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Celebrating a Break Through

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Gifted Education, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged gifted education, Hatchet on March 22, 2014| 7 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 22. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Slice of Life Day 15. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

My post will be short today. I am spending the weekend with my Berry Queens in Jackson, MS. for the Sweet Potato Queens weekend. I’ll be writing about this wholesome-woman-power fun later, but today I want to celebrate what may be a breakthrough.

I have a 6th grade gifted boy who has been extremely underachieving all year long. This is a typical problem with gifted students, boys in particular. He has resisted almost every incentive or motivation I have put before him. I have tried a number of things, but this week I may have made the miracle happen.

Karl(not his real name) may have found the just right book, Hatchet, to finally make him love reading. His reader response on Tuesday, posted late as usual, was 48 words long and began with “I really like this book.” I read this and had a serious talk with him. I did all of the talking. I blasted him. Then I looked at his tear-stained face and said, “You may not think that you are able to do this. You may think you are not good enough to be in this class. But you are here because you are good enough. You can do it.” I took another student’s journal and read to him her response to Hatchet.

I prompted him with questions, “How would you feel if you were Brian and the pilot died? If you had to fly that plane, what would that feel like?” I told him to go read a chapter and come back to the computer and write another response. I threw in more bait. “If you make a personal connection to the book, you can use it as a Slice of Life.”

He came to me later and said with a grin, “I read more than one chapter.” Then he wrote 250 words! Not only did he write more words, he made a connection to the character. I’m not sure if it was the “discussion” or the student model or the just right book, perhaps all three, but I am celebrating a break through. I gave Karl praise, but to top it all off, Anna Gratz Cockerille, the Two Writing Teachers leader for the Classroom Challenge, commented on his post. You can read his post here.

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Celebrate. Open. Build.

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Gifted Education, Slice of Life, tagged Anne Darrah, Musson Patout, Stinson Liles, wooden coffee table on March 15, 2014| 7 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 15. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Celebration Saturday is here. I love Saturdays! I can sleep a little longer. I take a walk with my dog. I feel refreshed. And Ruth Ayres encourages us to reflect on our week and celebrate.

1. Earlier in the week I posted “Ten Things Right Now.” There I mentioned that my uncle had died. I was not able to go to his funeral, but my mother blessed me with a copy of my cousin’s homily. In the latter part of his life, my uncle ran a B&B with his wife on Tybee Island in Georgia. Sadly, I never visited. (Sigh, regrets) Stinson speaks to my OLW OPEN. Every life leaves us with a lesson.

I’m not much of a theologian, but it seems like one of the big points Jesus was trying to get through our heads is that the foundation of evangelism is hospitality … Opening our hearts starts with opening our arms. Opening our doors. Opening our homes.
Seems like, in a way, my Dad lived the vocation we’re all called to.
–Stinson Liles

2. The elementary gifted teachers in our parish are working once a month with a group of sixth graders. Our service project includes a bridge opening ceremony for a bridge in town that has been closed for 3 years for renovation. We are working to get sponsors for our t-shirts. My principal gave me permission to take my 5 morning students on a field trip to solicit donations. We met with the VP of Musson Patout Automotive Group. Here they are receiving his generous donation. They felt so important and proud.

Students with Bart Romero of Musson Patout

3. I have commissioned a friend to build us a coffee table. She sent pictures of the process. I can’t wait to get this beautiful art work into my home. The best part is she is having a great time building it. We all have our different passions. Hers is wood.

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.
–Dalai Lama

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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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Celebrate Slice of Life

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged books, Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss, reading, Scholastic Book Fair, teaching on March 1, 2014| 11 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge!

Celebrate #1: Happy March! Welcome to Slice of Life, a challenge to write every day in March sponsored by the Two Writing Teachers. This will be my third year to join in. My students are also slicing in March. We have a special class blog at kidblog for the Slice of Life Challenge. Since we will be out of school Monday through Wednesday of next week due to Mardi Gras, I encouraged them to get a jumpstart. Some did. Please stop by our site and make a comment. They love comments!

The Cat in the Hat visited the Book Fair! Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Celebrate #2: This week was the Scholastic Book Fair at my school. We also celebrated Dr. Seuss’s birthday. I added to my class library and enjoyed visiting with our librarian, Mrs. Armentor, otherwise known as “The Cat in the Hat.”

Have you read any of these books?

Celebrate #3: My students created a skit for Family Night. It was cute and clever, and they were terribly nervous. The skit was on the theme of bullying. They encouraged everyone to THINK before they speak.

Printable Poster Available:

Before You Speak Think

Celebrate #4: My oldest daughter had her 29th birthday. She went to San Francisco for the weekend to visit a close friend from high school. I wrote a poem for her from Laura Shovan’s color prompt at Author Amok.

29 year old
For Maggie, 2/24/14

Ballerina pink is not your color
as you take to the streets in an obsidian Lexus,
Independent,
daring,
bold
You fly to San Francisco. Run by the Golden Gate;
International orange looks good on you!
Undaunted, throw your hair to the wind—
Quick like silver, don’t look back.

–Margaret Simon

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Celebration Saturday is Here!

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Gifted Education, Gratitude, Poetry, tagged Author Amok, Azalea Estates, Laura Shovan, New Iberia on February 22, 2014| 4 Comments »

Each week I join in with other teacher-bloggers in celebrating our week. The celebration is hosted by Ruth Ayres at Discover. Play. Build. I hope I can stop sneezing long enough to write. Spring is coming and trees are blooming. My allergies tell me so. Today is a gorgeous day in South Louisiana. The sun is shining. The birds are singing. The air is crispy cool at 57 degrees. I celebrate starting my day with a walk. Minga is back to health, so we took our dogs Petey and Charlie to the park. Celebration was prevalent as old friends greeted her, happy to see her out and looking great.

I want to celebrate our 6th grade gifted students. We took them on a field trip this week as part of our WOW (Way out Wednesdays) enrichment program. First stop was Azalea Estates assisted living facility. There the students played games with and interviewed the residents. The room was full of energy. Everyone enjoyed themselves.

Brooklyn interviews Montez about her life for a Legacy project.

Next we went to downtown New Iberia to meet with various entities about our community service project plan. The students were met with respect by the head of the Chamber of Commerce as well as the mayor and city department heads. They did a wonderful job presenting their plans. I overheard one student say to another, “I like feeling special.” I celebrate their specialness and the opportunity to work with a great group of teachers and students.

I also want to take a moment to celebrate a fellow poet and cyber-friend, Laura Shovan. Laura is doing a birthday project at her site Author Amok. She is asking other poets to join in by writing to color prompts. This week I hit a hard spot. I wanted to write to the color Dubarry. I struggled after researching Madame duBarry. I tried a number of times to write something and the results were ~~crap~~, let’s say less than desirable. I told Laura of my trouble and she sent me a prompt through email. “Wear it: Imagine you are putting on an article of clothing in this color. What happens when you walk out your front door?” I was getting ready for bed when a poem with the color Orange Pepper came to me. I wrote it on a sticky note in the bathroom, then sent it to her immediately. She posted it the next day. My confidence is back. Thanks, Laura, for making me feel special.

I bought a tangerine purse–
orange pepper for my shoulder.
My daughter said I looked like I was carrying a satsuma.
The mailman asked if I had anything toxic or potentially hazardous.
But you said,
“Hey, I see sunshine on your shoulder.
Let’s walk together.”

by Margaret Simon

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Celebrating Love

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Poetry, tagged Betsy Snyder, haiku, love poetry, Valentine's Day on February 15, 2014| 6 Comments »

This was a week of feeling the love. and spreading love. Here’s how we did it.

1. Valentines for the elderly: I co-sponsor a leadership group at my base school, Paw Pride. These students decided last week that they wanted to make Valentines for the elderly, so we had two recess crafting sessions, created original Valentines, and delivered them after school on Thursday to a local subsidized housing facility for elderly. The students who came were filled with love and joy as they talked with the residents. A few of them expressed to me how surprised they were at the fun they had. They want to go back at Easter.

Emily’s haiku to the moon

2. Writing Love Haiku: On Friday, I decided to forego a math lesson with my youngest group of students and teach them about haiku. (I guess you could argue that counting syllables is math.) I read to them Betsy Snyder’s precious book, I Haiku You. This was their first experience with haiku. In the 10 minute writing time, a few of them wrote up to 4 haiku poems. Then they illustrated them. The feeling of pride and joy in their writing was heartwarming.

3. Love Poetry Night: Not a huge crowd, less than 20, listened to love poetry Friday night. I read my own poem and a Jane Hirschfeld poem, For What Binds Us, and choked up at the end. “how the black cord makes of them a single fabric/ that nothing can tear or mend.”
Jim recited Rumi. Phanat sang us a French love song. Clare and Bonny both made us tear up with their touching poems. Love is just like that sometimes, touches the heart.

I hope you were touched by some love this week. Join the celebration over at Ruth’s blog, Discover.Play.Build.

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Celebrating Gifted Writers

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Gifted Education, Teaching, tagged Animoto, Brooklyn Mire, Writing Fiction on February 8, 2014| 4 Comments »

Every week, Ruth Ayres encourages me to reflect and celebrate. She rounds up all the Celebration posts on her blog Discover. Play. Build.

In Ruth’s book Celebrating Writers, she also encourages teachers, like me, to reflect on our teaching of writing and to celebrate the writers themselves.

This week my students continued to work on their books. Yes, they are writing books. Their writing has convinced me more than ever that good readers make good writers. My best readers were undaunted by the word count requirement of 1,000-2,500 words. We came to this decision together, so it wasn’t just me telling them they had to write a lot. They were telling themselves, challenging themselves.

Today, I’d like to share with you an excerpt from Brooklyn’s book. (She is up to 2,270 words) I asked my students to select a nonfiction topic to integrate into their fiction story. Sixth grader Brooklyn wants to work with disabled when she grows up. She chose to write about a daughter of a physical therapist who has a crush on one of her mother’s patients. In this selection, she references two books she has read this year. It makes this teacher proud that Brooklyn’s reading and writing have come together and become an integral part of who she is becoming.

When I read, I disappear from our world and reappear in a new world. I never know what new world, but it depends on my book. Books are like a portal. I appear in a new world, but I am still on Earth. I am in a new world, which is the same world I have been on my whole life, with imaginary characters, that don’t seem imaginary. Reading always gives me something to think about, sometimes a lot to think about.

Looking at my bookshelf, I see the 15 books on the right side labeled “Read” and on the other side there are two books, Wonder by R.J Palacio and Out of my Mind by Sharon M. Draper. I have saved both of these books, because Mom told me that they were both about kids with a disorder of some sort. She said in Wonder I would be able to feel how other kids felt with everyday life and other people around them. Mom also told me that in Out of my Mind I could see how it feels to be trapped in a wheelchair with no strength or muscle to move you and no way to communicate and tell what you know.

On Wednesday, the world celebrated Digital Learning Day. I posted about the digital learning my students are using with their stories. One option for them was to make an Animoto book trailer for their Work in Progress. I am celebrating Animoto and how my students can not only become authors, but advertisers, too. Here is Brooklyn’s book trailer. Now, how many of you want to buy her book? If you have any suggestions for places to send a 6th grader’s 3,000 word story, please let me know in the comments.

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Celebrating Writers and Readers

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Writing, tagged Amy Ludwig Vanderwater, Celebrating Writers, Jeannine Atkins, Laura Purdie Salas, Ruth Ayres on February 1, 2014| 13 Comments »

Ruth Ayres hosts the weekly Saturday Celebration blog round-up. She is also the co-author of Celebrating Writers. I received my copy this week. I have been using the writing workshop model for almost 20 years, so I wasn’t sure I would get more information from another book on writing. Of course, I was wrong. We are always growing and learning. Ruth has put into words so much of my own thinking I feel like we must be friends. Her writing style is like that, friendly, clear, and unpretentious.

Order Celebrating Writers

I am happy to report that without really knowing it, I celebrate writers daily. She writes about the importance of response in celebrating writing. Like Ruth, I love blog comments (hint, hint), but I didn’t realize that I need them, too. Comments nudge me and strengthen my writing. Response does this for my students, too. Comments are a necessary part of the writing process.

My students use kidblog. The last few weeks they have been working on writing a fiction story with nonfiction elements. They are posting chapters on the kidblog site. I encourage each student to comment to two students each week. Celebrating Writers helped me nudge them into more meaningful comments.

I talked to Matthew about the meaning of comments to his own writing. He said, “You are a great writer when a reader sees a mistake. It means they are really reading your story.”

Today, I want to celebrate writing. With two free days this week and the nudge of nerdlution, I wrote every day. I love to write poetry, but coming up with an idea can be difficult. I am celebrating all the prompts I got this week from these sites:

Clare Martin at Orphans of Rain and Dark posted this prompt just for me because I had to miss Acadiana Wordlab last weekend.

On Thursdays, Laura Purdie Salas posts 15 Words or Less writing prompt. She posts an image and her own response and calls for others to contribute. This stretches my writing muscles and connects me with other writers.

Poetry Friday is always a rich round-up of poetry to read and prompts to try. This week Amy Ludwig Vanderwater posted on Poem Farm an original poem and a prompt to begin with a line, “Once somebody asked me.” Then as I read further down, I discovered I won a book giveaway. (Do a happy dance!) Thanks to Amy and Jeannine Atkins for View from a Window Seat: Thoughts on the Writing Life. Can’t wait to get this wonderful surprise gift.

And last, but not least, my students are reading, reading, reading! Here’s a group of them, lined up side by side reading on Friday morning. What a wonderful site! And the room was so quiet!

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Celebrating Being a Hero

Posted in Celebration Saturday, tagged A&E Gallery, Gelli plate art, teaching gifted on January 25, 2014| 10 Comments »

The sun is coming up. The ice still glitters on the trees. Soon it will all melt. Yesterday, the ice and rain and little snow flurries came down all day long. For us in the deep south, temperatures below freezing all day long are rare. I celebrate the day off of school and the beauty. I did not have to get out much, but when I did, I didn’t know that the rain would turn to ice so suddenly on my windshield. The first time I ventured out, I had to pull over to let my car warm up. I felt stupid, aggravated at my lack of expertise with this weather. So while I enjoyed having a free day, I know there were others who struggled.

I am Matthew’s hero! The fourth grade teachers have a Student of the Week every week. This week was Matthew’s turn. I didn’t see his poster until Thursday. There in the lower left corner was a section titled “My Hero.” Matthew had written about me, his gifted teacher for the last 4 years.

Mrs. Simon is my hero because she’s been my teacher for 4 years. She’s like an aunt to me, and she’s the best teacher I’ve ever had and ever will have. This is why Mrs. Simon is my hero.

My one little word for 2014 is Open. Last Saturday, I went to A&E Gallery to paint with Marcie Melancon. She does gelli plate printing and collage. I made this collage for my OLW. It reminds me daily to be open and creative.

What are you celebrating this week? Add your post to Ruth’s round up.

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Celebrating Healing, Courage, and Cupcakes

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Teaching, Writing, tagged author visit, birthdays, Caroline Starr Rose, Creativity on January 18, 2014| 9 Comments »

Welcome to Saturday Celebration. I thought it would never come. Yes, it was a long week. Yet the week was full of reasons to celebrate (and sleep late) today.

1. Healing
Minga, my mother-in-law, gets stronger every day. (Last Saturday’s post was about her successful surgery.) Here she is with cards from my students. My students put effort into their creations. They know Minga because she visited last year to present about her trip to Myanmar (Burma). Vannisa made a book of character traits while Kendall, without my knowing, wrote a poem for her. Brooklyn sent her a booklet of her own writing. This pleased me because it shows how far Brooklyn has come not only in her writing ability but also in her confidence. She wanted to give Minga something to read while she recovers.

2. Courage
On Tuesday, we had a Skype visit with Caroline Starr Rose, the author of May B. We had some technical difficulties. She could not hear us, so we typed our questions and comments. We could hear her. How delightful she is! My students learned so much about how to be an author, the hard work that goes into it, and the rewards. Caroline said being an author is a dream come true for her. When we discussed her visit, we decided to make a chart to remember all her advice. The chart became an acrostic of the word COURAGE.

3. Cupcakes
One of the things I love about teaching small groups of children is the opportunity to celebrate birthdays. I sent my husband out to get cupcakes for Emily’s birthday. He bought the ones with the brightest icing. He said they reminded him of Willy Wonka. The kids loved them. The girls made the icing into lipstick. How silly!