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International Dot Day

Posted in Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged Creativity, International Dot Day, Peter Reynolds on September 17, 2013| 7 Comments »

I discovered Peter Reynolds and his delightful collection of creative books a few years ago. I made International Dot Day a part of my classroom lore. Teaching gifted students allows me the luxury of having the same students each year, with some additions along the way. All I said last week was “Dot Day is coming,” and my students cheered. I gave them 3 choices for celebrating: 1. Create your own dot. 2. Present the book to a kindergarten class; or 3. Both. Guess what they chose? You got it, option 3. So our Dot Day celebration is only just beginning. I love that Peter Reynolds says Dot Day is Sept. 15-ish because we plan to celebrate all week.

You’ll have to stay tuned for more posts about our week. The first thing we did was, of course, read THE DOT. Vashti thinks she is no good at art. Her very wonderful caring art teacher thinks otherwise and honors her most miniscule attempt to draw by framing her small dot in gold. Vashti then becomes determined to make more and more dots, various sizes and colors. She even paints a dot without painting a dot. The most important thing is to sign your name.

Sixth grader, Brooklyn, read the story.

Each of my students led a small group of kindergartners to create their own individual dot.

My students had a great time with the little ones and want to make this a monthly activity. Their teacher was happy to have us, too.

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Some Dot Day links:

International Dot Day Website: Free Posters!

Facebook Page for International Dot Day: Share how you are celebrating.

The Dot Club

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Grandparents’ Day Chalketry

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teaching, tagged chalk poetry, chalkabration, Grandparents' Day on September 13, 2013| 3 Comments »

Over at Teaching Young Writers, Betsy has a monthly chalk-a-bration, chalking poetry. My students had a great time with this activity on August 30. The principal saw all our beautiful chalketry and drawings, so she asked us to do it again for Grandparents’ Day. Since grandparents were expected to visit school on Monday, we chalked our poetry last Friday. Today, I am posting some pictures of my students and their chalketry. I’m sure they will ask again this morning if we are going to chalk poetry. I hope Betsy keeps it up during the school year, but even if she doesn’t post a round-up, my students are hooked and will be wanting to chalk poems year round. (If you click on the pictures, the image is bigger and you can read the poem.)

Grandparents were greeted by a colorful path.

Soft grandma,
warm grandma
has a cat with fur.
Happy grandma, sleepy grandma,
(snore)
“Yeah, sure.”
by Matthew

Kendall’s poem fills the sidewalk.

Grandparents are great.
Grandparents are sweet.
Grandparents are here to greet you.
Grandparents we hope you have a lot of fun.
Grandparents are the best.

Vannisa’s poem

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts

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August Chalk-a-bration

Posted in Poetry, Teaching, tagged chalk poetry, poetry, students writing on August 30, 2013| 7 Comments »

Join the Chalk-a-bration over at Teaching Young Writers

My students welcomed Friday by chalking up some poetry. The principal stopped by and said, “How fun!” Then she asked if we would do it again for grandparents’ day. A great way to welcome the long weekend. Sorry my pictures aren’t clearer. Any advice on taking pictures of chalk art?

A colorful rainbow,
pretty spiral like it’s spinning,
sugar filled gummie land,
a wonderful site to see.
by Tyler

Hip, hip hooray!
Today is Friday.
Happy in my heart
the weekend’s about to start.
Margaret Simon

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Clair de Lune

Posted in Poetry Friday, Teaching, tagged Clare de Lune, Claude Debussy, nature poetry, writing workshop on August 23, 2013| 9 Comments »

Swan Song, Creative Commons

I grew up with music in my home. My mother is a pianist. I’m sure she played Claude Debussy’s Clare de Lune. When I went to Google yesterday, I was pleased to find out it was Debussy’s 151st birthday. The link took me to a YouTube video of nature pictures with the harp playing Clare de Lune. It was one of those, let’s-write-to-this inspiration moments. I had planned to pass out pictures from a nature calendar. This was better, music and beautiful nature pictures. I wrote with my students, so I’ll post my poem here. Student work will come later as they do some polishing and make the plunge into posting on a blog.

Hills and mountains
reflect in still water;
Sun bursts through clouds;
A rainbow circles the sky;
And I travel there
with you.

I ask, Do you love me?

How high? you say.

Higher than the mountains?

Higher than the clouds.

Higher than the moon?

Higher than the stars at night.

Higher, higher, still.

Blue Moon before sunrise. Photo by Margaret Simon

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Betsy at I Think in Poems.

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Community

Posted in Slice of Life, Spiritual Growth, Teaching, tagged 8 Habits of Love, community, Ed Bacon on August 20, 2013| 13 Comments »

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As the school year begins and gains speed, the Habit of Community makes me think of the school community and our classroom communities. Ed Bacon’s book 8 Habits of Love ends with this habit. All seven habits (Generosity, Stillness, Truth, Candor, Play, Forgiveness, and Compassion) lead to this final one. He begins the last chapter with the epigraph from John Donne, “No man is an island, entire of itself.”

Class group hug

The Habit of Community lets us know that we are not, in fact, alone. Each of the other Habits of Love ultimately leads to this most critical, life-affirming habit. –Ed Bacon

Life-affirming, that is the reason, the meaning, of community. We are all in this together. Community is designed to help us through the darkness and to celebrate the light. Tragedies put our communities to the test. In most cases, the Habit of Community saves its loved ones from fear and leads them to healing.

I pray that my classroom community will not be tested by tragedy, but everyday there are failures to be reassured and successes to be celebrated. We have a responsibility to encourage a sense of community so that our students feel safe to be who they are. They learn empathy and generosity by our modeling.

True Community encourages everyone to clarify their own values without having to agree with the group. There are few experiences that bring more energy to the soul than belonging to a durable Community without the pressure of having to agree. –Ed Bacon

One thing that stands out to me about the Habit of Community is that we have to open up ourselves to vulnerability in order for others to connect to us. Recently, a friend’s son had his first child. The baby was born early and had some difficulties. He posted daily on Facebook about the progress of his son and his wife’s recovery. I found myself looking for his updates every day, and I know that the support of all of us reading them helped him get through this difficult time. They are all home now and becoming the family they were meant to be. Somehow, though, I feel blessed from having shared in this journey.

We now have so many more ways to connect with our wider community. If we can use the social media to spread the Habits of Love rather than fear, to encourage the life-light in each person, to be there for each other, we can spread the energy of peace and health to the world. We can inspire change. We can be a community.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the community of Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Tuesdays. We are all teachers together on a journey to provide the best for our students. We are a supportive, encouraging, and loving community, and I am proud to be a part.

In what ways will you build community in your classroom? A community of belonging, a community of trust, a community of learning?

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Flying

Posted in Poetry Friday, Teaching, tagged caterpillars, Little Women, steal a line on August 16, 2013| 12 Comments »

Three caterpillars
fascinating to observe–
Future swallowtails.

A few days ago, a friend posted a picture on Facebook of these amazing creatures devouring his parsley plants. I asked if I could have a few for my classroom. I picked them up yesterday and was a big hit in the hallway walking in. I will be teaching math to a small group of second and third graders,so we will measure and graph their growth and then watch and wait. This is as exciting to me as it is to them. I’ll keep you posted. Maybe we’ll write caterpillar and butterfly poems, too.

Have you ever been stuck or needed something to accelerate you on the road to a poem? This happens to me quite often. One activity I like to try is to steal a line. Sometimes I borrow lines from poets I like, but this time I was in a bookstore. So I grabbed a favorite book, Little Women, and found this, “It seems so long to wait, so hard to do. I want to fly away at once, as those swallows fly, and go in at that splendid gate. I want to be with them in flight.”

I want to hold air as close as a summer blanket,
cottonball soft puffs of a cloud,
floating
for a moment,
to touch its warm belly
and fly.
Who will come with me?
Let’s form a V,
honk like geese,
announce our arrival.
It seems so long to wait
to go in at that splendid gate.
–Margaret Simon

Speaking of flying, you can read about a once-in-a-lifetime hot-air balloon ride here.

Flying Angel over Duperier Street Bridge,
an original painting by Margaret Simon

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Steps and Staircases.

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Chalking Poetic

Posted in Poetry, Teaching, tagged chalkabration, Fancy Nancy Poet Extraordinaire on July 31, 2013| 2 Comments »

Join the Chalk-a-bration over at Teaching Young Writers

It’s July 31st, the last day of July and time for a Chalkabration. That means writing poetry in chalk, or chalketry. I knew it was coming up, so instead of unpacking boxes, arranging shelves, or covering a bulletin board as I have been doing for days to get ready for back-to-school, I crossed the hall and borrowed three children from a colleague’s classroom. Her children are usually happy to comply, but amazingly, I was able to get all three of them to write a poem (or two).

The 5-year old, Jacob, is entering kindergarten this year. He is very bright and can read already, but he didn’t know what a poem was. So I pulled out “Fancy Nancy Poet Extraordinaire.” This is a great book for teaching about poetry with lots of fancy words. Funny me, I would stop and explain the meaning of a word only to find Nancy would explain it, too, and often better than I did. She even introduced the word ode.

On finishing the book, I pulled out some old loose leaf paper and managed to locate pencils among the mess of supplies, and we set about writing poems. I did what I always do and wrote with them. Kaylie (entering 7th grade) and I decided to write about the sun. Emily (3rd grade) wrote an acrostic with the word poem. She was trying to help Jacob write an acrostic, too, but he got frustrated and moved to Kaylie for help. She began brainstorming words with him. (I have taught her well!)

Then I said, “Jacob, what do you want to write about?”
He replied, “Teenage Ninja Turtles.”
“Ok, what do you like about turtles?”
“Turtles’ shells are shiny.”
“Great first line!”
“I like the colors!”
“Write that for your second line.”
He wrote, “I COLORS”
“Great job!”
“Let’s think, what words rhyme with shiny?”
Jacob liked the word tiny.
The last line became “They’re tiny.”

While Kaylie and I were helping Jacob write his poem, Emily was writing. She wrote another poem. This one about rainbows. I love waving the magic wand of poetry over children. The world is a better place and certainly more fun! Thanks, Erica, for loaning me your delightful children for this summer Chalkabration.

Turtles’ shells are shiny.
I like the colors.
They’re tiny.

Rainbows
When I see a rainbow,
they make me feel happy.
When the sun goes out,
I get sad. But I’ll see another one
again another day.

Haiku to the Sun
morning sun columns
shafts of light streaming through the clouds
yellow glitter shines

Sunspots
buzz like flies
behind my eyes
yellow polka dots.

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Chalk-u

Posted in Poetry, Teaching, tagged chalkabration, haiku, student work on June 30, 2013| 5 Comments »

Join the Chalk-a-bration over at Teaching Young Writers

Betsy, a kindergarten teacher and fellow blogger, is hosting a round up of chalketry, poetry in chalk, at her monthly Chalkabration. On the last day of Write your Way youth writing camp a few weeks ago, we wrote haiku in chalk or chalku for the parents to read as they walked to the classroom for Author’s Chair. Here’s a sampling.

Flowers in a bush
Fresh cut grass under my feet
What a pleasant smell!
by Kaylie

Roses are in bloom
Bees buzz around the garden
All is peaceful
–Anna

Shadows dapple, splayed
beneath the crooked oak’s arms
Swaying though untouched
–Collin

Trees blow in the wind
Growing and growing until
They all pass away
–Jered

Shadows move slow
and birds tweet quiet
I write in the shade.
Kylon

A shady oak tree.
The perfect place on a hot day
A cool breeze blowing its leaves
By Lily

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The Habit of Truth

Posted in Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged 8 Habits of Love, Ed Bacon, Truth on June 18, 2013| 7 Comments »

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In Ed Bacon’s book, The 8 Habits of Love, through anecdotes from his own life and the lives of others, he outlines 8 habits for us to live in love rather than through fear. The third habit is the Habit of Truth. In this chapter, these words were speaking to me.

The Habit of Truth can help us ascertain which choices are truly ours–and which come from someone else’s script for us that we may be following out of fear.

Truth is not static; it represents constantly developing ideas and insights about ourselves and the world.

When I was 14, all I wanted to be was a writer. I found a page in my diary along with a bad poem,”I want to be a writer.” Here is a picture of a page in my diary.

“I would love to be a writer if only someone would give me confidence!”

When I was 15, I volunteered at a camp for underprivileged children called “Operation Life Enrichment.” Here I spent time with children who had few advantages. I read with them, went swimming with them, and loved them. I knew I wanted to be a teacher.

I knew at a young age what I wanted to do and be. I have kept them both a part of my life. But sometimes there are those people who come along and try to change your path. I think teachers and writers both are susceptible to other people’s expectations of who they should be.

A few years ago, I had a difficult situation in a teaching position. My administrator saw a weakness in me in the area of math. Well, yes, this is true. I am most passionate about teaching reading and writing. Math is not my thing and never will be. Sorry. No amount of remedial education will change this truth about me. I was devastated, however, that my position depended on it. If I didn’t go back to school, I did not have a job. I could’ve done it, but my instincts told me it was wrong. I cried on the shoulder of my husband.

He asked me, “What do you want to do?” What a great question! He was honoring ME. What I wanted was important!

I responded, “I want to teach writing.” That began my search for a new position. None of this was easy, but I was driven by the Habit of Truth. I had to be true to myself. With my masters in gifted, I was able to get an elementary gifted teaching position. And I do occasionally have to teach math. But they also write.

During this time, a friend gave me a poem. This poem saved me. Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese.

Mary Oliver told me I didn’t have to be good. I had to let the soft animal of my body love what it loves. I go back to this poem often remembering that I am responsible for being true to myself in the family of things.

Our Truth is not always an easy choice to make. Truth is not always evident either. It is constantly unfolding. We must listen to the voice of Truth in order to live a vital and honest life, a happy life.

What is your Truth? When have you had a difficult time choosing for yourself over what others expect of you?

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Writing Marathon

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teaching, tagged A&E Gallery, Poetry Friday, Richard Louth, Write your Way writing camp, writing marathon on June 13, 2013| 43 Comments »

Poetry Friday is here!

Today, I am hosting the Poetry Friday blog roundup. Please post your link in the comments. I thought when I signed up for this date that it would be a quiet summer Friday, but it is actually the last day of a writing camp for students. I will check in periodically and post links as they come in.

Writing in the gallery

Leading a writing camp is one of the highlights of my summer. This year we have 9 students ranging from entering 4th through 10th grade. Each of them is in a different place in their writing, yet each has a unique voice. My partner teacher, Stephanie Judice, and I also come from different places. I teach elementary, and she teaches high school. I write poetry. She writes fiction. A perfect match. Every morning, I led the poetry writing, and she led the fiction. Worked out well.

Our favorite day is always Wednesday, the writing marathon. The writing marathon was invented by Richard Louth of the Southeastern Writing Project. He was inspired by Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones in which she talks about writing in restaurants. She encourages writers to find a space and write continuously for a period of time. So on a writing marathon, the rules are 1) declare yourself a writer; 2) travel from place to place, write in that place, and if appropriate, order something; and 3) share and thank each other. (No criticism or comment, just thank you.)

One of our stops on the writing marathon was the A&E Gallery, a collaborative gallery of a variety of artists owned by Paul Schexnayder. We did two writing periods at the gallery. During the first one, I asked the students to walk all around the space and to collect words that came into their minds as they walked. After collecting words, we found a spot to sit and write. The second prompt was an ekphrastic poem about one particular piece of art. I am sharing the poem I wrote from the gallery walk and a student’s poem from a group of metal faces.

Mermaids float above her majesty, the sea
swirling waves as a potter’s wheel
forming a lily-lined path
to the land of mortals.

On the shore, rusted beauty emerges
from layers of water–a mint for the gatherers of things.

Look with your soul,
feel the release of imagination.
Find your buried hope.
The music in you awaits!

–All rights reserved, Margaret Simon

Metal Faces
Their open metal mouths,
staring into me,
looking past my casual writer’s appearance.
Can they see my conscience?
They read me as if
I were the art on display.
Their wide eyes,
penetrating my heart,
are full of distaste.
Like judges,
and I have earned myself
a low score.
Their scraps
that they call facial features
bore into me,
like they know everything.
And, perhaps they do,
but it doesn’t show.
All they can do
is watch me,
beg for me to stay
when I’m passing by,
so they can look into my soul.

–Kaylie, 12 years old

Go nuts with Charles at Father Goose with a tribute to Jama Rattigan.

At Random Noodling, a Robert Frost poem “Questioning Face.”

Kurious Kitty has some Flag Day poetry.

At KK Kwotes, find Albert Camus.

At NC Teacher Stuff, find a short poem about fathers by William Hamilton Hayne.

Keri is discovering a children’s bookstore in Vancouver, BC.

Matt Forrest has a poem for his daughter.

Jama is featuring a bilingual poetry collection called Laughing Tomatoes and other Spring Poems/Jitomates Risuenos y ostros poemas de primavera by Francisco X. Alarcón and Maya Christina Gonzalez.

Laura Salas has a rodeo poem by Nancy Bo Flood.

Mary Lee is here with a feast of verse novels.

Ruth has a turtle-y post.

Tabatha is thinking about plagiarism.

The Teaching Authors share online resources and April has a poem about giving up privacy in exchange for a free app.

Renee at No Water River has another wonderful video featuring Margarita Engle sharing her verse picture book When you Wander: A Search and Rescue Dog Story.

Linda at Teacher Dance has a poem she heard at a teaching workshop.

Today at The Poem Farm, Amy has a little goodbye poem from a teacher’s point of view along with a Poetry Peek from kindergarten teacher Erin Jarnot and her students from Elma Primary.

Julie is back this week with an original poem called “Anniversary” and some musings about translation and mistranslation.

Bridget Magee is here with an original poem, “Summer Hazard” about one of the perils of living in the desert.

Over at Today’s Little Ditty, Michelle has a dream poem written by her dad in honor of Father’s Day.

Robyn Hood Black is here with Full Hearts, Empty Nests, and Emily Dickinson.

MM Socks has an original poem today Woodrow’s Shadow.

Doraine Bennett has Winslow Homer and J.G. Whittier.

Irene Latham has a menagerie of Valerie Worth poems.

A traveling poem over at The Florian Cafe this Friday morning.

Author Amok is celebrating with a picnic-full of third graders’ food poems. Chocolate pie, anyone? We can’t end school without some teacherly wisdom. I’m also featuring a portion of poet Joseph Ross’s beautiful post “The Gifts of Teaching.”

Karen Edmisten has a Billy Collins poem to share.

Cathy has an original cat poem.

Lorie Ann Grover offers a haiku today, Whispered through Steam.

Joy at Poems for Kids Joy has an original poem about her flag for Flag Day.

Here’s Becky with Math Poetry.

All About Books with Janet has a doggy poem “I Didn’t Do It” written by Patricia MacLachlan and Emily MacLachlan Charest and illustrated by Katy Schneider.

For some hippity-hoppity froggy fun, go to Reading to the Core.

Little Willow posted Afterthoughts by Edwin Arlington Robinson at her blog Bildungsroman.

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