Celebration Saturday

Archive for the ‘Celebration Saturday’ Category

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Teaching, Writing, tagged celebration, roses, student podcasting, Twitter on November 12, 2016| 9 Comments »

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

Celebrate #1: He bought me roses. The beauty of a single rose is enough to take my breath away. Something so small and simple is really a sign of the hope. I need that hope this week.

Celebrate #2: NCTE is coming! I leave on Thursday and will be meeting up with many friends. I celebrate that I am co-moderating two panels. I will also be involved with 2 roundtable discussions. But most of all, I will be surrounded by like-minded people who want the best for their students.

My NCTE schedule:

Sat., 8 AM: F.21 We See Their Faces: How Historical Fiction Advocates for Empathy, Diversity, and Social Change B311

Sat., 9:30 G.12 Writing for a Better World: Poetry Response to World Events B210

Sat., 1:15 I.27 Authentic Voice in a Digital World: Using Technology in Our Literate Lives B215

Sunday, 1:30 N.20 Teachers as Writers: Practices and Possibilities (an NCTE Roundtable Session) b206

Celebrate #3: Class Twitter account: @MrsSimonsSea. My students are excited to have their very own Twitter account. I look forward to exploring ways we can connect with authors and other classrooms. If you have a class account, please follow us. Our first Tweet was a 4th grade student’s podcast about the importance of pets.

#studentpodcasts @MargaretGSimon Gifted student created a podcast about the importance of pets. https://t.co/qgA3gc4cJI @hayhurst3

— Mrs. Simon's Sea (@MrsSimonsSea) November 11, 2016

Jenn Hayhurst tweeted back.

pic.twitter.com/9MO5Gh2Dg7

— Jenn Hayhurst (@hayhurst3) November 11, 2016

I can’t wait to share this with Andrew on Monday. I celebrate online connections and building student confidence with social media.

Please come back tomorrow for DigiLitSunday! Our topic this week is “Purpose.”

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Celebrating Organic October

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Writing, tagged fall, nature, student podcasting on November 5, 2016| 10 Comments »

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

October came to an end this week. Why does this make me sentimental? Maybe it’s the smell of sugarcane fields burning, or the taste of satsumas, or kids in costumes, but this time of year makes me think about the past, about time, about celebrations.

The sun rises as I drive to school each day. I took this picture out of my car window. Next week the time will change and I won’t see the sun rise this way for a while. Stopping to capture beauty…

My students worked all week on their podcasts. What fun! We were challenged by technology and with cooperation. I celebrate that they came together to support each other. When I figure out how to make the podcasts public, I will post them. They wrote about everything from Halloween to mythological creatures and homework. I celebrate the strength of their writing. They were motivated to write for an authentic audience.

On my morning walk, I came to this overgrown shrub (or is it a tree?). I don’t know what it is, but the bright yellow flowers attracted my focus.

A weird organic fall phenomenon is webs in the grass. They were dotting a field and sparkling with dew. Who made this? How tiny a creature?

All of these photos were taken this week on my iPhone. I never tire of photographing grandmother oak. Here the fog is rising from the bayou silhouetting her expansive girth. Nature nurtures the fall air, and I celebrate her gifts.

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Celebrate October

Posted in Celebration Saturday, tagged birthdays, Halloween, Kelly Light, Pinterest on October 15, 2016| 7 Comments »

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

October is my favorite month of the year. The air is cooling. My favorite fruit is ripe, satsumas. And Halloween is coming soon.

This week I had a discussion about Halloween with my Voxer group. For me Halloween evokes memories of my super-mom-syndrome days when I decorated, made costumes, and invited friends over for hot dogs and chili. I remember when my girls and I dressed as the Wizard of Oz characters.

Lately, though, Halloween is a happy memory. But one of my schools is going all out. I am on the first grade hall, and my door was the only one not decorated. So I turned to Pinterest. I’ve never used Pinterest in this way before. I emailed myself a picture and with the help of one of my students, we made the door look like a one-eyed purple monster.

Pinterest Halloween door

Andrew made a plan to read aloud to his sister’s first grade class. He selected the book Louise Loves Art. We had such fun reading the book, singing along with Emily Arrow, and drawing Kelly Light’s cat “Chuck.” We tweeted to Kelly Light.

https://twitter.com/MargaretGSimon/status/786593375357206533

Emily made me my own pair of Louise glasses.

Friday was Madison’s ninth birthday. We celebrated with chocolate-chocolatey cupcakes. They decorate them with candy pieces. Look at those smiles!

We love cupcakes!

By Friday evening, I was exhausted. I headed out to pickup takeout and the moon was rising in the sunset. I had to stop and notice. There is always time to stop and notice.

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Celebrating All is Well

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Photography, tagged celebrating, sugarcane harvest on October 8, 2016| 4 Comments »

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

I took this video from my classroom window this week. Our school lies in the middle of sugarcane fields. The harvest season is here. The air is filled with the sweet smell of sugarcane. I celebrate fall, the cool sweet air, and the harvest. All is well.

My husband took this picture on Sunday after all the guests had gone, after a marvelous wedding night, after sending the happy couple off on their honeymoon. I celebrate the happiness of family and the quiet peace of knowing all is well.

Wayne, my son-in-law, sent this picture of him and Katherine in the mountains of Costa Rica. All is well.

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Celebrating Dots, Dots, Dots!

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Creativity, tagged International Dot Day, The Art of Comprehension, Trevor Bryan on September 17, 2016| 10 Comments »

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

The Queen of Dot Day!

Thursday, September 15th was Dot Day. My students love Dot Day. Since I teach them year after year, they look forward to it from the first day of school. International Dot Day was inspired by teacher Terry Shay in 2009. The day is designed around The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. In The Dot, Vashti doesn’t feel like she can do art in art class. She turns away from her paper. But through the gentle guidance of her teacher, she discovers within herself a budding dot artist. In the end, she passes on this confidence to another child who says he can’t draw a straight line with a ruler. The Dot shows students in a very accessible way that they can be creative.

This summer I was privileged to join a Google Hangout with Trevor Bryan. Trevor is writing a book around the Art of Comprehension. He uses The Dot to show how students can access text and images through different lenses. My students responded well to the Art of Comprehension, sharing eagerly about what they saw and read about Vashti’s changing mood. One of my students, a 2nd grader, said Vashti had an aura. She was referring to the changing color of the dot that surrounds Vashti on each page.

After we read and discussed the book, I invited my students to make a dot using this plan I found in Scholastic Teacher Magazine. The art teacher let us use her oil pastels. First we decorated the plate. Then we made 19 evenly spaced slits around the rim of the plate. (I used the bumps on the edges to help the kids know where to make the cuts, every third bump.) Then we threaded yarn around the plate to create a base for weaving. Most of my students had never weaved yarn before. They loved this new activity.

Weaving is a new activity for my students.

I wore my Dot Day skirt made especially for me by my friend Cathy and the official Dot Day t-shirt. One student dubbed me the Queen of Dot Day. And another said, “Mrs. Simon, thank you for giving us Dot Day!”

A joyful celebration of creativity, reading, and just being you!

Dots!

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Celebrating Africa!

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Writing, tagged Maasai, pen pals, Tanzania on September 10, 2016| 13 Comments »

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

Maasai-Jacob

Jacob lives far away from these Maasai boys, but Minga (my mother-in-law) and I tried to give my students a small understanding of the place we visited this summer, Tanzania, Africa.

My students anticipated Minga’s visit for weeks. Over the long Labor Day weekend, I compiled a sampling of our 1000 photos into a Google slide show. I also included videos. I brought in watermelon and cucumber because, in reality, we ate fresh fruits and vegetables every day in Tanzania. We dressed the kids like Maasai. Minga talked about the discovery at Olduvai Gorge in the Ngorongoro crater of a new species of man Homo Habilis. The incredible long expanse of time is difficult to conceptualize, but she tried with a long rope. My sixth graders are studying this time period in their Social Studies class, a nice coincidence.

Mound at Oldupai Gorge where we can visibly see the layers of time.

I had a surprise for my students…pen pals. When we visited Endoro School in Karatu, our guide suggested that I get the names of the children who surrounded me. I showed this picture and they proceeded to “claim” pen pals.

Visiting with school girls

My students’ pen pal letters are as varied as they are. Erin sat at the computer and translated her “high-level” words into Kiswahili. At my suggestion, she made a key at the bottom of the page to help teach her pen pal the words in English.

Emily wanted to share her art talent and decided to do a silhouette drawing of an acacia tree with a girl reading.

Girl reading under acacia tree by Emily, 6th grade.

Here is Madison’s letter that is just so Madison!

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DigiLitSunday and Celebrating all in one

Posted in Blogging, Celebration Saturday, Digital Learning, Teaching, tagged #clmooc, Animoto, research, snail mail, Wonderopolis on September 4, 2016| 10 Comments »

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

I missed the Saturday Celebration post, so I am double-dipping today.

I want to celebrate good old-fashioned snail mail. This week I received the invitation to my daughter’s wedding (coming up very soon on Oct. 1st), a #clmooc postcard from Karen Fasimpaur (she tells me she lived and taught in Tanzania?!), and a poetry exchange card from Joy Acey (make that 2 cards from Joy: the heart and the zebras.)

I celebrate the connections I have made through this blogging adventure that encourages me daily.

Today is #DigiLitSunday. I tweeted out the topic of #motivation. This year is my tenth year teaching young gifted students. I have redefined my role of teacher from someone who imparts knowledge to someone who motivates learning. My students are way smarter than I am when it comes to a measurement of intelligence. I am ineffective if I stand before them and tell them what to do. It just doesn’t work.

I have learned the art of motivation. And technology has been right beside me. I love Animoto for its immediate access to cool designs and background music for video production. I turned to Animoto this week to motivate my students to explore Wonders on Wonderopolis and to practice creating a thesis statement.

My students were motivated by choice as well. Many of them find interest areas through their reading. I Survived has become a favorite series. Andrew wanted to know more about tsunamis after reading I Survived the Japanese Tsunami. He watched videos, read a Wonderopolis post, and then branched out to search further questions.

https://animoto.com/play/n3d0IBO9cYPBika3Qvpsbw

Kaiden was inspired to learn about club foot from the book The War that Saved my Life.

https://animoto.com/play/Zg4LoPd9OK0ic8DUZw003w

Some students were motivated by watching each other’s videos. Jacob decided to research earthquakes after seeing Andrew’s video about tsunamis. (Andrew and Jacob attend different schools, but they keep in touch on our Kidblog site.)

https://animoto.com/play/1HeO0cLG9UzW2zyqIqT0Ow

Motivation can come from me, the teacher, from other students, or from books, and even from conversations. I went to Tanzania, Africa this summer and was chatting with Lynzee about the giraffes I saw. She wanted to know why giraffes have such long necks. Wonderopolis answered her question. Here is her video.

https://animoto.com/play/tDObOEEkWmOjbf1162Gzew

Obviously, I had a hard time choosing which video to share with you. Another cool aspect of teaching with choice and technology is the variety of projects that are produced. My students can now learn from each other as we post each video on our Kidblog site.

Please share your motivating #DigiLitSunday posts here.

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Celebrating the Kindness

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Gratitude, tagged Community Foundation of Acadiana, Great Flood of 2016, Gwen Guilotte, Paul Schexnayder on August 20, 2016| 7 Comments »

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

In the midst of tragedy, how can we celebrate?

Was it Mr. Rogers who said to look for the helpers? There are helpers everywhere.

There is also kindness.

I have been glued to Facebook for the past week watching the shocking flooding of my friends’ homes. (The water came knocking but didn’t get into our house.)

I remember. When I was in high school, my house was flooded 5 feet. I know the smell. I know how it feels to see your treasures piled up in the yard. I’ve seen the studs in my home.

I also remember the kindness, the helpers.

I celebrate the helpers. Kylene Beers and Kate Messner, authors I admire, both put out calls to replace books lost in the flooding. If you know any school that has been affected, please check their Facebook pages.

I celebrate the resilience of my friends, how they are facing this tragedy and noticing the good. They are experiencing the overwhelming feeling of loss alongside gratitude and hope.

Here is a post from my friend Gwen:

Our home is a metaphor for Louisiana.
Yes, we’ve been stripped down to our studs.
Right this moment, we’re a bit vulnerable, and we’re a bit weak.
We’re exposed.
But you know what is shining through?
Human character at its finest.
When we’re most exposed,
we show strength, generosity, kindness, joy, and love.
When we’re raw, we also show fear, despair, and sorrow.
The days have been long, and will continue to be.
When some are feeling strong, others are low.
But through it all, I have no doubt that we’ll recover.
It’s not our lowest point.
It’s not our darkest hour.
It’s our defining moment.

–Gwen Guillote

My friend, artist Paul Schexnayder, created a painting the symbolizes the resilience of people here. He is selling prints and t-shirts to benefit the Community Foundation of Acadiana. If you want more information about purchasing a print, t-shirt, or just making a donation, please send me a message by comment or email.

Onward

We see the helpers.
We see the kindness.
We know hardship.
We know sorrow.
We know our neighbors.
We know love.
Onward

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Celebrate Expressions of Love

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Gratitude, Writing, tagged bayou, birthday, flood on August 13, 2016| 7 Comments »

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

Birthdays are opportunities to show a person how much you love her. Birthdays are also opportunities to share your love with others.

Like eating popcorn with chopsticks

And chocolate-covered strawberries

Like finding this message on Facebook:

Ms. Simon, 30 years ago, when we moved home from overseas, I struggled in the public school my parents put me in to fit in. My parents seeing how unhappy I seemed changed me to epiphany and I was blessed to have you as a teacher. My mother adored you. As a teacher myself, I know we aren’t always able to see the difference we make long term in a child’s life. You are an amazing person and teacher!

And spending hours catching up with your birthday sister. The waitress says, “Oh, you’re the kind of friends who can just pick up right where you left off.” She checked in on us occasionally as we talked on and on.

My birthday was a celebration of Love.

My backyard on Friday, Aug. 12, 2016. The water has to cover the deck before it reaches the house.

My state, Louisiana, is in a state of emergency. The rain has come down for more than 28 hours and doesn’t show signs of stopping. They are calling this the Historic Flood of 2016. My family is fine. Our house is on the bayou, and the back yard is no longer visible. Please keep all of us in your thoughts and prayers. I know of one student so far who has evacuated his flooded home. I will be posting updates to my Facebook page.

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Celebrating Resurrection Fern

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Photography, Writing, tagged Diane Mayr, dog walk, live oaks, photo poem, resurrection fern on August 6, 2016| 6 Comments »

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

I take a walk in my neighborhood. One of the gifts of living in South Louisiana are the live oak trees. We have been getting rain every day this summer. It helps to keep temperatures reasonable, in the 80’s rather than the 90’s, and it resurrects the resurrection fern.

This morning the sun was up and glowing on the fern. I often refer to this phenomenon in my poetry. A word search on my blog turned up 9 results. To celebrate the fern today, I am re-using the lines in a photo-poem.