Since my back injury, I’ve not been able to run and of course can’t play soccer. So I’ve found other ways to exercise. I’ve taken up T’ai Chi. I did some Shaolin Kung Fu in college, so I understand a lot of the movements, stances, and breathing exercises. It’s been fun to play with the movements, and I feel extremely relaxed. I think I’ll go practice right now and then return to my writing…

By the way Stir The soup is one of the Movements...

Along with writing I plan on reading a great deal this summer. Here’s a list of the books I plan on reading:

The Absolutely Diary of a Part-time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

The Friendship Doll, by Kirby Larson

Star Wars: Choices of One, by Timothy Zahn

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi #8: Ascension, by Christie Golden

Overcoming Dyslexia, by Sally Shaywitz

Echoes Of Fury, by Frank Parchman

Bridge to Terabitia, Katherine Paterson

The First Editions of Charles Dickens, by John C. Eckel

The Complete Illustrated Guide to Tai Chi, by Angus Clark

Quite a hodgepodge…huh? I’m sure it’ll change as the summers goes on…

I finished my sixteenth year of teaching, thirteenth at the same school, Robert Frost Elementary, teaching kindergarten. I attended high school graduation of students I taught my first year at Robert Frost. I enjoyed another awesome year, with wonderful students. We learn and laugh together.

Now it’s summer break, time to spend with my daughters. Also time to hunker down in front of this laptop and write. I look forward to submitting and writing this summer. I just have to avoid procrastination of watching ICarly reruns and surfing Star Wars fan sites.

I thought I’d share this link. It has information of open mic and readings, mostly poetry in the Seattle area: http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=f14ddba94c68d9dacd2109f12&id=e4a9a025e5&e=478e68ea5b

Enjoy

I went to the last Parkplace Book’s Poetry Night, until September. I plan to attend some other poetry readings in the region over the summer. I read A Tree’s Vision. This poem is one of my favorites. I’ve reworked it a few times and have gotten a lot of feedback. Some of the comments I received were they would like to know more about the characters. So I decided to use the idea of the poem in my next work in progress. So we’ll see…

http://www.roykindelberger.com/my-poems.html

This is one of my pictures, a deserted gas station, in New Mexico. It’s another photo that has stories. It’s one I like to look at for inspiration…

http://www.roykindelberger.com/my-poems.html

I’m fascinated by certain pictures. They tell a story and if I don’t know the story, I imagine of what has happened. That’s a lot of what I’ve done on this website. I wrote Tell Me A Story, over a year ago. The picture of the stump has always been a curiosity. The stump sort of reminds me of a Sage in the forest.

http://www.roykindelberger.com/my-poems.html

It’s been extremely busy end of the school year. I finished up teaching my writing class. We had a lot of fun, laughing, writing, and sharing ideas. I hope we can continue this over the summer or during the next school year.

I had them ask me some questions.

Here are the questions they asked me:

1.    How much money can you make writing?

I’d say it varies. You can certainly make a living off writing. The more successful you are the more chances you have. You can do presentations; teach classes, and many, many other opportunities.

2.    What is the longest book written?

This was a fun one. Here’s a link we discovered: http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syltguides/fullview/22F3SA74XBA5Y

These are books I don’t plan on reading to my students.

3.    How many different books are out there (genres)?

We came up with quite a few genres and age categories:

Adult novels (written for adults), Young Adult, Tween books, Middle-grade, Chapter Books, Easy readers, Picture books, Board Books, Magazines, Journals, Poetry, Science Fiction, Adventure, Fantasy, Graphic novels/Comics…just to name some that we discussed.

4.    How many Elephant & Piggie Books, by Mo Williams are there?

14 and they are extremely funny.

5.    What are the best chapter books?

Here is a list we discovered: http://www.amazon.com/Favorite-Chapter-Books/lm/R1N1GMU6V2SH3F

They all shared which books they’ve heard of or read:

6.    What are the most famous picture books?

Here’s a list we discovered:

http://kids.nypl.org/reading/recommended2.cfm?ListID=61

The children knew a lot more of these books.