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DigiLit Sunday: YouTube or not?

Posted in Digital Learning, Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged digital literacy, Laura Purdie Salas, nonfiction rhyming poetry, starling murmurations, YouTube on March 30, 2014| 10 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 30. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

Do you YouTube? I was pleased when our district opened the site this year. We are using a new Common Core Standards aligned curriculum that depends on YouTube videos for instruction. This can be a dangerous thing. Especially when you forget that restrictions have been lifted and allow students to look up a Christina Aguilera song. Whoopsie! Naked woman! Click off! Yes, this happened, but thankfully no body parts were revealed and the kids all understood that it was inappropriate for school. Whew! Try again.

Now I am very cautious and preview whatever we watch. This week a friend on Facebook posted an amazing video of starling murmurations. Amazing! We watched this to have a brain vacation, as one of my students called it. This was almost a spiritual experience, such beauty, a miracle shared. Shortly after our brain vacation, we wrote nonfiction rhyming poems. I used Laura Purdie Salas’ lesson from Teaching Authors. This was a collaborative piece that Kaylie and Matthew wrote.

Starling Birds

Mesmerizing clouds of iridescence

Inky black plumage of brilliance

Dark plump birds in coexistence

Nature’s way of perfect balance

–a collaborative poem by Kaylie and Matthew

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Celebrating Family

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Slice of Life, tagged celebration, flowers, spring on March 29, 2014| 6 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 29. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

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

Last night there was a huge storm that shook the house and upset the dog. Yet, this morning, this new spring day, brings green. All colors of green. Like someone turned on the lights and waved a magic green light over everything. Who wouldn’t want to Celebrate!

I love that Ruth Ayres invites us to Celebrate on Saturdays. This post makes me look deeper to see what is truly wonderful in my life. While I love my students and my blogging community, today I want to offer up what I love most in this world, my family.

I am blessed with three beautiful, successful daughters. This week, the youngest, Martha, was home from Chicago. She was relaxing and preparing for her final semester of graduate school. We toasted together the final tuition payment.

No more tuition payments!

I was a little sad that I was working all week, so I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with Martha. I took her for a mother/daughter pedicure on her last afternoon. I’m the one with the bright green to celebrate spring. Martha says, “It’s still winter in Chicago.” She selected a subdued grey.

Martha flew out this morning, but there is no time for tears. We are giving a party tonight for my oldest daughter’s best friend. Katie and Maggie have been friends since they were 3 years old. Last night we made nosegay flower arrangements in mason jars.

So, today I celebrate my family, my lovely girls and their generous spirit. I celebrate being a mom of adult children. No one ever told me how wonderful this stage of life would be. Celebrate!

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March Madness Poetry

Posted in Poetry Friday, Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged gifted education, MMPoetry, Think Kid Think, vocabulary on March 28, 2014| 19 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 28. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Join the Poetry Friday round-up at A Year of Reading.

I signed up my morning ELA group for voting on the March Madness Poetry going on at Think, Kid, Think! The poetry rounds are open to public voting, but this year Ed DeCaria invited students to participate. I jumped in with both feet not knowing what I was getting into.

We missed the first voting round because I was dealing with getting the site unblocked from our school network. While the technology department is usually very accommodating, it took a few back and forth emails to accomplish this. The site was all ready for Monday morning’s round 2.

My students knew nothing about this, and frankly, I hadn’t prepared myself much either, so Monday was not the best day to hit them with new words like ersatz and mellifluous. For each match-up, Ed selects a random word. The author has 36 hours to write a poem with his/her given word. Some of these words were new to me, not to mention new to my students. So with the wonders of the Internet and Google, we entered each word, read the definition, discussed it, then went back to the poems. I read them aloud and asked for a show of hands. For each poem, the voters had to make a case for the one they chose. This created an impromptu discussion of technique, and I discovered that the poems I thought were the best crafted work did not always appeal to the students.

For example, they selected Karyn Linnell’s poem “Mellifluous” over Kathy Ellen Davis’s one using the word “Hiatus.”
“Despite all her welts, Mellifluous sang; this golden voice was now her own./
And to this day a mellifluous sound is one with a smooth and sweet tone.”
They enjoyed the storytelling way this poem worked and how, like some myths, it explained a word. One of my students compared it to the myth of Echo.

Later in the week, we checked the results. Once again we were discussing words and poetry. How cool is that? I asked my students to select one of the words to use in their own poem. This activity happened on “Day without your Desk” so they were strewn all over the floor with pillows and blankets, a great way to write poetry. Vannisa, 4th grade, chimed in about how she was on hiatus from her desk. She loved saying this new word. Here is her poem.

A hiatus for you
A hiatus for me
A hiatus for us

We all need breaks

Too much information
To stuff in our heads

We need a vacation
To a special destination

What’s that place called?

Oh yeah that’s right
Imagination

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Bougainvillea

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged Laura Purdie Salas, nonfiction rhyming poetry, Teaching Authors on March 27, 2014| 6 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 27. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

I was suffering with severe “noideaitis,” a term created by my student Magic Matt. So I traveled around the kitlit blogosphere for inspiration. I found some at the site Teaching Authors. I follow Laura Purdis Salas on her blog, and she has just recently joined the Teaching Authors. Her Wednesday Writing Workout post outlined a process for writing a rhyming nonfiction poem. I gave it a shot. Recently I bought some new spring flowers for my deck. One of these is a bougainvillea. I just love saying the name. I looked it up on Wikipedia and learned all I needed to know to write a quick poem. As Laura suggested, I used Rhymezone to find rhyming words. I don’t think the results are brilliant, but they do teach a bit about this mouthful of a plant.

The actual flower of the bougainvillea is a small cluster of three white flowers in the center.

Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea is a thorny, ornamental vine.
From Brazil or Peru, paper petals intertwine.

The actual flower will fool ya’
hiding white in the bracts of Bougainvillea.

Each heart-shaped leaf steadily climbs.
Don’t you want to say it three times?

Bougainvillea
Bougainvillea
Bougainvillea

Red bougainvillea on my deck looking all perky and springy.

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Butterweed

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged butterweed, Louisiana, poetry, spring, wildflowers on March 25, 2014| 5 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 25. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Driving down the road,
I stop to praise the wildflowers
guarding the gully
like yellow-billed soldiers.

I praise your sensible size,
clustered in God’s bouquet,
open to the arrival of bees,
spreading the wings of spring.

Your beauty is the first swamp color,
popping up in winter’s wake.
A glorious butterweed ribbon
unbounded, blowing in the fresh breeze.

Even with your death, you feed us,
such is the circle of life,
from compost to crawfish,
trapped, boiled, and Cayenne-peppered,
just in time for Good Friday Feasts.

–Margaret Simon

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Sweet Potato Queen Weekend

Posted in Slice of Life, tagged Berry Queens, Fondren, RAD Color Run, Sweet Potato Queens on March 24, 2014| 6 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 24. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

I am home exhausted and happy from a delightfully fun weekend with my fellow Berry Queens in Jackson, MS. for the Sweet Potato Queens Weekend. I am a Diva in the hierarchy of our membership in New Iberia. The Berry Queens (so named because the nickname for New Iberia is “The Berry”) have grown by leaps and bounds since I joined in its inaugural year, 2008. Now we are up to 100+ members. We were easily one of the largest groups at the SPQ weekend with 30 women.

On Friday, my friend Cathy and I dressed in black petticoats topped with golden tree skirts. (Cathy is so creatively clever.) We attended the Big Hat Brunch with hundreds of other women dressed in crazy costumes and big hats. After the brunch, we shopped around Fondren, an area in Jackson that has been revitalized as an arts community.

Cathy and I stop off at Brent’s Drugs, a location used in the movie, The Help.

One of the blessings of this weekend was going to the lake. My parents live north of Jackson near a lake, so the first few nights we stayed there. We had time to visit some with Mom and Dad and enjoy the peacefulness of the lake, totally different from the very crazy active time with the Sweet Potato Queens.

Friday night, Cathy and I became a spectacle downtown in our matching wigs. The buses for some unknown reason did not run from the hotel, so not many queens appeared for the Bouffants concert. Everyone around wanted to take pictures with us. We are probably all over Facebook on strangers’ pages. Even the Bouffants themselves noticed us and called us up during one of their songs. We felt famous!

Cathy, Lory, and me at the Bouffants concert.

On Saturday, I joined my fellow Berry Queens as we represented New Iberia in the RAD Color Run for Blair Batson Hospital. Here are a few of us squeezing into a hotel bathroom to put strawberry tattoos on our cheeks. I’m the one in the tutu.

The run was so much fun. I walked, of course, but while I did, I got to know two of our new members (known as virgins to the Sweet Potato Queens). At the end, I was covered with color and feeling great. The day was a glorious 70 degrees.

Saturday night was the big Zippity Doo Dah parade. I walked the 5K route again, and this time I was wearing a strawberry dress, a wig with light-up noodles, and boots. This time there was a huge crowd to throw beads and strawberry Tootsie Rolls to. What a blast!

A selfie with our Boss Queen Jerre at the parade.

Jill Connor Brown is the brilliant woman who created this whole kingdom of Queens. She believes in the inner beauty of every woman. She closed the weekend with a touching speech at the Bathrobe Brunch. Here she honored Vietnam Veterans for whom the parade was held. She shared stories of her childhood and had us all in tears when she talked about her friend who had gone off to the Vietnam war. She spoke of forgiveness and the need in all of us to forgive, not for the other person, but for ourselves. Jill Connor Brown is a hero. I thank her for creating a time for having just plain fun for the sake of fun, and for empowering us to be beautiful, inside and out.

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Storybird

Posted in Digital Learning, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged digital literacy, gifted education, storybird on March 23, 2014| 8 Comments »

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

Slice of Life Day 23. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Today is Digilit Sunday. Link up your digital literacy post each Sunday. Use the logo on your site and link back here.

I teach gifted elementary kids. At any time during the year, I can get new students. Recently I was blessed with two first graders. I am not as comfortable with this age as I am with middle grades. I introduce them to using technology for presentations. They will need technology skills as they move up in grades in gifted classes. These two students are total opposites in tech savviness. Andrew (is it a boy thing?) learns quickly. He has made two Powerpoints learning how to upload images and use the animation tools. So I wanted him to try something different and new. I directed him to Storybird. If you haven’t tried Storybird, you should. I think it is great for younger students. My older ones feel restricted by the choices of images.

Andrew found a palate of images that he liked, and immediately wrote the title, The Sad Bear that Didn’t Have Friends. The pictures led him to write a story about a bear and his friend, a girl named Gina, who were separated in the woods. The bear found new friends, but Gina only found a tree shaped like a peacock. The images led Andrew to write more and add a little humor as well. Using Storybird, I was able to show him some basic editing, such as adding punctuation and capital letters. He also wrote using and over and over. I read his long sentence without taking a breath to show him that the reader needs a period or a comma, so she can breathe. I think we both enjoyed this process. Andrew was proud to read his story aloud to his classmates using the smart board.

http://storybird.com/books/the-sad-bear-that-didnt-have-friends/?token=qsuvuqe5vc

Link up your Digital Literacy post this week:

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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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Big Words

Posted in Poetry Friday, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged poetry, Slice of Life Challenge, strong words on March 21, 2014| 10 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 21. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Poetry Friday Round-up is at The Drift Record

I am constantly amazed by my gifted students. They can process and learn at such a rapid rate. I love words. That’s no secret. They know it. So we often spend time talking about words.

Vannisa, a 4th grader, and I are reading A Snicker of Magic together. (Actually, she has passed me up.) I asked her to put some of the magical words on the board. She made a list including felicity, serendipity, paradigm, gargantuan, spendiddly, snicker-doodle, lickety-split. Aren’t these great words?

I pulled up a poem that Katie Muhtaris posted on her blog Coffee Fueled Musings to show her students how to use strong verbs. Her poem, Oreos, inspired Vannisa to write about cookies.

Chewy Cookies

Stretching for the red box it slumbers in,
peel off the wrapper
decant a glass of milk into the tall transparent cup.
Let the flow of white water dive into the pool of air.
Snatch a crispy golden cookie.
Devour the serendipity.
Taste the felicity of the snicker-doodle.

–Vannisa, age 10

Matthew, otherwise known as Magic Matt on our class blog, took a break from his magic tricks to write a poem. He didn’t know it was good. He told me, “Don’t post this anyWHERE.” Then I read it and said, “Wow!”

Matt said, “Mrs. Simon, did you just say Wow about one of my poems?”

I think you will say Wow! too.

Felicity

Felicity fills my soul,
warming my heart like a gargantuan fire.
Isolated mountains dot the Earth
like looking through a kaleidoscope.
A paradigm of God’s grandest creation meeting reality.

–Matthew, age 10

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