We are expanding our Summer Institute into several institutes across the country. Look for information about an upcoming event in Garland, TX (near Dallas) on October 22, 2010 on K-5 vocabulary teaching. We will also be scheduling another spring Richmond, VA institute in 2011 and one in Nashville, TN in 2011.

Of course, we will also plan on our 5th Annual Summer Institute on July 14-16, 2011 in Houston as well. Click here for Information and Registration, as it becomes available.

I am now blogging and on Facebook. You can join me in either format, the blog at www.debbiediller.wordpress.com or on a Facebook group at www.facebook.com/pages/Debbie-Diller/104914043602. The same information is posted both places and is updated several times each week. This has been lots of fun. Check it out and see where I've been traveling, what I've been seeing, and what teachers are up to around the country. I'd love you to leave comments to make this a really interactive venture. Thanks for joining me on "A Journey in Learning!"

If you haven't seen it yet, check out my newest video, "Think Small"! It shows how to plan, teach, and reflect upon a variety of small group reading lessons and was filmed in kindergarten and first grade in two bilingual classrooms. What a joy to see these kids in action!

The newly reprinted Literacy Work Station Task Cards are finally here and are part of my Debbie Diller Design line at Really Good Stuff! Included are task cards for 8 different work stations written for emergent and fluent readers: Big Book, Buddy Reading, Classroom Library, Drama, Listening, Poetry, Word Study, and Writing. Each work station set of cards includes 7 meaningful, developmentally appropriate tasks for that level. Full-color illustrations add visual cues to ensure success. Each task is translated into Spanish on the reverse side. Includes 8 sets of 7 task cards plus 1 title card each, written for 2 different levels, and printed on laminated cardstock; hole-punched, with O-rings included. The task card sets are sold separately (emergent OR fluent levels) as well as in a complete set for emergent and fluent.
Click here to get the complete set

Stenhouse is also launching a new Flickr site featuring Spaces & Places ideas. We invite you to visit us at http://www.flickr.com/groups/spaceandplaces/ and post photos of your classroom spaces. We’ll be able to view photos from many classrooms and use these to discuss each other’s classrooms. The site will use photos for points of discussion. I’m very excited about this new online capability, and I’ll check in to the site periodically to view photos and post comments!

My dear father, Fred Royer, passed away in Pennsylvania on July 25, 2008 at age 79, after a courageous battle with bone cancer. I was so blessed to be at home with my family (we were all there) in PA the weekend he died. Dad was my first and best teacher (a cost accountant by trade), and I miss him terribly. When I was little, he told us bedtime stories every night, and he loved to read and write. He was an avid gardener (we ate home-grown produce from our backyard all year long), as am I. And he loved to be active—walking, golfing, hunting, fishing, biking, bowling, going to the gym—until he got too ill to do so. In my last conversation with him, the day after our Summer Institute, he was doing deep-knee bends with my brother, though he told me they’d have laughed at him at the gym! He was trying to “keep up his strength,” he told me. My dad was a wonderful inspiration and mentor and was so proud of the work I got to do all over the country. Dad died right after our Summer Institute, and I think of him so much at this time of year. My new book, Math Work Stations, is dedicated to my dad.