Slice of Life Day 21. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.
Poetry Friday Round-up is at The Drift Record
I am constantly amazed by my gifted students. They can process and learn at such a rapid rate. I love words. That’s no secret. They know it. So we often spend time talking about words.
Vannisa, a 4th grader, and I are reading A Snicker of Magic together. (Actually, she has passed me up.) I asked her to put some of the magical words on the board. She made a list including felicity, serendipity, paradigm, gargantuan, spendiddly, snicker-doodle, lickety-split. Aren’t these great words?
I pulled up a poem that Katie Muhtaris posted on her blog Coffee Fueled Musings to show her students how to use strong verbs. Her poem, Oreos, inspired Vannisa to write about cookies.
Chewy Cookies
Stretching for the red box it slumbers in,
peel off the wrapper
decant a glass of milk into the tall transparent cup.
Let the flow of white water dive into the pool of air.
Snatch a crispy golden cookie.
Devour the serendipity.
Taste the felicity of the snicker-doodle.–Vannisa, age 10
Matthew, otherwise known as Magic Matt on our class blog, took a break from his magic tricks to write a poem. He didn’t know it was good. He told me, “Don’t post this anyWHERE.” Then I read it and said, “Wow!”
Matt said, “Mrs. Simon, did you just say Wow about one of my poems?”
I think you will say Wow! too.
Felicity
Felicity fills my soul,
warming my heart like a gargantuan fire.
Isolated mountains dot the Earth
like looking through a kaleidoscope.
A paradigm of God’s grandest creation meeting reality.–Matthew, age 10
Reflections on the Teche 