they keep in their LDG books. After we learned the respectful ways to speak and act when discussing with others, it was time to teach our kids how to flag their thinking. This is a crucial step to holding a successful literature discussion group because it allows the kids to track their important thoughts while reading so they have ideas for discussion the next day. Here are the 'codes' we use to track our thinking on post-its. We encourage students to use one of our codes to categorize the kind of thought they have and then write a few words to trigger their thought. This helps them when they get into a discussion group; they'll actually have pinpointed ideas to discuss! Students kept a chart in their Thoughtful Logs with all of our codes on it for easy reference. Here's a clip of our students as they practice flagging their thinking for the first time. The next day, students put all their new learning to the test. We put them in small groups to discuss the text "Slower Than the Rest" which is a short realistic fiction story out of Cynthia Rylant's book Every Living Thing. On another day, we used a high-interest two-page non-fiction text about leeches to continue practicing flagging our thoughts. Here's a clip of our kids flagging their thinking just after we modeled it during our mini-lesson. Below are some pictures of the kids' flagged thoughts. In addition to purposeful talk, we've also been studying the historical fiction genre. We've read several mentor texts, including Dakota Dugout by Ann Turner and Dandelions by Eve Bunting. Our first round of literature discussion books are all within the historical fiction genre. Here are a few of our historical fiction LDGs hard at work: Dear Levi: Letters from the Overland Trail Scraps of Time: Abby Takes a Stand The River and the Trace (I think I put my finger over the microphone at minute 2:00!) Oftentimes, historical fiction books will have a flashback in them. One group's book, called A Scrap of Time: Abby Takes a Stand by Patricia McKissick, has a flashback that occurs towards the beginning of the story. I photocopied some of the pages to try to explain this technique during a whole class mini-lesson. In the first section of the book, three grandkids are spending time with their grandma in her attic. They find an old menu and ask their grandma why she saved it. Chapters 1 through 12 flash back to 1960, where 'grandma' is just 10-years-old, living in Nashville, Tennessee at the time of a lot of civil rights protests. The menu is from a restaurant where a lot of sit-ins took place. Through the flashback a reader learns all about life during the 1960s. In the final section of the book, a reader finds him/herself back in the present - in grandma's attic, where the three grandkids ask their grandma some questions about her life during the sixties. There was also another flashback in the story Dakota Dugout by Ann Turner. We also read The Wreck of the Zephyr by Chris VanAllsburg as an example of a flashback in a fantasy book! In other reading news, here is a picture of the anchor chart that stored all the non-fiction text features we've learned. In social studies, we've been studying the economy of the five U.S. regions. Students have been reading small sections of non-fiction leveled readers to summarize a product or industry that is important to each region's economy. Students are typing up their summaries and we're calling those summaries 'articles' as they each create a magazine of our economy. Through this project, students have learned to: * Summarize main ideas * Center and left-justify their cursor * Use the tab key to indent * Change font size, color, and style * Bold, underline, and italicize * Safe image searches * Copy and paste * Cite their picture resources Here is the inside of one student's magazine. Next week we will be using this site to create magazine covers! Lastly, we had a chance to meet with our second-grade buddies earlier this month. We split the buddies up into two groups and one group stayed with Mrs. Adams to play holiday bingo. The other group was with me in the computer lab. Buddies used this site to play a variety of math and English games. One of the most popular games to play was called 'Story Plant' where students could click on different leaves to create the beginning to a unique story. Depending on what leaves were clicked, you would get a different combination of characters, settings, problems, etc. The computer generates a beginning to a story that the kids can print off and finish during writer's workshop! Have a wonderful weekend!

Discover essential strategies to streamline and enhance your marking process, making it faster and more effective for all grade levels.

As a full-time blogger, not every workweek is the same. But I do notice that some things continue to make their way on my to-do list. So I want to share what I do every week to grow and maintain my blog.

For all the writers reading this blog, here’s my cheat sheet for the Plotting Board Method of plotting, which I learned from Cherry Adair. The Cherry Plo...

Visualizing the text is such an important strategy used for building your students’ reading comprehension. It is very versatile as it can be used in different ways with students of all ages and reading levels. I

An educational blog hosted by a collaborative group of teacher-authors hoping to share creative and colorful ideas and activities from our classrooms!

Been planning to start a blog but you don't know how to come up with a blog name that represents you? Read my ultimate guide to picking a blog title!

It’s so much fun to learn about flowers with these worksheets that teach the life cycle of a flower for preschool. Perfect for spring and summer learning!

People often wonder what professional proofreaders use for research, so I thought I’d share twelve that I reference regularly. These are the print and online editorial resources that are invaluable to me as a proofreader and editor. They’re what I use to do the majority of my research for various kinds of content, including blog […]

I have had this blog post just sitting as an unfinished draft for a while now. I am finally getting around to publishing it! In November we ...

Learn five powerful tips to ace your final practicum and stand out to schools when they're hiring teachers for the next year.

The blog for the wonderful artwork from Suffield Elementary!

With my new book release of 12 Things to Pray, I have had a ton of sweet friends ask how they can help support me in my writing career. I have shared in the past with y'all 10 Ways to Support Your Friends Who have Independently Published Books and today I wanted to share 12 Ways to Support Your Friend who is an author! I am so appreciative of all of your sweet encouragement and support and I hope this post sparks some great ideas on how to support your friend!! 1. Pre-Order their Book or Purchase their Book on the Day it Comes Out... or whenever! *smiles* This might be silly to even suggest but the reality is that many author's closest contacts won't think to purchase the book. This might be because they have heard almost every word and version of the book before it has even gone to print (*smiles*) but the reality is that for whatever reason many close family members and friends won't actually purchase a copy. Take the time to complete this simple step and this will be a huge support to your friend! Many times authors have chosen to use amazon ads for authors (which is highly effective) and by pre-ordering you help others take note of the book. Consider pre-ordering the book or at least mark your calendar to purchase the book the day it comes out. Both of these types of things help to generate traffic to the book and help the ranking of a book which in turn helps generate more traffic. Of course - it NEVER hurts to purchase a book at anytime! *smiles* Want to go an extra mile? Purchase a copy for someone outside your family and send it to them! 2. Write a Review Just purchasing the book and reading it is a wonderful gift to your friend but what would help them even more is if you would take the time to write a review of the book (Amazon, BN.com, and Goodreads)! It can be all the same review- and it doesn't have to be long at all! Most new (and seasoned) authors (even those who are using a traditional publishing house) do not have a huge marketing campaign budget for their books. Due to this they are doing all of the marketing themselves with a little help from their publishing company. Your words and testimony about their book will speak volumes to many people who aren't familiar with your friends' work! One of the largest pieces of help for me in selling my book, "Praying through Lyme Disease" has been the generous and gracious reviews that I have gotten. I have received several emails from people saying that the whole reason they purchased the book was because of the reviews! So take the time to write a review! I can guarantee that your friend has a goal of at least 20 reviews per book so pass the word to your friends and ask them to write reviews for your friend also! It will only take you a few minutes but will be of lasting help to your friend! A review also helps with ranking so write reviews!! 3. Reserve a copy at the library. I learned this tip just a little bit ago but it is a great one! If all copies are reserved from a library before the book is released, the system notes the popularity of the title and marks the book as "order more". 4. Request the Book in Local Bookstores Taking the time to say to a local (or national bookstore branch): "I am looking for __________ and can't find it. Do you have a copy of ______________?" is priceless. If enough people request a title, bookstores note this and there is a good chance they may order a few to have on the shelves! (At home? You can even call your local bookstores to request this and help your friend!) Is the book already carried by your local bookstore? Still take the time to speak with a bookstore customer service clerk about the book. The hope and goal here is that if several people do this the employee starts to take notice of the title and is more apt to pick it up, read it, recommend it, or even place it creatively in the bookstore. 5. Think Outside the Box and Share Connections Chances are, you know someone who could use the book that your friend has published even if it doesn't directly relate to you. Purchase the book and send your friend a copy! Think outside the box and think of the people in your life that you know that you could connect your author friend or their book with. One dear friend just purchased a couple of Praying through Lyme Disease books and told me that she donated it to her community center and her church in honor of Lyme Disease awareness month. I literally had tears. It was the best gift and I felt so honored in this month that is dedicated to my disease. 6. Share Their Business Card Most authors, including myself, have a business card that we hope will help us spread the word about our books. If you don't feel comfortable passing on the book to a variety of places perhaps you would feel comfortable with passing out your friends business card? Contact them and ask them for a bunch of business cards that you can have on hand to help spread the word about their projects! Live in a different city, state, or country then your friend? EVEN BETTER!! You will be helping them with marketing even more!! 7. Talk About Their Book on Social Media Share, share, and share some more about your friends projects on various social media forums. It will be such a blessing to them!! Ask your friend if they have a hashtag for their specific books and use that in your social media comments. Volunteer to "social media love" your friends work! They will be so grateful! Want to go the extra mile? Take a picture with your friends book! People love seeing friends they know with their own copy of the book. 8. Word of Mouth Recommendation and Book Club Recommendation Talk about your friends book to people you know. Many people purchase books solely based on a friends recommendation and many book clubs decide on books based on what people are talking about. Never doubt the power of your words to help spread the word about a new book. (Using December Caravan or one of my other books in your book club this year? I would be happy to send you some extra goodies for your group. Email me and I will be happy to chat with you in further detail!) 9. Invite Your Friend To Share About Their Book (or their story) Work at a school? Maybe the book doesn't fit into the topic that you teach or the school age kiddos but your friend could share about the writing process or about publishing a book or maybe their personal story or a variety of other things. Work at a Christian School? Is your school looking for a chapel speaker? Consider your friend! Work at an office? Maybe your office is looking for a once a month lunch speaker. Suggest your friend! Work at a Church? Invite your friend to your Bible study to have them share their story or to your church for a ladies luncheon. Work at a bookstore? Have them in for a book signing! Stay at home mom who attends a mom meeting? Ask your friend to come in and share about their book. Again, the topic might not exactly fit but your friend would love the opportunity to get their name out there and to share a little bit about their book, writing, or their heart.Most authors, including myself, are trying to start a speaking ministry and are trying to book different types of speaking engagements. I know most authors, myself included, would be so grateful for any thoughts or invitations. (And DO NOT let distance deter you. You may be on the other side of the world but I know so many authors, including myself that would love to travel to come and speak. Authors and speakers will travel anywhere to talk.) 10. Share Your Connections for Where They Are Traveling. Perhaps your friend is traveling for business, pleasure, or personal reasons. Do you have connections in the area that they are traveling? Share their information and the resources with them! I know that I am always looking to connect with people in upstate NY/Vermont and the south (both places where I spend 1/2 of the year) and in San Francisco (where my medical team is at). I have always been so overwhelmed by the generous connections people share whenever I am traveling. 11. Host a Book Party. Similar to the various parties that exist (i.e. makeup, jewelry, etc.) consider hosting a "book signing party" and have your friend as the key star. This will encourage people to purchase your friends book, interact with them, and get to know more people! (Don't let distance deter you- you can always host a book party online!) 12. Give the Gift of Donating Books to Those Who May Not Have a Chance to Afford it Otherwise. Want to bless someone with your friends book who may not ever have another chance to read it? Maybe you could gift a copy of a book to your church library? Maybe you could gift a copy of a book to your doctor's office (if the book relates to medical information like my Lyme books) or to the local hospital library. Purchase an inspirational book for the homeless shelter. Purchase an encouraging book for your domestic violence center. Think outside the box and it will not only benefit your author friend but have ripple effects in your community. Along with this topic I want to say how grateful I am for y'alls help in the things I mentioned above. As I am dealing with health issues it is not always the easiest for me to make these connections and I so appreciate any and all help. If you ever want to chat about any of the above things I have mentioned please feel free to email me! Thank you so much for your help with this journey! I appreciate your help and know that all indie authors do!! If you are looking for other posts that I have done on writing and publishing tips you can find them HERE or in the links below: 4 Tips for Making Your Self-Published Book Look Professional 20 Tips for Successfully Self-Publishing your Book (or E-book) Everything You Need to Know About ISBN For Your Independently Published Book (or E-Book) 10 Ways to Support Your Friends Who Have Independently Published Books

Not sure, how to do SEO for blog posts? The post explains exact steps to write a seo friendly blog post and optimize your blog post with keywords.

Have you recently started an email list? Congrats on taking a step forward to turn your mom blog into a legit business that makes money! Oh, yea. When I started Twins Mommy, one of the first things I did was start an email list. It wasn’t in the first month but in the second or […]

In an era of high stakes testing, art is sometimes the first thing to go but we as teachers need to find ways to continue providing art experiences for our students. Not only is art just plain fun, and let's face it, kids do need fun, but it's much more than that. Art is beneficial in so many ways! Find out ways to incorporate art in this post by The Teacher Next Door.

But first, the publishing stories worth reading this week: Amazon is Quietly Eliminating List Prices (David Streitfeld for The New York Times): A fascinating look at the deterioration of the list price/discount marketing tactic and how it’s influencing online commerce, including the massive online book business. I thought this was a must-read this week, and it’s […]

4 ways to handle difficult behaviour: find your safe space, learn to take responsibility, model positive behavior, teach conflict resolution.

I'll show you how authors can save a ton of time scheduling posts on social media, all while growing your audience and seeing bigger results.

An author visit at school is one of the most rewarding things at school. I absolutely LOVE having author's visit the school because it opens the eyes...

Okay, I promised some blogs about my plotboard. Now, I can’t claim to have invented the idea – far from it – but I’ve been tweaking my own approach to using index cards and pins to help me visualise my book for about six years now. I’m quite a visual thinker and it helps me to ‘see’ the structure of my book this way. It also provides a place to put all those ‘lightning bolt’ ideas I get about my book before, during and after the first draft. You know the kind of ideas I mean: the ones you get when you’re minding your own business, not even really thinking about the book and – BAM! – suddenly you know why your heroine is acting that way, or the perfect setting for a scene comes to mind, or just a line of dialogue pops into your head and triggers something off. When I get those kind of ideas – and they are generally my best ones – I scribble them down and pin them to my board. My board follows a chronological timeline of my work-in-progress, and when I think about where to pin that scrap of paper it often becomes instantly obvious where and when it should go. Do things move and change as I work on the book? Absolutely. That’s why God gave us coloured pins! That’s the beauty of a plotboard: nothing is set in stone. Anyway, here’s my first plotboard. This was the one I used for Her Parenthood Assignment. My whole approach to plotting was much less sophisticated (and probably much less neurosis-inducing) back then. I’d read that a good way to plot was to think of 20 things that needed to happen in your book. That’s what the pink index cards are: 20 plot points for the story. Then, as other ideas came to me, or notions of how I could develop those plot points floated to the surface of my consciousness, I tacked them onto the board next to the relevant plot point. Later that year, I listened to the audio recording of Michael Hauge speaking at the RWA conference in Dallas. I loved the way he divided a plot into six stages, with a turning point between each one. I’d already read The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler, and was familiar with the steps of the hero’s journey, but Michael Hauge’s approach was simpler: basically three acts, with a turning point in the middle of each one. So I started trying to incorporate that into my board. Here’s version number 2, which I used to plot Christmas Wishes, Mistletoe Kisses (although, by the looks of it, I took this picture fairly early on in the process.) I turned my board landscape and divided the space into six sections with bits of string (well, actually it was yellow wool left over from a pair of socks my grandma had knitted me years before) and labelled those sections and the turning points at the top. Now when I had an idea I didn’t worry so much about getting it in exactly the right chronological order, as long as I stuck the scrap of paper in the right section I’d know where to find it. From what I remember, I decided to colour code to help me pick out the essential info. The white cards are plot events, the pink cards relate to my heroine’s journey and the blue my hero’s. Yellow cards were snatched of dialogue and the green were things to do with theme. I carried on using this format for a couple of years. Where I placed the cards and what colour they were changed as I tried different things out. Sometimes I was very fixed on cataloguing character arc and plot separately; sometimes I just threw it all on there any old way. The main disadvantage was that I could see the plot flowing from card to card in one long line, as I had with my earlier version. Then I read Save The Cat by Blake Snyder. Great book, and I loved his idea of storyboarding too. He divided his story board into four horizontal strips: Act 1, Act 2a, Act 2b and Act 3. I immediately decided to try the same thing, and discovered I now had room to use my plot point cards in chronological order, but I still had room to pin all the little flashes of ideas around them too. So this is how my current plotboard looks like: This the the board when I was halfway through writing The Ballerina Bride (US title)/Dancing With Danger (UK title). Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough already for this post, so next time I’ll talk about the structure of the different acts and what goes where.

5 strategies to teach students who have ADHD: be flexible, minimize distractions, sensory space, hands-on learning, and integrate breaks.