March | 2014 | Reflections on the Teche

Archive for March, 2014

Ten Things Right Now

Posted in Books, Gratitude, Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged flowers, spring, ten things on March 11, 2014| 15 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 11. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Faced with another Slice, I turned to the Two Writing Teachers blog for inspiration. Never fails. On March 8th, they featured an idea used by blogger Mandy Robek “10 Things Right Now.”

1. My friend, James Edmunds (Poor Clio) posted on Facebook “loved today’s March watercolor sunshine.”

2. Reading poetry by Barbara Crooker.

each day, we climb
a few more inches
up the ladder of light,
and grackles and redwings
return, bringing postcards
of tropical sun.

3. Started A Snicker of Magic: Felicity Juniper Pickle collects words:

Popsicle
Paper star
Poppy-seed muffin

4. Tulips on the kitchen table.

5. Remembering my Uncle Stu. His funeral was yesterday in Georgia. I wasn’t there. My mother wasn’t there. I thought of my cousins all day long. My uncle always hated to say goodbye.

6. My husband has been cancer free for 8 years! Here’s a picture of his new running shoes. Aren’t they cool? St. Patrick’s Day green!

Jeff’s new running shoes

7. Meditating for two weeks. Here is a sample from my journal:

Meditation on the words from Emily Dickinson, “Love is the furniture.”
The chair holds me, all my thoughts I brush away with a word.
I sit again and again
in silence, waiting for angel’s wings,
symbols of love.
No words, no thought.
Just light
twisted, jeweled light
wrapping me up in love.

–Margaret Simon

8. The return of my former student to Slice with us. I have missed her voice. This is a small sample of a poem she wrote about Mother Nature. Our class blog is here.

Her feelings come and go
As quickly as leaves fall
In the brisk autumn months.
Her heart will always be with the earth.
If you are quiet, you can hear her heart thumping, thumping,
Dancing to the beat of the cicada song,

9. Cooking with my daughter: The menu is shrimp tacos with mango salsa.

10. Supportive principals: School #1, I got permission to take my 5 gifted students to a local fast food restaurant to solicit donations for an upcoming community service project. School #2, One of my third graders wants to raise funds and food for the local Humane Society. She wrote out notes of her plan and presented it to the principal at recess. She got the go ahead.

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Kidlit Book Club for Adults

Posted in Books, Gifted Education, Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged Letters about Literature, R.J.Palacio, Wonder on March 10, 2014| 11 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 10. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

I teach gifted in a public school district. In my two schools, I am the only gifted teacher, but in my district, I am one of 6 elementary GT teachers. Yesterday, we met unofficially. We decided to start a once a month book club for reading middle grade literature. We decided that we needed to know more about what was new and what better way to learn about new kitlit than to read and discuss it. A little wine and some snacks, too.

This first month we decided to read Wonder. A few of us had read it and loved it. Wonder is one of those important books. If you haven’t read it, you must. For me, the book has taken on new meaning through two children.

One is my nephew, Jack. Jack’s school district in Round Rock, TX. did a “One Community: One Book” project. Everyone in the community was encouraged to read Wonder. Jack is in third grade, and he wrote a letter to the author to be able to attend an event where she spoke. He told me later all about it. R.J. Palacio told the story of how she came to write Wonder. She was in an ice cream shop with her children, and a little girl with a facial deformity came in. Ms. Palacio was not happy with her reaction. She mulled it over and over. That drove her to create August.

When we read Wonder in my classroom, I did not even consider my student Brooklyn. I was reading it for all of the other reasons; it’s a great book and teaches so much about how to choose kindness in this world full of intolerance. I thought it was important to teach this point, but I didn’t even think about how Brooklyn lives like Via, Auggie’s sister, every day. Her brother and her mother are disabled. She knows the looks people give, the head turns, the feeling of being different. But Brooklyn doesn’t feel different at all. Her life is totally normal to her. She expressed this beautifully in her letter to R.J. Palacio for the Letters about Literature contest.

Like Via, I get very angry when I see someone staring at us like they paid us to put on a show. They look my family up and down, but when their eyes get down, they stay down, staring at my family’s legs. “They aren’t aliens! They are just like me and you, but their legs don’t work exactly the same.” I say this every time, but only in my head. I’ve tried to see what they see, but I just can’t see it.

Momma always told me that God gave me to her and the family for a special reason. Your book helped me to realize being different isn’t always bad. Usually, I feel like no one understands what it is like living with my family. No one understands how normal it can be. Your book changed that. You understood, and I want to tell you thank you.

Next month we have selected to read A Snicker of Magic. I haven’t read it yet, but have seen lots of good reviews. Looking forward to reading and sharing with my colleagues who love a good kidlit book, just like me.

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DigiLit Sunday

Posted in Digital Learning, Slice of Life, tagged Haiku Deck, Slice of Life Challenge, Tamera Will Wissinger, technology in the classroom, YouTube on March 9, 2014| 16 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 9. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Calling all teacher-nerd-bloggers to join in the DigiLit Sunday Round-up. I will be hosting every Sunday. This is a huge leap of faith on my part, so I am hoping I have some leapers join me this week. Mr. Linky is waiting at the bottom of this post. Link up your own Digital Literacy post. I am still looking for a logo. Any ideas are welcome. This is all new to me.

One of my biggest problems in using the Internet in my classroom is blocking by the district network. I am pleased that YouTube is now available. This is due to the new curriculum our state is using that requires use of YouTube videos. So this week we were able to view a video by Tamera Will Wissinger. She read a poem to us from her book “Gone Fishing.”

A student from another class doing the Slice of Life Challenge wrote about Kid President, so we watched a few of those. I’m sure there are more ways I can use YouTube in my classroom. I welcome your ideas.

Still I run into frustration, especially when we are trying out new apps. I wanted my students to try out Haiku Deck that Kevin Hodgson led me to. When we pulled it up, all the parts worked except the pictures were all blocked. The best part of this app is the beautiful images to choose from. We managed to find a few pictures that would work, but only by trial and error.

Another difficulty we’ve encountered this week was that most blog sites are blocked. Fortunately, the Two Writing Teachers was not, so I could link up our class’s blog to the Classroom Slice of Life Story Challenge, but if the other classes use any site other than Kidblog, the site is blocked. We are able to link up with other slicers through Kidblog.

I am trying to teach my students about fair use of pictures from the Internet. Mary Lee Hahn talked about using the Google Search Tool under Usage Rights: Labeled for reuse. The problem with this is most pictures that are reusable are blocked. I have taught my students that for use in the classroom on projects and PowerPoints, we can use a picture that is not creative commons; however, if they are going to use it on our public blog, it must be an original picture or one for reuse.

I’m sure many of you are running into these kinds of roadblocks and welcome any advice for working around and with them.

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Celebrating Comments

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Gratitude, Poetry Friday, Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged comments, dancing, poets, Slice of Life, teachers, writing on March 8, 2014| 7 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 8. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Celebration Saturday is hosted each week by Ruth Ayres at Discover. Play. Build. I love this idea of taking time each Saturday morning to reflect on the week. Today I celebrate family, health, dancing, Poetry Friday and my students.

I have been writing a post every day for the Two Writing Teachers (really 6 writing teachers) Slice of Life Challenge. I have challenged my students to do the same. We were out of school for the first 5 days of March, so I was pleasantly surprised when some of my students posted every day. And one of my former students has joined us as well! See their blog Slice of Life Challenge.

Yesterday, I gave my students a comment challenge. At first, I told them they should give as many comments as they get. Then I grabbed a bag of Starburst candy and said, “How many comments can you do in an hour?” One student put a tally chart on the board, and they were off. Two of my girls went to the library for more computer access and quiet. The average was 10 comments per student. By the end of the day, my eight ELA students had written more than 120 comments! And I checked them. Most of them were making a thoughtful connection. It remains to be seen whether they will keep up the pace next week without the candy incentive.

I want to celebrate health. I was down for two days this week with a nasty cold. Luckily, we had a break from school. I was able to pamper myself with lots of tea and rest, so on Thursday morning when I had to go back to school, I was well. Energy returned on Friday. My husband and I went Zydeco dancing Friday night to Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band.

If you didn’t stop by for the Poetry Friday round up yesterday, please take a look. So much richness in this Kidlit blog-a-sphere. I celebrate all of the wonderful teachers and poets who linked up and left comments. I feel the love!

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The Line Lifter

Posted in Poetry Friday, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Dogtrax, Kevin Hodgson, lift a line poetry, Slice of Life Challenge on March 7, 2014| 42 Comments »

Poetry Friday Round-up is Here!

Slice of Life Day 7. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Slice of Life Day 6. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Watch out! There is a line lifter lurking in the cybersphere. He goes by the odd name of Dogtrax. He’s been reading poems and stealing lines and writing poems of his own. He also went so far as to make a Prezi for his class, as if this is a practice they may want to emulate.

I have to say, in all honesty, that this practice is the highest form of praise for a beginning student writer. My student, Vannesa wrote a poem posted on my blog here. Kevin, aka Dogtrax, wrote this poem in response.

Who comes from words
I come from words
and you come from the punctuation
at the end of my words
where we can both pause for a second
to think about what I meant to say
when I was writing words
and you were reading them.

-Kevin

Just a few days ago, my former student, Kaylie, joined our class Slice Of Life Challenge blog and posted this fabulous poem inspired by my mother-in-law’s visit last year. Kevin strikes again.

The sun climbs the earth again
feet dragging along the hillsides of my youth
and I wave farewell to the moon and the stars
and the constellations that were stories of my dreams
in order to embrace the warmth of the sun
and welcome the day.

–Mr. Hodgson
Sixth Grade Teacher
Southampton, Massachusetts USA

I find Kevin’s practices on the Internet inspiring. He posted a Haiku Deck poem recently, so I tried my hand at it also. WordPress is not supporting the embed code, so I made the slides into images to post here. This is a haiku version of a poem I wrote for Laura Shovan’s Pantone Poetry Project on Author Amok. (Today is her last day, so sad. It’s been a fun month.)

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app

Today is Poetry Friday and I am celebrating my 300th post! (Throws confetti!) The round-up will be gathered my Mr. Linky. Please come back often to read and comment. As one of my students said today, “Comments are fluffy!”

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Open to Friendship

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Author Amok, Laura Shovan, nerdlution, One Little Word, Open, spring, writing on March 6, 2014| 4 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 6. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Click here to view the roundup at One Grateful Teacher.

It is day 6 of the Slice of Life Challenge and Day 38 of Nerdlution. Time to reflect a bit. I am sitting on what we call “the boyfriend bed” in the study writing while my dog, Charlie, and cat, Mimi, nap nearby. This is how I spent most of the last two days, taking it easy on a break from school and nursing my cold.

My nerdlution to exercise did not happen. I used my cold inside and the cold outside as my excuse.

However, my nerdlution to write happened in the form of Slice of Life blog posts and poems for Laura Shovan’s Pantone poetry project. Take a moment to read the wonderful poems about Jewel Blue and Peacock Green. We all did research before writing. I used the ghazal form for my poem. This project has kept me focused and creative.

The last nerdlution goal was to be more responsive to my One Little Word Open.

I reflected on my week to see how I was Open. Then I remembered my Saturday walk (before the cold front came in.) I walked with a friend who lives a few blocks away. I took a chance that she would be home. Not only was she home, but her husband had gone hunting, so she was free to take a walk with our dogs. We had a great time sharing experiences of grown daughters. I took pictures of blooming flowers and blooming trees thinking spring was on its way. I Open myself to creativity, spirituality, and also to friendship.

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Give up/ Take on

Posted in Slice of Life, Spiritual Growth, tagged Episcopal, Lent, Michelle Haseltine, nerdlution, One Little Word on March 5, 2014| 13 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 5. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. I am an Episcopalian. We do Lent. I will go to church later and have ashes put on my forehead and hear the familiar words, “You are from dust and to dust you will return.” If you think about it too much, it’s kind of scary. But I like the humility of it.

I have been reading a number of blog posts by teachers and by students. Yesterday, I read a student’s post about being yourself. Even as a grown-up this is hard to remember. I want to compare myself to all those other blogging teachers out there. I want to look at myself and wonder what I could be if I just made a decision and stuck with it.

Sometimes, though, it comes down to just being the best of the you you were made to be. I think that is the purpose of Lent. Lent’s not so much about the brow beating, guilt wrenching suffering of giving up. It’s more about sitting with God and adsorbing all the love he has to give and then living your own life. Not the life that you think you should be living, but the one you have. To the fullest.

Before I get too preachy, let me set my goals for my Lent. I did New Year’s resolutions that lasted a few weeks. I signed on for Nerdlution at the end of January and pledged to exercise, write, and be Open (my one little word for 2014). Now Lent. I’ve decided to give up sweets and not for the usual reasons. I want to loose a few pounds and I don’t want to diet, so practically speaking, giving up sweets may be all I need to do. (And exercise more, #nerdlution continues…)

Photo by Jennifer, Creative Commons, Flickr

The real practice for Lent will be my “take on.” I want to take on random acts of kindness. I have been inspired by Michelle Haseltine at One Grateful Teacher. Michelle set this goal for her Nerdlution. I have enjoyed reading about all her kind acts and amazed at how really easy it can be.

Now I am committed. I’ve made the pledge publicly. And I threw away a not quite empty bag of mint chocolate M&M’s! Tragic.

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Stormy Weather

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Author Amok, color poems, Laura Shovan, metaphor, Pantone colors, weather on March 4, 2014| 7 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 4. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Today must be “Opposite Day.” While yesterday I posted a joyful Mardi Gras celebration video, today I am sitting in bed with a glass of tea, a decongestant that hasn’t started working yet, watching the cold rain mixed with sleet come down. If we didn’t already have the day off for Mardi Gras, I would have called in sick or the superintendant would have cancelled school due to icy bridges. The bayou is steaming. The flowers are drooping and saying, “Hey, what gives?”

While I was driving to New Orleans on Sunday, the clouds were billowing, a warning of this day to come, I suppose. As I watched the clouds, I was struck by a metaphor of a bridal gown. Who knows why. I looked up some bridal gown terms and wrote a poem. Laura Shovan has been doing a poetry writing challenge at her blog, Author Amok. She posts Pantone colors every day, and we are invited to write a poem and submit it to her. This has been great practice for me. Her colors for today include Stormy Weather, how appropriate.

http://pixabay.com/en/clouds-sky-storm-rain-thunderstorm-56788/

Partly Cloudy

The bride was dressed in billowing waves,
blue-grey Chantilly lace layered
over a white-topped empire waist.
Her scalloped neckline accented by rays
of sunlight peering through a cathedral train.
Her attendants, those high Mississippi kites,
flew with utmost grace
announcing her imminent arrival.

–Margaret Simon

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Mardi Gras Time

Posted in Slice of Life, tagged family, Mardi Gras on March 3, 2014| 9 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 3. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

I am spending time with my sister and her family in New Orleans. Happy Mardi Gras! Yesterday we spent the day on St. Charles watching the crowds, catching beads, and dancing with the passing bands. Two of my daughters met us. I love coming when Beth is here because we stay at her mother-in-law’s home in Kenner, eat her fabulous Indian food, and my brother-in-law drives us to parades. The best way to do Mardi Gras, in my opinion. I made an Animoto video of our day. Hope you enjoy!

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Digital Learning or Digital Fun!

Posted in Digital Learning, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged chalkabration, digital literacy, Moviemaker, Paint, Slice of Life on March 2, 2014| 15 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 2. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

My students worked hard all week and finished the week’s assignments, so on Friday we had some free time. We usually celebrate with Game Day. And some students did play games, but I worked with Vannisa on a different project.

For Chalk-a-bration Day, Vannisa wrote a poem using a series of color words. When you look at the poem, it really just looks like a list of words, but when I talked to Vannisa about it, she said, “Close your eyes and imagine each color as it changes to the next one.”

Her comment made me think. What about using Paint on the Promethian board and creating a video of a single flower changing color? Vannisa liked the idea and set to work.

This whole process took an hour for her to do. Most teachers don’t have this kind of time to allow a student to “play.” I have the luxury of working with small groups of gifted students. Putting the images into a Moviemaker movie was fairly quick. One thing, for sure, Vannisa had a good time putting it all together. My question is this: Was this experience just fun or was there learning involved? And what learning may lead to further learning? Will my other students want to illustrate a poem and make a movie? Is this a valuable use of class time?