Join the Chalk-a-bration over at Teaching Young Writers
My students welcomed Friday by chalking up some poetry. The principal stopped by and said, “How fun!” Then she asked if we would do it again for grandparents’ day. A great way to welcome the long weekend. Sorry my pictures aren’t clearer. Any advice on taking pictures of chalk art?
A colorful rainbow,
pretty spiral like it’s spinning,
sugar filled gummie land,
a wonderful site to see.
by Tyler
Hip, hip hooray!
Today is Friday.
Happy in my heart
the weekend’s about to start.
Margaret Simon
Reflections on the Teche 
Margaret–I found it harder than I expected! What did you and your students do before you went outside with the chalk? I definitely wrote and revised on paper first. I’m no expert at this but I did go over my words twice with the chalk and I tried to stand right over the words and shoot down with my iPhone. I will be curious to see how you students’ chalk poems will change from month to month.
I told them what we were doing and that the subject was Friday. They wrote in their journals and shared. Then they took their journals outside. I think they were just so excited about the idea of getting to write them in chalk. I think the poem quality will develop over time. I should make a point of keeping these first ones and see how they develop over the school year. Sometimes shorter is harder to write. I tried to do them in the shade. It’s even harder to see them in the sun. I had skinny chalk pieces. I may experiment with different chalk, too.
In earlier posts, Betsy has said that wetting the sidewalk slightly will help bring out the colors-maybe that will help the photos too? Love that sugar filled gummie land by Tyler, and happy in my heart, Margaret. Fun that you’ll get to do it for grandparents visiting! Have a great weekend!
I didn’t think about wetting the sidewalk. May try that next time.
Tyler’s gummie land came from something he wrote about the picture he chose with Tineye. I like how he drew the picture to illustrate it. His was definitely my favorite of the bunch.
All so lovely. These all made my heart happy! As far as the photos, yes wetting the surface helps, however, that is not always an option. I have added shadow on my computer to slightly change the color of the background and that seems to help the colors pop a bit. I am able to edit a bit and sometimes different filters help too. Play around with it if you can but I think they look great either way. Thanks so much for chalking!
My students had a great time. I hope we can participate again. Are you keeping it going during the school year?
Our surface is rather bumpy, so I’m hoping to find smooth sidewalks before tackling our next chalk-a-bration. We have used the fat chalk which I think makes it easier. I like the idea of chalking for Grandparent’s Day (Sept. 8) and posting the pictures to our class website. We’ll see if we can squeeze that into the first week of school!