What's On My Bulletin Board this Month

(If you are having trouble seeing the pictures, click here to go directly to The Pithy Python.)


I like bulletin boards that share my student's voices. I remember seeing one pre-fabricated fall bulletin board in a school library with cutesy squirrels and a voice bubble saying, "We're nuts for books!" And I'm sure they purchased one for every month of the year with the same big-eyed animals and the same lame puns. Gag.

On my bulletin board this month are submissions to the Idea Box.
The dozens of ideas fell into several categories.

I had invited students to suggest names for the Library Bunnies in the animations.
Just a few, spelling intact:

John and Mery
Name the bunnys Mary and Gordon
Yoko and Sam
Bob and Amey
Pickle and May May
The names should be Freddy and Fred
SRURS (Cyrus?) and Lilly

and a compliment, "Your show shold be named FUNY!"

The second category was all about Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggy books, with some Pigeons for good measure. I am rather puzzled by these. Are they suggestions for me to buy the books? I own them all. Are they simply notes about favorites? Perhaps. But many of them actually ask someone (me? the author? the person who opens the box?) to WRITE more of them. (For two must-read, dazzling analyses of why Mo Willems is a genius, click here and here.)

mak mor pigeon books
get u more books of dont let the pigeon drive the bus




Elepht and Piggie make more thak you
brand noo elephant and piggie book
Elephant and Piggy
I will suprise my friend


Of no particular category but especially enjoyable to me:

maby you sould buy ritle books (riddles)
Let the kids hata ie cone (ice cream cone?)
you should have muffins or cupcakes on Mondays
Read Natalie's gay and lesbian book to every class
(more on this one later but I did co-author a manuscript)

And finally, a typewritten complaint about Mad magazine, claiming that it is inappropriate, not good literature, concluding,"And if a parent found out they might protest or something" and signed, "An anonymous student who cares about your reputation."

Do I have a good job or what?

Here's a 4 min. video of two emergent readers enthusiastically tackling Mo Willems' There's A Bird On Your Head. Expression? check. Enthusiasm? check. Joy and laughter? check.