Teaching | Reflections on the Teche

Archive for the ‘Teaching’ Category

The Poem in the Tree

Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged 15 Words or Less, Laura Purdie Salas, Nature poems, oak tree on February 20, 2015| 11 Comments »

Join the roundup with Linda at Teacher Dance.

I like to keep my poetry in practice, so I often enlist my students in my pet projects. I love Laura Purdie Salas and her blog site. Every Thursday she posts a picture and asks writers to post a poem comment using 15 words or less. Not every Thursday, but many of them, I show her image to my first bunch in the morning. We talk about the image, someone rings the sacred writing bell, and we write.

Yesterday, Laura posted an old tree. I listened to my first grader, the youngest of the bunch, explain to a fifth grader what he needed to do. “Look at the picture. Then use your imagination.” We read Laura’s poem and Jacob said, “I’m stealing the word squirrels.” I swear this kid could lead a writing workshop already!

Old Tree by Laura Purdie Salas

I posted this poem early in the morning. The tree image reminded me of the old live oak in our backyard.

Grandmother Oak

With footholds to climb
Eyes that see time
Stories in my rings
Come swing.

–Margaret Simon

Grandmother oak in the sunset

Then I wrote again with my students.

Stories told
from a wisdom of scars
wrinkled into skin
like crevices on this old tree.

–Margaret Simon

If you would like to play, go to Laura’s site on Thursday mornings. It’s a fun place to be.

Old People

Two old men
bickering every day
scaring nature away.
These old hags
should calm down.
–Tyler, 6th grade

Another poetry practice project I am doing is on another Laura’s site, Laura Shovan of Author Amok. I am joining some fabulous poets writing to sound prompts. Check it out!

Read Full Post »

Magic, Optical Illusions lead to Poetry

Posted in Poetry Friday, Teaching, tagged National Geographic photo of the day, Wonderopolis on February 13, 2015| 10 Comments »

Join the roundup with Cathy at Merely Day by Day

This was a week all about magic. We started the week with a visit from Magic Mike, not the one you are thinking of, but a magician from New Orleans. I knew him when he was a teenager performing at birthday parties, and now he is on his way to an international magician competition this summer. One of my students is ~~obsessed~~ passionate about magic. It was amazing to watch the two of them go back and forth showing tricks and slights of hand.

Then on Wonder Wednesday, we looked at optical illusions on Wonderopolis. So today when we used an image writing prompt, the National Geographic image of two penguins in Antarctica, our minds were on illusion.

Jacob is a first grade gifted student fairly new to my class. He often needs more prodding and questioning during writing time so that I have to give up my own writing to help him. Not so today. At the end of our quick write, he announced that he had a poem to share. Five minutes or so earlier he didn’t even have a word written for the word list pre-writing activity. I gave permission for him to “steal” any of the words other writers had shared. I was moved to tears when I heard his poem because I knew it signified a turning point. Jacob is now a writer!

Two Penguins

Two penguins walking in fields of popcorn.
Their love is black and white.
Sliding their bellies on the icy snow.
–Jacob, 1st grade

See image here.

My poem reflects the mood of the class, magic, illusions, and a little bit of Valentine’s Day love. Matthew created a card trick to go with my poem. He turned an ace of spades into an ace of hearts.

Spade to Hearts: A Magic Trick or Illusion?

I see a black spade
on Antarctic ice.
Mountains majestic, jagged, and tall
protect this frigid land
where two penguins
frozen in time
become a symbol
of love.
–Margaret Simon

Read Full Post »

Ancora Imparo

Posted in Gifted Education, Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged Michelangelo, teaching writing on January 27, 2015| 14 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

This weekend I heard a presentation from an independent school principal. She told us that every first Friday the faculty and staff wear t-shirts that display the Italian words, “Ancora Imparo” which translates, “I am still learning.” They use this quote attributed to Michelangelo to show the students and parents that all are learners at their school. At first I felt a little envious. Wouldn’t I like to be a part of a school with this motto? But then I realized that I am a part of that motto.

Last week one of my students, a second grader, was reading about the chicken and the egg. You know, that age old question, which came first? But in the process, we read together that scientists believe that the chicken is a relative of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. “Mind Blown!” That’s what my kids say when we learn something unbelievable. When the older students arrived, Andrew made an announcement. There was a dramatic reaction. Fun! Learning! And I am right there with them.

When my students write, I write. I let them know my struggles, my worries. They all know I struggle with rhyming. They help me. We are all learners. “Ancora Imparo” “I am still learning.” I never pretend to know all the answers. We discover them together. We share in the learning.

Some days I worry that I don’t teach enough. I coach. I lead. I keep discipline…somewhat. But standing in front writing something on a white board that students copy or read and subsequently learn, that is not my style. I do not need to pine over another school’s philosophy. I just need to embrace my own. Maybe I’ll design my own t-shirt.

Read Full Post »

Thesaurus Poetry

Posted in Digital Learning, Gifted Education, Poetry, Teaching, tagged Billy Collins, Canva, thesaurus poem on January 25, 2015| 5 Comments »

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

When my students were working on their One Little Words, I discovered how much fun thesaurus.com can be. I was curious if there was a form for thesaurus poetry. A Google search turned up a funny metaphorical poem by Billy Collins. You have to love a sarcastic poem that ends with a love story between two words.

I would rather see words out on their own, away
from their families and the warehouse of Roget,
wandering the world where they sometimes fall
in love with a completely different word.
Surely, you have seen pairs of them standing forever
next to each other on the same line inside a poem,
a small chapel where weddings like these,
between perfect strangers, can take place.
See complete poem here.

The assignment: Choose a word. Write it in capital letters. Find 4 synonyms. Write those in a second line. (Pick the easiest word to rhyme for your last word.) Then write a phrase that ends with a rhyming word. As a class, we wrote this poem.

MAGICAL
Imaginary, mythical, enchanting, spellbinding
Potions of my mind unwinding.
–Mrs. Simon’s Caneview class

I let the students go. When one or two were getting frustrated by line placement on Kidblogs, I suggested Canva. We have talked about design before. More than ever, I watched them wrestle over design. One student got frustrated that every background cost a dollar, so she said, “I just made my own background.” She used the plain color background and added free icons. She also changed the coloring on the icons. I marveled at her quick turn around.

Digital Literacy should be more about the literacy than it is about the digital. Technology enhanced my students’ poems with design and allowed them to share their work globally. However, the most value was in the play and problem-solving with words and language.

Erin created her own Extraordinary design for her OLW thesaurus poem.

Kielan’s mother is getting married in June. What a sweet gift.

Read Full Post »

Digital Plan B

Posted in Digital Learning, Teaching, tagged OLW, tagxedo, Wordle on January 11, 2015| 4 Comments »

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

Vannisa used Canva to design her OLW.

Sometimes the best laid plans… Well, you know how technology is. I had planned for my students to use Tagxedo to create word webs for their One Little Word. The work was going well. They were having fun on Thesaurus.com finding synonyms, but when trying Tagxedo, the app was not working properly. I did some troubleshooting. I updated, but we were running out of time. So I quickly moved them over to Wordle. There is a feature for sharing that I had not used yet in Wordle. If you save to the “Public Gallery,” you get a link that the students could put into their blog posts. If Java was working, the link worked.

Sometimes, Plan B is the answer. I wanted my students to find synonyms feeling like this was good literacy work. Placing them into a word cloud was fluff. Either way, they enjoyed exploring, writing about, and designing their OLW this week.

After all I found Janet Ilko’s Slide Share for doing the One Little Word activity. If you haven’t done this lesson yet, you may be interested in her way of teaching it. There are many ways to add digital literacy into the classroom. As teachers, we have to find the ways that work for us and for our students (within the constraints of district usage and computer updates.)

Link to Emily’s OLW Wordle.

Erin’s word is Extraordinary.

Link up your Digital Literacy posts today:

Read Full Post »

Bonkers over Bandicoots

Posted in Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged acrostic, Animoto, Australian mammal, bandicoots, student poems, Wonderopolis on January 9, 2015| 10 Comments »

Find more Poetry Friday at Tabatha’s blog, The Opposite of Indifference.

Do you know what a bandicoot is? I didn’t. Neither did my students. We looked at bandicoots for the Wonder of the Week. After we read the page, watched the video, talked about the words, my new little first grader announced, “Now we write a POEM!” After only a few months he knows how my teaching flows. So, of course we did.

One of my colleagues found the poem Benjamin Bandicoot by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson.

If you walk in the bush at night,
In the wonderful silence deep,
By the flickering lantern light
When the birds are all asleep
You may catch a sight of old Skinny-go-root,
Otherwise Benjamin Bandicoot. (Read complete poem here.)

I asked my students to use alliteration in their titles and use at least 3 facts in their poems. I wrote, too, and settled for the acrostic form. It took me all day to write. Acrostics are not as easy as they look.

Busy
Australian marsupial
Nesting in a pile of leaves
Darkness cloaks
Insects are a delectable snack.
Creature with a ratty tail
Outback wanderer
Over land forager
Terrified of a bush fire,
Busy Bandicoot skedaddles.

Kielan worked more than a day on her poem and even created an Animoto video with it. I love her title, Banjo Boomsnicker Bandicoot.

Read Full Post »

Reaching for Creativity

Posted in Digital Learning, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged 21st Century Learning, acrostic poetry, Canva, One Little Word on January 6, 2015| 16 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Poetry forms the quality of light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change.
–Audre Lord

PHOSPHORESCENCE. Now there’s a word to lift your hat to… to find that phosphorescence, that light within, that’s the genius behind poetry.
― Emily Dickinson

My poetry light to my OLW:

Rise to the novelty
Eager for the rising
Arms stretched overhead
Calling for strength
Happy to hold the sunlight.

–Margaret Simon

If you missed DigiLit Sunday, I posted an Emaze presentation you can use with your students to make their own One Little Word resolutions. I presented this on Monday, and my students began working on their word webs and Canva designs. I wanted to share a few with you today.

Julie Johnson wrote about the importance of design. She wrote, “I think some would ask if it’s important to teach our students these skills when they are crafting digital compositions? I believe it is. Our students are composing and consuming texts very differently in today’s world. I believe it’s my responsibility as a teacher of writers to help my students be able to produce thoughtful quality products.” Full post here.

Thinking about Julie’s post, I talked to my students about design. “How can you use design of the image, the color, and the font to communicate what your word means to you?” In Kielan’s image above, she was very thoughtful about her design. She chose the word Merry. Many of the other students were thinking about “Merry Christmas,” so instead of changing her word, she used an image to describe what she meant by the word. She wants us to feel the calm, peaceful beauty of the word Merry.

I like the way Emily used synonyms for her word, Unique, to express her word.
Reed used a white board to share his word web around his word Light. I love how the design of the word web looks like a light.

When I was working with a first grader, I showed him how to use Thesaurus.com to make his word web. After we did this together, I realized how much this would help all of my students. So for my afternoon group, I suggested they try it. Put your word into the thesaurus and click. Find another word you like, click it, and so on, until a word web is built around a central word. This led some students to new words they could either select as their OLW or use in a poem. I look forward to seeing more student words. This activity not only gives students an opportunity to set goals and reflect on themselves, it also uses 21st Century Skills, the C’s of Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Communication. Feel free to use the Emaze to work with your own students on OLW.

http://app.emaze.com/@AOFLCWZL/one-little-word

To make your own images with Canva, click here.

Read Full Post »

Finding your One Little Word

Posted in Blogging, Digital Learning, Teaching, tagged acrostic poetry, Emaze, OLW, One Little Word, tagxedo on January 4, 2015| 13 Comments »

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

The Cyberspace Teacher Blogging space is full of Little Words. This is a wonderful tradition that I have been doing for three years. I want to pass this one to my students. I found Tara Smith’s OLW lesson for her 6th graders and put it on an Emaze to use with my students this week. I also used Mary Lee Hahn’s acrostic poem as a model for my students.

http://app.emaze.com/@AOFLCWZL/one-little-word

I plan to use this lesson on Monday and have the students Slice about their words on Tuesday at our blog site. You are welcome to use this presentation as well with your own students. Let me know if you do.

I made a Tagxedo with my word using all the synonyms that came up for me. I chose the tree as a symbol because the oak tree was my inspiration for my word.

I encourage you to try these activities with your students. Please join in the DigiLit round up with your link.

Read Full Post »

Be Amazed

Posted in Digital Learning, Gifted Education, Poetry Friday, Teaching, tagged A Maze Me, acrostic, Eye of the Storm, Kate Messner, Naomi Shihab Nye on December 19, 2014| 9 Comments »

Find more Poetry Friday at Buffy’s Blog.

My students have been working on book talks this week. Some of them wrote poems about their books. Tyler reviewed Eye of the Storm by Kate Messner. He wrote the following poem as an acrostic with the word storm. One student’s response, “I like how you included the theme in your poem.”

Saving lives from disaster
Taking risks
Only to see a surprising face
Revenge is never the answer
More and more problems appearing

–Tyler

Kielan reviewed Naomi Shihab Nye’s poetry book A Maze Me. Kielan said she selected the background and theme of her Animoto because it reflected the dreamy tone of the poem “Necklace.” This is the kind of poem that stays with you. “Can Monday be a porch?”

Read Full Post »

Terza Rima after Robert Frost

Posted in Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged collaborative poem, Robert Frost on December 12, 2014| 11 Comments »

Find more Poetry Friday with Paul at These 4 Corners

Silence in the Snow by John Gibson

We don’t get snow here, but the colder weather made me think of presenting Robert Frost to my students. I started with the beautiful Susan Jeffers illustrated book, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Then we read together Frost’s poem Acquainted with the Night and talked about rhyme scheme. A terza rima is a difficult form to write even for gifted kids, so we worked together. We started with a line from my own poem, Snow Day from Illuminate. My first group of students incorporated a repetitive pattern that I reminded them is called anaphora.

Collaborating, stealing lines, playing with rhyme, and writing from an image worked together to result in a nice poem.

Lost in the Snow
a terza rima after Robert Frost

I wake to a field of white
where a bunny rabbit hides,
where a night owl takes flight,

where Santa’s sleigh slides
where I stand on the ground
where a snowflake above me glides,

where something is lost, not found,
where sight begins to fail,
where a whisper is the softest sound,

where dreams set sail
and miles to go before I sleep
I am strong, not frail.

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I wake to a field of white.

–A collaborative poem by Mrs. Simon’s class

Acquainted with the Night by Robert Frost

My second group of students was larger, so the collaboration became more cumbersome. Too many different ideas don’t mix well with strong wills and sensitive writers. I don’t think the poem is as strong, either; however, I am struck by the sense of loss and sadness and overcoming that permeates each one. The images of snow covering the page and the words of Robert Frost set a tone for both of these poems.

Winter

Snow fell silently through the night.
These streets I have walked across
into the darkness, out of sight.

The sun I have lost,
Frosting over the glass in this faded frame,
The windows are covered in frost.

Each pattern has its own fame.
Sun rises, suddenly the cold vanished.
Once it is gone, it will never be the same.

Stars above shining bright.
Snow fell silently through the night.

a collaborative poem by Mrs. Simon’s class

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »