As I typed the title of this blog post, my heart started beating harder and my anxiety level rose – all because of a blog entry?

Yes, because of a blog entry.  I’ve been thinking about writing this post for some time, but wanted to be careful crafting my words.  I want my message to be heard and the title could cause some teachers to immediately dismiss anything more I have to say.

But this post needs to be written because teachers do have such a profound impact on their students.  And because they are such caring, nurturing humans.  And because they may actually want to hear what I have to say.  And because they may not realize the results of their subconscious actions.

I celebrate the elementary teacher who brings engineering into the elementary classroom.  However, I have observed many more elementary teachers shy away from bringing engineering into their classroom.  Why is that?  Especially when presented with a colorful book about engineering – reading the book and giving students ample opportunity to browse the book at their leisure sounds fairly easy to me.

I’ve observed many a teacher purchase armloads of children’s books – many with pink covers and cute little girls on the front or all types of animal books.  How many animal books does 1 classroom truly need?  What I did not see in these bagfuls were children’s engineering books.

Granted, there aren’t many elementary engineering books widely available, but these bags of books were being purchased at a Reading conference I attended this weekend where my children’s engineering book was available.

“Oh, just an author cranky about book sales,” you may dismiss, but for me it is about so much more than book sales.

For me, it is about creating awareness of the engineer’s impact on our everyday world.  For me, it is about starting very young creating that awareness.  For me, it is about working with elementary teachers to expand their classroom book collections – bringing the world to their students.

Bringing awareness of engineering into the elementary classroom can be achieved with fairly minimal effort, then why isn’t it happening more?

Happy Holidays, everyone! I’m taking a blogging break to spend time with family. Look for exciting, new blogs for the new year! Upcoming topics: Gingerbread Trap Engineers, Growing a Reader: Making Nonfiction Fun, Talking to Children about Engineering and many more. See you in 2010!

Photo from www.greatlakespress.com

I was surfing the web late one night when I happened upon a very interesting discovery – another Engineering alphabet book!

I had been googling (that’s a verb, now, right :0)  “Engineering the ABCs” and wondering why my website was not in the 1^st thousand or so tier of Google hits (but that’s a different story for a different day…)  Amongst those thousand or so hits I viewed on my Google list, one buried near the end of my search caught my eye.  Words such as “project to increase engineering in children’s literature” and “alphabet book about Engineering” electrified my brain.

Since I began my search 5 years ago for engineering books for young children, I had not found a single book that truly represented an introduction to engineering for the preschool to grade 3 set, which is the reason for my current path in life.  So finding another engineering book for young children was a bit akin to finding other life forms in the Cosmos.

This engineering alphabet book is titled “Engineering From A to Z: It’s Everywhere” and was published a couple of years ago by Great Lakes Press.  This company also offers another engineering book for young children titled “My Mom’s an Engineer” – I really liked the title for that one!  The only problem is that in my bleary state the other night, I could not readily find how to order a copy, hmmmm….

On Saturday, I met some other authors from my publishing house.  What a special treat to chat with them as their books are already published!  I met Tom and Veronica Davids at As the Page Turns Bookstore in Northville (http://www.asthepageturns.biz/). 

Tom and Veronica wrote ”Wrestling the ABCs”  – a children’s picture book about wrestling as well as the importance of exercise and nutrition!  Check them out at www.wrestlingtheabcs.com .

I also met Maria Dismondy at Borders in Canton.  She  wrote “Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun” – a children’s book about “having the courage to be who you are!”  More info can be found at www.mariadismondy.com

All 3 of these authors are local to Metro Detroit.  Their books would be a great gift for the young ones (ages 4-9) in your life.  Support the local Michigan economy with books printed in the US and authored by Michiganians!

“Balance is about the moving and non-moving…” 

(excerpted from “Body,Mind,Spirit Guide) 

About putting down the juggling balls.  About stillness.

 Share with me…

      How do you achieve stillness?  What would you  like to do to achieve stillness?

Wow my 1st blog entry!  Sometimes I feel so late to the blog scene, but my Microsoft Word 2003 doesn’t even recognize the term “blogging” and I’m still ahead of my 7-year old son (ahemm, 7 1/2-year old son, he corrects me as he is reading over my shoulder!) just asked “what’s a blog?”  So I can’t be thaaattt far behind, right?

Setting up this blog is another story. You bloggers make it look so easy – I was not prepared for the hours I spent searching for free themes (found some lovely ones at www.freethemelayouts.com) and the time spent configuring my Wordpress settings as well as time to just figure out what each link on my “dashboard” was for!

So I’m here now and ready to write.  Let the blogging begin!