Unplugging and Plugging In

Happy March and National Day of Unplugging.

It's an important crusade, to get us off of our devices because, left to them, we risk getting sucked in to too much screen time and missing precious moments.
This post suggests we aim for 4-6 hours outside per day. Why not? That's nearing the average time that teens spend online.

Today, I suggest we charge the battery that is our heart

with a laptop of another kind, the read-aloud ...

{with or without a child atop your lap}.

With that, three new-to-me titles for your shelves.

My first suggestion is the hilarious Grumpy Monkey to tickle your funny bone and help nurture emotional awareness and regulation.

Click image for a read aloud.

Jim Panzee awakens one day to find that nothing feels quite right, so, one by one, his friends suggest that he might be feeling grumpy. Uncertain about what it is, he's pretty sure it's not that he's grumpy. They point out things like how his body is hunched and how his face is bunched, but no, Jim is sure it's not the grumps. As you might imagine, the more his friends insist, the more Jim pushes back. They even offer some strategies to help him enjoy the day and help his grumpies go away and, when nothing makes sense, he comes to accept that maybe he is grumpy. Can he use his grumpy-day experience to help normalize what Norman is feeling? Brilliance in a book; check it out.

Love Big is another title you won't want to miss. The second in this Kat Kronenberg series, this jungle jewel finds the animals looking for love in all the ~~wrong~~ right places as they juxtapose for position and wrestle with loving big, even if that means loving the small, like a dung beetle. What they learn remind me of what Dr. Jody Carrington, author of Kids These Days, says, that relationship knows knows no hierarchy. Check this one out next.

My third rec for your laptops today came special delivery in the mail this week from the Hayes class family in Ohio.

My battery charged when I Skype chatted with them this morning.
Oh, how I love this class of second-grade superheroes.

Click the image for a read-aloud.

This gem will bounce into that tender spot in your beating heart:

"Because with love in our hearts, we can do anything."

When Boo gets too tired and thinks he can't go on, Big takes his paw and shows him that he can when he's supercharged by love. Love, that one little word that can move mountains.

"The love in our hearts could change thunder to song,

and carpet a pathway, no matter how long."

Love.

One small word.

A big, unparalleled energy surge.

What can love do for you today?

And, in return, what will you do to love?

This Tommy Spaulding treasure will show you how

love can help your Who Leadership thrive.