Did you know that Wednesday, Jan. 29th was National Curmudgeons Day in honor of W.C. Fields’ birthday? I didn’t either until I got an email from Jen Laffin’s blog Teach Write. Jen listed some great writing prompts to use with your students.
My students loved this. I loved giving them a word they didn’t already know, which is a challenge when teaching gifted kids. In their notebooks, they wrote poems and character sketches as well as drew pictures of Grumpy Cat, Oscar the Grouch, and the two old men from the Muppets.
I reminded them of the poem form, definito, which was created by my friend and fellow poetry swagger, Heidi Mordhorst. A definito is a poem of 8-12 lines that defines a word and ends with the defined word.
I worked on this poem playing with a rhyme scheme. Writing this poem cheered me up, out of curmudgeonliness.
National Curmudgeons Day Definito
When your day starts out in slush and mud,
Margaret Simon, 2020
When nothing seems quite right,
When your cat scratches drawing blood,
When you’ve already lost the fight,
When all you want to do is rest
or hide, just slam the door,
You can’t suppress your grumpiness;
Your mom says you’re a boar.
Your face turns green and grouchy,
shoulders glum and slouchy.
It may be better to stay in
as you are a curmudgeon.
Angry Growler,
loudest shouter.A faultfinder,
spirit grinder.Always shut in,
A.J., 6th grade
a curmudgeon.
Reflections on the Teche 
Love ❤️ all that’s here Margaret, your poem, animated page from your sketchbook and Breighlynn’s—such a provocative and inspiring word to share for the prompt. Thanks for all the smiles!
What a fun post. The students are so smart and insightful. Thanks for sharing this form. It’s new to me.
Margaret, I just love what you and the children did with the curmudgeon-a really fun word to say and write about. Thanks for reminding me of Heidi’s new poetic format. See you at SJT on Thursday.
Great poems, Margaret. And thanks for sharing that poetic form. It is new to me and I will have to try it out.
Great word and what fun for your students, Margaret. I must share (please don’t tell) that I work with a volunteer at the store who fits the word “curmudgeon” perfectly. Love that “suppress your grumpiness” and that your student used the word “sourpuss”, too.
Ha! What a wonderful word to explore with kids. I love the notebook entries. There’s something magical about the creativity of kids. So fun. And, I like your poem…when that cat draws blood! Yep, that’s a bad day in the making right there. LOL.
I love these so much! It feels like this would be a good topic for my Wellness Wednesday. Would you let me share your poem and notebook page?
Tabatha, you are welcome to share.
You nailed a curmudgeon in your poem. So did AJ. I’m glad writing them brought some relief. I enjoyed seeing the notebook pages, too.
The word itself is fun! Thanks for this great poem and idea.
Happy Curmudgeon Day! (What you say to a curmudgeon to make them even grumpier! 🙂
You and AJ both nailed it. I wish I’d have known about the holiday. I celebrated early with a Monday marred by crabbiness. On Tuesday, I was recovering, and by Wednesday I could have had fun with it.
I never heard of Curmudgeon Day, but I’m glad you shared it. It’s important to honor curmudgeons–but within and without. I especially like the definito. It’s such a fun form–one of these days I’ll try my hand at one. It’s fun seeing your notebook pages, too.
Hmmm… I had to look back at the calendar to see if I celebrated National Curmudgeons Day without even knowing it, but nope, that was Thursday. 😉 I’m glad you managed to write your way out of your curmudgeonliness. These notebook pages and poems certainly left me smiling!
Clever you to take this day and turned it into a vocabulary lesson and prompt for you and your students! The resulting poems are great, and those sketches are fabulous too!
I love the word curmudgeon. And these poems are fantastic! Thanks for sharing.
This is fun but i wish National Curmudgeons Day wasn’t on my birthday. I like your notebooking page.