Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category
Celebrating October
Posted in Celebration Saturday, Poetry, Writing, tagged fall poetry, Halloween, October on October 4, 2014| 10 Comments »
Ruth Ayres invites us the celebrate each week. Click over to her site Discover. Play. Build. to read more celebrations.
October bulletin board
Have you ever played Boo with your school or neighborhood? It’s become a thing at our school every year, but as an itinerate teacher, I sometimes get left out. Not this year. We have an awesome secretary who wants everyone to be included, so this year she is organized. On only the third day of October, I was Booed! I got a bucket of fun things: a Halloween plastic cup with a straw, a pair of Jack-O-Lantern socks, some snacks, candy for the kids, and decorations for my bulletin board. (Notice the plastic spiders in the web.) It made my Friday happy. This weekend I will stop at the store to make my own basket of goodies for some secret teacher. Games like these boost morale and make a school a fun community.
While I was digging in the cabinet for fall decorations, I found a poem I wrote a few years ago. It expresses well my feelings of celebration today, with cooler air, tall sugarcane, leaves falling, and sastumas soon to ripen. I do love this time of year.
October
On my morning walk,
sun reflects on the path.
Leaves crackle as I step.
Scent of a far off fire–
a sure sign of fall.
Sugarcane sways,
Satsumas ripen,
Cypress needles litter the lawn.
Rain showers blow in and blow out,
softening and cooling the air.I’m falling in love with October.
I open my doors to the chilly wind,
welcome the sound of scavenging squirrels,
and celebrate this new season.–Margaret Simon, all rights reserved
See this on Cowbird:
http://cowbird.com/embed/story/101048/
Cloud Watching
Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged acrostic poetry, cloud poems, Poetry Friday Anthologies on October 3, 2014| 16 Comments »
Join Jama for Poetry Friday at Jama’s Alphabet Soup.
This week my students and I were wondering about Aerodynamics. I love framing my weeks with so many wonders at Wonderopolis. We learned about jet streams and lift. We watched some cool time-lapsed videos.
Since we were wondering and wandering around in the clouds, I found some cloud poems to share. From The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School, I read Racing the Clouds by Jacqueline Jules (p. 45) and Biking Along White Rim Road by Irene Latham (p. 109). From The Poetry Friday Anthology For Science, I read Clouds by Kate Coombs (p. 85) and Tropical Rain Forest Sky Ponds by Margarita Engle. (On a side note, I am thrilled that my students are learning the names of wonderful Poetry Friday poets.)
My students noticed metaphors, personification, onomatopoeia, rhyming, and more. The Poetry Friday anthologies suggested the website Clouds Appreciation Society. (Is there a website for everything?) I pulled up a cloud picture on the board to inspire writing. Even though some of my young students go back to the acrostic form, their writing was richer, emoting more sense of tone, and embedded with metaphor. Models, models, models, teachers. They work!
Coming together
Like a school
Of fish
Under the big blue sky
Disaster, waiting to strikeCouldn’t be better
Laying under the sun
Once it was peaceful, no clouds
Underneath, we are the unsuspecting victims, of the next
Deadly hurricane
–Tobie
(To leave comments for this poet, go to his post.)
In Vannisa’s poem, you will see words and phrases borrowed from the poems we read, mixed together with her words to create a new poem.
Over Afganistan
sunlight is hidden,
for it is somewhat forbidden.
Because this is the clouds,
the round, puffy, white clouds.
The cloud of wish,
the cloud that is as flat as a dish.
They are all lakes in the sky.
Whether it is a flat, small pond,
or a fat navy ocean,
there are no
empty spaces.
–Vannisa (To leave comments for this poet, go to this post.)
Dear Emily was moved to make her poem into an Animoto video. Prepare for tears. Her poem is dedicated to Amy Ludwig VanDerwater. Amy knows why.
Rose: An Acrostic Poem
Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged acrostic poetry, student poem on September 26, 2014| 20 Comments »
Laura Purdie Salas is hosting today’s round up.
I have been thinking lately about what makes magic happen in writing workshop. I’m not sure, but I do know that my students feel like they are writers. This year I have a single third grader in my gifted group. She is pretty capable of doing what all the older kids are doing. But the other day, on a whim, she brought me this poem she had written. She glowed. She was so proud of it. I don’t know where it came from. It was not any prompt we had talked about. She explained to me that it just came to her. Maybe it was a stroke of genius. Or maybe it was a classroom atmosphere of poetry appreciation and writing freedom. Whatever it is and wherever the inspiration came from, I know enough to celebrate this lovely poem today on Poetry Friday.
Red petals flying with the wind.
O such grace dancing through the wind.
Sparkling shimmering as the sun joins you.
Even at night you’re dancing in the moon light.
–Erin
You can leave comments directly to Erin, aka Pegasus Lover, on our kidblog site.
Celebrating Honors
Posted in Celebration Saturday, Gratitude, Poetry, tagged Amy Ludwig Vanderwater, Donald Graves Award, healing poetry, NCTE, The Poem Farm on September 20, 2014| 13 Comments »
Ruth Ayres invites us the celebrate each week. Click over to her site Discover. Play. Build. to read more celebrations.
I am pleased, honored, amazed to announce that I am the 2014 recipient of the NCTE Donald Graves Award for the teaching of writing. The award will be presented to me on Thursday, Nov. 20th in Washington, D.C. at the Elementary Section Get-Together during the annual convention. Follow this link to see my name in lights and a link to my reflective essay. I owe a huge shout out to all of my blogging friends who have supported me in the development of my teaching philosophy. I am so blessed to be a part of this supportive community.
Minga, my mother-in-law, sent me flowers to celebrate the Donald Graves Award.
I want to celebrate the outpouring of love and compassion from the kidlit blogosphere in expressing sympathy for my student Emily’s loss of her mother this week. I will be attending the funeral today and sharing with Emily your messages. Amy VanDerwater of The Poem Farm shared a poem yesterday that was inspired by my post about Emily. Emily and I are both touched by this kindness. Visit Amy’s site to read her special poem of empathy.
Reflections on the Teche 