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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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Kidlit Book Club for Adults

Posted in Books, Gifted Education, Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged Letters about Literature, R.J.Palacio, Wonder on March 10, 2014| 11 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 10. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

I teach gifted in a public school district. In my two schools, I am the only gifted teacher, but in my district, I am one of 6 elementary GT teachers. Yesterday, we met unofficially. We decided to start a once a month book club for reading middle grade literature. We decided that we needed to know more about what was new and what better way to learn about new kitlit than to read and discuss it. A little wine and some snacks, too.

This first month we decided to read Wonder. A few of us had read it and loved it. Wonder is one of those important books. If you haven’t read it, you must. For me, the book has taken on new meaning through two children.

One is my nephew, Jack. Jack’s school district in Round Rock, TX. did a “One Community: One Book” project. Everyone in the community was encouraged to read Wonder. Jack is in third grade, and he wrote a letter to the author to be able to attend an event where she spoke. He told me later all about it. R.J. Palacio told the story of how she came to write Wonder. She was in an ice cream shop with her children, and a little girl with a facial deformity came in. Ms. Palacio was not happy with her reaction. She mulled it over and over. That drove her to create August.

When we read Wonder in my classroom, I did not even consider my student Brooklyn. I was reading it for all of the other reasons; it’s a great book and teaches so much about how to choose kindness in this world full of intolerance. I thought it was important to teach this point, but I didn’t even think about how Brooklyn lives like Via, Auggie’s sister, every day. Her brother and her mother are disabled. She knows the looks people give, the head turns, the feeling of being different. But Brooklyn doesn’t feel different at all. Her life is totally normal to her. She expressed this beautifully in her letter to R.J. Palacio for the Letters about Literature contest.

Like Via, I get very angry when I see someone staring at us like they paid us to put on a show. They look my family up and down, but when their eyes get down, they stay down, staring at my family’s legs. “They aren’t aliens! They are just like me and you, but their legs don’t work exactly the same.” I say this every time, but only in my head. I’ve tried to see what they see, but I just can’t see it.

Momma always told me that God gave me to her and the family for a special reason. Your book helped me to realize being different isn’t always bad. Usually, I feel like no one understands what it is like living with my family. No one understands how normal it can be. Your book changed that. You understood, and I want to tell you thank you.

Next month we have selected to read A Snicker of Magic. I haven’t read it yet, but have seen lots of good reviews. Looking forward to reading and sharing with my colleagues who love a good kidlit book, just like me.

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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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Lift a Line

Posted in Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged lift a line, Nikki Grimes, poetry, reader response on February 25, 2014| 13 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge!

My students write reader responses each week to whatever book they are reading. At the beginning of the year, I placed some questions in their binders to prompt these responses. I find that week after week, they select the same questions to answer.

A few weeks ago, I read Dana Murphy’s post on Two Writing Teachers about reader responses. She wrote about three different strategies she teaches her students, lifting a line, character maps, and visual note-taking. I posted these ideas on our class blog and have discussed each strategy with my students.

I love the connections I can make with authors online. I follow Nikki Grimes on Facebook, so I saw a post about her talk on Booktalk Nation (which, sadly, I had to miss) along with the opportunity to purchase a signed copy of Words with Wings. The book arrived last week. Vannisa is a fan of verse novels and picked it up immediately. She decided to lift a line to write her own poem about the main character. When I talked to Vannisa about her poem, she told me she was interested in how the character herself was also just words on the page.

I know a girl
who waits and listens.

For her daydreams,
she awaits.

Who comes from
a family
that doesn’t
daydream.

Waiting
for words
to take her
high into the sky
or her mind.

Tell her to stop,
she won’t

Who comes from
words

Locked
in her mind.

No one even knocks
on the door
for a visit.

Who comes from
a book.

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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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Digital Learning Day

Posted in Digital Learning, Teaching, Writing, tagged digital learning, gifted education, story writing on February 6, 2014| 1 Comment »

Today is Digital Learning Day, a day when educators join together and take the pledge to make digital learning a priority. To learn more about the movement, click here.

To celebrate digital learning day, things didn’t look all that different in my class. My students are very connected to the computer through their kidblog site. A few weeks ago we started a new writing project. For this writing, I wanted my students to combine elements of fiction and nonfiction. We used the Magic Treehouse books as a model. I don’t usually set a word count for writing, but for this one, we talked about it and decided the goal would be 1000-1500 words, with at least 5 chapters. I think this has worked well to make them think bigger. And they are writing…a lot! Almost every day, our kidblog site is updated with new chapters.

As a digital component of this writing project, I taught my students how to make a PowerPoint picture into a jpeg. The PowerPoint program allows them to layer pictures and text, group them together, and paste the image into Paint to save as an image file. The image file will be used in a movie or Animoto book trailer.

Tyler made this image using PowerPoint. He layered a waterfall image with a rock (boulder), a dinosaur, and a pool of water. He placed his text below as in a real picture book. He will build a movie in MovieMaker to “show” his book.

Matthew chose to make a book trailer in Animoto about his book. All his images were pulled from the Animoto site.

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Wordle Magic

Posted in Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged autism, dual exceptionality, gifted education, twice exceptional, Wordle on January 28, 2014| 16 Comments »

Join the Tuesday Slice of Life!

A few weeks into October I got the word that I would be getting a new student. This happens during the year as students complete the evaluation for gifted. But this new student was unique. She is labeled in the Special Ed. world as “twice exceptional” or as having “dual exceptionalities.” Sara’s (not her real name) first classification is autism. I have been teaching for nearly 30 years, and yet, I had never had an autistic student. I was totally unprepared.

I will not share the trials here, but there were a few. Adjusting to a new schedule and a mixed-grade class was a struggle for Sara. It was an adjustment for me and for my other students. We walked on thin ice for the first few months. Then after Christmas, I took a workshop offered by our Special Ed department on autism. My eyes were opened. I understood.

In short, the autistic brain is up to 10% larger than the average brain. While as children our brains weed out unnecessary parts, the autistic brain just adds more in. The most enlightening thing the instructor said was this: “At any given time, the autistic child is giving you the best he can.” I believe in this statement. So I must give Sara my best.

I got some great ideas from the workshop for using visual cues to calm Sara when she has a meltdown. The visuals should include the student’s interests. Autistic children tend to have intense interest areas. I wanted to prepare by implementing a visual while she was calm. I talked to her about making a Wordle. A Wordle is a word cloud. On the website, wordle.net, you can create a word cloud like the one I made above. I told Sara she was going to make a Wordle of words she liked to help her calm down. She immediately responded, “I don’t want to do it.” She did not want to do something that would make her different, make her stand out. But when T. walked into class, I said, “Tell Sara about the Wordle you made last year.” I showed her the site and did a sample one.

Sara enjoyed making her Wordle and as other students joined the class that day, she became the expert for teaching others how to make one. She printed out her Wordle. I asked her if she wanted to print out a picture to go with one of her words. She chose Hershey’s chocolate. We placed the illustrated Wordle in the front of her binder in the clear sleeve. The binder stays under her desk.

A few days later, Sara became upset about something. She was just beginning to show signs of losing control. Her eyes teared up. Her voice changed tone. So I reached under her desk and pulled out her binder. She pointed to the Wordle and said, “Look! Hershey’s!” That was it. I said nothing. Her temper was dissipated. Just like that.

I believe in my students. I believe that miracles can happen. I believe that when we are open to differences and willing to work with them, our students’ and our own lives are enriched.

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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!