Posts Tagged ‘Periscope’
I did a Periscope yesterday on a topic that had been requested by a Brave Writer mom: How I make time to pursue my own interests and hobbies while homeschooling, writing, juggling doctor appointments, etc. Great topic!! Had a lot of fun with this discussion.
And here’s the book I mentioned in the scope: Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher. As I said, this was my second time reading it, so you know it was enjoyable. A comic yet touching epistolary novel in the voice of a beleaguered, earnest, overly frank, romantically inept English professor at a second-tier university. Now, you know I’m a sucker for an epistolary novel! This one’s academia setting gives it a unique flavor. You’ll never read letters of recommendation like these in the real world (alas).
What’s happening in my house today:
Receiving a fax from Grandma and Grandpa. Today’s lesson in technology brought to you by 1992. (I’m amazed the thing still works!) Huck really wanted to reply by putting his piggy bank through. Perhaps we’re still a tad fuzzy on how the tech works. (Let’s face it, it always seemed like magic to me.)
This one’s for Emily:
My “things that influenced my homeschooling style” slide from the Brave Writer Retreat.
Okay, first things first! Here’s the link to my Brave Writer Retreat Resources page that I mentioned in the Periscope I just finished. I’m still adding links and books to this page—things that came up in the course of our discussions at the BW Retreat. For some reason the comments are broken on it, but you can leave questions here on the blog, or ping me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
I just finished a scope on the glorious time I had at the retreat, which you can view here: Popping on Periscope after a long hiatus and invigorating Brave Writer Retreat. I’m listening to the replay right now and it seems to be a bit spotty—some gaps in the recording here and there? Not sure what’s up with that. But you’ll get the gist. 🙂 And as usual we veered down a lot of rabbit trails. Scrivener, Hobonichi, Gotham Adventures, loads of things.
After SDCC, I’ll get myself back into a regular Periscope habit (and I think it’ll be fun to do some scoping from Comic-Con itself!). So many good topics and questions came up during the retreat, things like building habits and read-aloud strategies and comics suggestions and “towooshuns”—tons of juicy stuff I’d like to address both here and on Periscope. So stay tuned for that. I’ve returned from Cincinnati rejuvenated and eager to talk more about Tidal Homeschooling and comics and kidlit and habits and, oh, everything!
Things I mentioned in the ‘scope:
Scott’s Gotham Adventures books
Comixology
Scrivener
Hobonichi Cousin (my planner)
Wild Simplicity Daybook (here’s a post I wrote about it)
Midori Traveler’s Notebook (featured in my Planner Love post)
I hopped on Periscope this afternoon for a quick Q&A about Journey North Mystery Class. If you’d like a peek at our graph (behind as usual) and a walk-through of the project, here you are.
December 4, 2015 @ 10:23 pm | Filed under:
Books My friend Sarah Mackenzie of the Read-Aloud Revival podcast is in town for a speaking engagement, so we got to hang out for a while. (Kortney, we missed you!) We decided to hop on Periscope for quick hello and wound up chatting about Betsy-Tacy and Little House and middle-grade vs. chapter books, and all sorts of bookish things. Super-fun. Come back soon, Sarah!
Sarah interviewed me on Read-Aloud Revival a while back—here’s the link if you missed that episode. If books are your jam, you should subscribe to the podcast; Sarah has some awesome guests lined up for next year—and the archive of previous episodes is full of riches.
How to find us on Periscope: I’m @melissawiley and Sarah is @amlovelythings. 🙂
1. Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett: always our first book of the season. My younger three love it every bit as much as my older three did. I’m right there with them—the troll voices are so much fun to read aloud, and there’s a bit at the end that chokes me up every single time. Plus we have a red wooden horse exactly like the one in the book!
(Why has Amazon started slapping a copyright notice on book covers? They’re fair use.)
2. I really appreciate the downloadable lock-screen calendar Inkwell Press provides for free every month. What a nice gift! I like being able to turn on my phone and see what day it is without clicking to my actual calendar. I’m lazy that way. If you sign up for their email list, Inkwell will send links to each month’s wallpaper options—lock screen, home screen background, and desktop. Pretty nifty.
3. I mentioned this on Facebook and Twitter last night, but for those who missed it: 50 Incredible Minecraft Seeds You Must Try is free on Kindle right now and it’s pretty darn cool. It includes seeds for PC, Pocket Edition, XBox, etc. My kids and I were pretty excited to explore some of the Pocket Edition maps today…there’s one with four villages squished together and another with a mountain village that looks like something out of Howling Fjord. I ran around the mountain one for a while and it was a hoot. The blacksmith shop is high up on a rocky crag above the rest of the town.
4. The Jacquie Lawson Advent Calendar! We look forward to this every year. It’s an animated Advent calendar with some new little piece of story to click on every day. I’m glad my friend Phoebe reminded me to download it today. (Costs $4.) This year’s theme is “Victorian Christmas,” which, you know, had me at hello.
5. Periscope: I’ve done about one scope a week since I started. I never know if I should post them here! You can view all my replay videos at katch.me/melissawiley, but I could upload them here on the blog, too, if it would be helpful. Actually, I suppose I ought to start posting a list of links for stuff I mention in each scope, since show-and-tell seems to be what I wind up doing every time. Okay, there’s a plan (but not for tonight). Yesterday’s was called “A quick Monday hello” and is pretty chatty. Sometimes I have a structured topic, and other times I’m just there to gab. 🙂
Popped onto Periscope today to discuss readalouds, including how I approach character voices. You can catch the replay at katch.me (or watch it below). I dust off my Scottish accent around minute 27. 🙂
Picture quality seems a bit dodgy–sorry about that. It looked fine on my screen during the recording!
I’ve been meaning for a while now to give Periscope a try, because I think it would be a great platform for the kind of book- and resource-sharing I like to do here on the blog. This evening I decided to pop on for a trial run, just to see how the platform worked. To my surprise, viewers started arriving within seconds! I spent about ten minutes chatting with some very supportive friends, and I loved it. I’m hooked. This is something I can have a lot of fun with.
I’d love to know what topics you’d be interested in hearing me chat about. Today’s viewers gave me some excellent suggestions, including doing some read-alouds of my work. I’m keeping a list of ideas and will try to do a scope at least once a week, if I can work out some better lighting than what I was getting in my bedroom for today’s impromptu recording.
Because I hadn’t yet signed up with katch.me to archive my scopes, this one will only be around for the next 20-something hours. By tomorrow evening (Pacific time), it’ll be gone. (Sunday note: I was wrong! Katch.me caught it after all.) I’ll aim for another round early next week, so let me know in the comments here what you’d like to chat about! And thanks so much to the sweet friends who dropped by and encouraged me with all those happy little hearts bubbling up on my screen. 🙂
