Reflections on the Teche

Celebration Saturday

April 25, 2015 by margaretsmn

Ruth Ayres invites us the celebrate each week. Click over to her site Discover. Play. Build. to read more celebrations.

This morning, I’ve been cleaning and doing chores like kitty litter and laundry. My hands smell like bleach. I kinda like the smell, tingly clean, but I should’ve worn gloves. As I swept the kitchen floor, what else was there to do but reflect on my week. Do I really have anything to celebrate? The list got longer and longer.

The logo for SCBWI is a kite. I set out my kite last weekend. I found out it needs a few repairs, but it may fly one day. I have hope. The Houston conference gave me hope, but I also connected with other writers on this journey and that is what I celebrate today: Connections. I wrote about the conference for Slice of Life Tuesday.

On Tuesday night my husband and I attended a fund raiser for a fairly new nonprofit called the Shining Light Foundation. The organization provides financial assistant to children who have a dream. The event offered a roundup of local Cajun and Zydeco bands. I was particularly taken by a young girl playing the washboard. She has such a natural rhythm and a sense of confidence. I celebrate young talent and passion for going for it.

Chubby Carrier and students

This week our gifted sixth graders finished up their project on Wonders of Iberia Parish by painting sets for an original play. Their performance was held at our Gifted by Nature Day for all elementary students, and the three boys that I teach felt proud of the accomplishment. I can see how this experience changed them into confident leaders. I celebrate student leaders.

My students continue to enjoy singing poems with Amy Ludwig VanDerwater over at The Poem Farm. Some of them are going to the site on their own between class meetings. One of my groups created their own song this week. See if you can figure out the tune. Here is a matching form from Amy’s site. Like Amy, I will post the Soundcloud tomorrow for you to see if your guess was right.

Written by Matthew, Tyler, Noah, Jacob, and Vannisa

Tree Song

Apples fall from apple trees
Watch out! Watch out!
Syrup comes from maple trees,
Sweet, a sticky mess!

Acorns fall from old oak trees.
Squirrels eat them.
Squirrels and humans both alike
all depend on trees.

All depend on trees,
All depend on trees.
Squirrels and humans both alike
All depend on trees!

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Gifted Education, Writing | Tagged Amy Ludwig Vanderwater, Shining Light Foundation, Sing that Poem, student leadership, The Poem Farm, young musicians, Zydeco | 5 Comments »

Gifted by Nature

April 24, 2015 by margaretsmn

Join the roundup with Renee at No Water River

Use this button created by Leigh Anne Eck to post your Digital Poetry this month.

Every year we gather all the elementary gifted students at our local city park for a day of playing strategic games and combining nature, art, and poetry. This year our 6th grade students led the day. They’ve been working together once a month all year to plan a day of wonder for all our students. They performed a play about the Wonders of New Iberia. Written, designed, and performed by students, the play led the audience on a tour of the wonders of our area.

The 6th grade students led an art and poetry activity. Their instructions were to think of something you wonder about and write an I am poem about it. The form was simple. The students wrote and tore paper to create an art piece to accompany the poem. I participated because I wanted to sit next to students and be one of them. I thought about my diva cat, Mimi. One of the students helped me with my torn paper art.

Torn paper Mimi by Margaret Simon

Galaxy by Kaiden

Air by Matthew

Nature by Vannisa

This post is my 600th post. I never would have thought I would get here when I started this amazing journey. Thank you, friends and readers!

Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry, Poetry Friday | Tagged Gifted by Nature Day, I am poem, torn paper art | 10 Comments »

Family

April 23, 2015 by margaretsmn

Join the Spiritual Thursday round up at Reading, Teaching, Learning.

Use this button created by Leigh Anne Eck to post your Digital Poetry this month.

Holly Mueller leads us to spiritual reflection each week. This week the theme is family. I didn’t think I could write a poem about family without being trite or cliché. Sometimes cliché just happens, and this is one of those times.

Family is a full cup
overflowing
with nourishing water
a twist of lemon.

Family is a dog,
four cats,
an occasional frog.

Family is photo albums
in the antique armoire
saving the years.

Family is a favorite restaurant
where they know your name.

Family is a daily text,
Facetime, calling Bluetooth,
feeling close together
while far apart
knowing there is no place like home
and no friend like family.

–Margaret Simon

Last night I happened upon a Twitter chat for #TCRWP. Someone mentioned using PicLit, so in the spirit of digital poetry, I tried it out. The first picture that came up was the Bean in Chicago where we have posed a few family pictures. The word family was not listed, so I used people instead.

See the full PicLit at PicLits.com

And here a family Bean photo with haiku using Picmonkey.

Posted in Poetry, Spiritual Growth | Tagged digital poetry, family, spiritual journey | 2 Comments »

Jumping into the Deep End

April 21, 2015 by margaretsmn

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for Tuesdays Slice of Life Challenge.

This weekend I attended my first ever SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) regional conference in Houston. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was nervous. I thought maybe I was jumping into a place I would not belong, a pond made only for big fish. My fears were relieved almost immediately when I met Caroline walking across the street to the Westin. She told me how scared she was the first time, so she decided she would always find a new person and be welcoming. How great for me. We found a place at a table together, and everyone started chatting and exchanging cards.

I was asked, “Are you an author or an illustrator?”
“Uh, well…”
I said with confidence, “I am an author.”
Then I giggled. “Yes, this is my first time.”

Our first presenter was the illustrator Kelly Light. I fell in love with her. She put us all at ease with her humor and her very real story about her struggle to find herself and live her dream. I was moved to tears by the end. Her first book is adorable, Louise Loves Art.

At her signing, she gave out stickers. I wore my favorite sticker on Sunday to have some courage to “Be Fierce…So Feline…So Fantastic!”

Fierce feline sticker on my journal with my fierce feline, Mimi.

Amidst the inspiring speakers and the chatting with new friends, I had an editor’s critique of my middle grade work in progress. My palms were sweaty and my stomach was churning, but I walked in bravely. The editor was calm and respectful. She did not treat me as a total idiotic-what-do-you-think-you-are-doing writer. However, I have a lot of work to do. I have hard decisions to make. Revisions to write. But my work is viable. This work is doable. I will not be sending in a manuscript any time soon. I know I am not ready; however, I am a fish in the pond. I can swim freely alongside the other fish. I am one of them. I am an author.

Posted in Slice of Life | Tagged Kelly Light, middle grade fiction, SCBWI, writing | 18 Comments »

Sing That Poem with Students

April 19, 2015 by margaretsmn

Use this button created by Leigh Anne Eck to post your Digital Poetry this month.

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is doing a unique and fun writing project on her blog, The Poem Farm. My students are huge fans. We have been checking in daily to see the new poem, to sing all the match up songs possible, count syllables, then make a guess. We have recorded our guesses on Soundcloud using my iPhone.

My students have gotten good at this. They are not in the least bit shy about singing. This week was mostly filled with more state testing. So when testing was over, and we finally had uninterrupted time together, they insisted on visiting The Poem Farm. We read Amy’s poem Memories and after quite a few fails, we decided it was the tune of “London Bridge is Falling Down.”

Writing workshop became a frenzy of experimenting with different songs, counting syllables, and writing original poems to the tunes. I was particularly fond of Emily’s because I helped her with it. She was writing about stinky feet. We googled a picture of a labeled shoe to get the proper shoe vocabulary. I talked to her about how she could personify eyelets. Finding rhymes was a challenge, too. (Rhymezone.com helped) I kept trying to describe that reeking of feet as steam. She came up with word vapor. So we made a near rhyme with vapor and garbage collector. It worked. Read the poem first to see if you can guess the tune, then listen to the Soundcloud. Thank you, Amy VanDerwater for inspiring such creativity and fun.

Do your shoes smell bad?
Do your laces stink a tad?
Can the eyelets see the dirt?
If they can, they may avert.
Does the footbed reek and vapor
like the garbage can collector?
Do your shoes smell bad?

by Emily

Link up your Digital Literacy posts below:

Posted in Digital Learning, Gifted Education, Poetry | Tagged Amy Ludwig Vanderwater, soundcloud, The Poem Farm | 3 Comments »

Acrostic Verse

April 17, 2015 by margaretsmn

Join the roundup with Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge

Use this button created by Leigh Anne Eck to post your Digital Poetry this month.

I am staying true to my blog title and reflecting today. I discovered a student of mine has been writing acrostic poems. Lani is new to my gifted class, in third grade, and works on math with me. She knew the others were blogging for the month of March, and she wanted to join in. Of course, I let her, and her mother welcomed the challenge by allowing her computer time at home to post. With the crazy number of posts during March, I was not completely keeping up. I thought I was until I saw this post from Lani from March 25th.

Since today is International Poetry Day for me… this is my poem…..

Hour long punishment
Expelled from school yesterday
Lectures from my mother
Practicality flunked sixth grade

My worst day ever
Everyone knows that I lied to get their attention

I hope that you liked my poem!!

This form intrigued me. As I said, Lani is a third grader, and none of her lines were true to her, so I assumed that she was writing a novel in verse as a 6th grade character. Here was another post from the same day.

Crazy unpredictable things have happened
Once I had a pig for supper
Maybe a dog would have tasted better
Eww!!!

Inviting you is not a problem
Never a problem because I need a witness

All my relatives have not survived
Nor my family
Dad did not want to come in fearing that he will be finished

Sometimes I do not know how people can lie
Even if they are lying to themselves
Everyone thinks that I am lying and I am!!!

After reading this, I had to have a discussion with Lani. I was wondering where she was getting her ideas from. She didn’t have an explanation. She just wanted to write poems, and she knew she was good at acrostic. The only time she had written a poem with me was for Chalkabration, an acrostic about March. I gave her loads of praise because it was a great poem.

I talked to Lani about her fictional character. She made some notes in her notebook. I encouraged her to keep it going. Since this conversation, we have had disruptions with spring break and testing, so I hadn’t checked in with Lani. These poems seem to get crazier and crazier. Not everything makes sense, and yet, I think I have a creative writer on my hands. I hope we can make time again to put aside the math book and write poems. I love how she gives me credit for “coaching” her.

Hard-headed
Ant=my brother
Reading maniac=my sister
Dare addict=my dad
Especially the hard ones
Sardines eater=my cousin
Tardy=my friends

Dummy=my other cousin
Arnold=my brother’s name
Reaction=crazy
Extreme dare

Elapsed time:02 seconds
Ventriloquist people call me crazy (look at them!)
Even my mother! Listen to what she calls it!!!!
Ridiculous lying is what my mother calls it

This a poem for MY International Poetry Month. It took me a few days but I finally finished it. (with a little help from Mrs.Simon and some ”coaching”)

You can leave comments directly to Lani here.

Posted in Chalk-a-bration, Digital Learning, Gifted Education, Poetry Friday | Tagged Creativity, student acrostic poetry | 9 Comments »

Love Poem

April 16, 2015 by margaretsmn

Join the Spiritual Thursday round up at Reading, Teaching, Learning.

Use this button created by Leigh Anne Eck to post your Digital Poetry this month.

The theme for today’s Spiritual Thursday round-up is love. At first I thought, “This is easy.” However, the more I thought about it, writing about love is hard. What do I have to say that is new and refreshing or inspiring? When I have a difficult writing assignment, I often turn to form. Today I turn to Kwame Alexander and his amazing 2015 Newbery Award book in verse, The Crossover. In The Crossover, the character writes definitions in a particular form. My blogging friends, Michelle and Holly, each used the form (vocabulary poems) this month. I haven’t tried it with my students yet, but I usually like to practice before presenting them with an idea. Here’s my definition of love.

love

/ləv/

a person or thing that one loves.

as in: the curl of an infant’s
new fingers around your thumb.

as in: looking through the open window
of our arms as we dance
the Lover’s Waltz.

as in: let the soft body
of your heart love
what it loves.*

as in: He gave his only
begotten son so that
you and I have eternal life.

© Bratishka | Dreamstime.com - Baby Hand Photo

* variation of a line from Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese, my all time favorite poem.

Posted in Poetry, Spiritual Growth | Tagged Kwame Alexander, spiritual journey, Spiritual poetry, vocabulary poems | 10 Comments »

More Reasons to Write a Poem

April 14, 2015 by margaretsmn

Use this button created by Leigh Anne Eck to post your Digital Poetry this month.

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for Tuesdays Slice of Life Challenge.

I love this poetry exercise inspired by Bob Raczka “Some Reasons to Write a Poem.” Stacey Shubitz of the Two Writing Teachers wrote one here that is personal to her mothering a four-year-old girl. Catherine Flynn’s version is here. My digital version here.

I prompted my students last week and told them the form would work well as a Slice of Life poem. But some child poets are not happy with their first try. Some of them (actually a rare few) take a poetry prompt home and incubate. Emily did this last week. She showed me her poem written in a spiral notebook she carries in her booksack. I have to share this with you. You’ll know why when you read it.

Because the Earth is round,
not flat

Because the rain seeps into the ground

Because the birds chirp a high pitched melody

Because trees are mossy giants

Because of the polka-dot fawn in the barn

Because the man on the moon is fishing for stars

and caught one
for you!

–Emily, 4th grade

(leave comments directly to her on her blog)

A mossy giant in my yard.

Matthew’s version starts off like an SOL then moves into a hats-off-to-writing-a-poem poem.

Reasons to write a poem

Because you ate too much candy last night and didn’t sleep
and woke up early to get donuts.

Because you’re in class with, like, 5 poetry beasts!

Because I took time out of my me-time to write this, which, F to the YI, is a poem!

Because you can be free, and you don’t have to do just one thing.

Because you can’t mess up.

Because you can’t be better than anyone,
or worse.

–Matthew, 5th grade

(comments for Matthew)

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life | Tagged #DigiPoetry, Bob Raczka, student poetry | 6 Comments »

I Love You the Purplest

April 13, 2015 by margaretsmn

Join the IMWAYR meme at Teach Mentor Texts.

When I think of mentor texts, a wonderful addition to my library is I Love You the Purplest by Barbara M. Joosse with beautiful watercolor illustrations by Mary Whyte. This book tells the story of two brothers going fishing with their mom. Each wants to be loved more than the other. But this is one poetic mother. She loves one the bluest and one the reddest. The metaphorical language is understandable to even my youngest students.

Why, Julian, I love you the bluest!
I love you the color of a dragonfly
at the tip of its wing.
I love you the color of a cave
in its deepest, hidden part
where grizzly bears and bats curl up until night.
The mist of a mountain.
The splash of a waterfall.
The hush of a whisper.

After reading the story, I ask my students to choose a color. Brainstorm words that would go with that color. We share our lists. Then they choose someone they love. (Most choose mothers. You could make it a Mother’s Day activity.) Using their lists, they write a poem about the one they love using the title, “__________, I Love you the _______-est.”

Matthew won second place in a state writing contest in second grade with his poem.

Mom, I Love you the Bluest

Mom, I love you like the color of the sky.
The shimmer of the ocean.
The color of our cat’s eyes.
My old blue jeans.
I love you with the strongest emotion.

https://youtu.be/IYAl64ng09c

I guess when you have a tried and true lesson, and you’ve been blogging for 4 years, something’s bound to come back around. I did a Google search for images and came across my own Poetry Friday post from 2013. You can read more student poems here.

Use this button created by Leigh Anne Eck to post your Digital Poetry this month.

Posted in Books, Poetry | Tagged Barbara Joosse, I Love you the Purplest, IMWAYR, Love poems, Mary Whyte, Mother's Day poetry | 4 Comments »

2015 Progressive Poem

April 12, 2015 by margaretsmn

Use this button created by Leigh Anne Eck to post your Digital Poetry this month.

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

Lake Martin sunset

Today is my turn to add a line to the Kidlit 2015 Progressive Poem. When I volunteered to do this, I chose day 12 knowing that the poem would already have an established meter and theme, and I’d just have to keep it rocking along. This year the poem is free verse which is comfortable to me. It also ended up in the cypress swamp right down the street from me here in South Louisiana. I am posting a few pictures from a fall canoe trip to Lake Martin, St. Martinville, LA, which is a natural bird conservatory and cypress swamp. We can imagine our mermaid here.

Yesterday, Kim gave some grandmotherly advice to our maiden as she glides through the water. I added in my One Little Word and my blog title to complete the metaphorical advice. I was thinking of this photograph by my friend, Marjorie Pierson (cousin to my husband), who is using her fine art photography to promote saving the wetlands. Her image makes dewdrops look like jewels. If you need images to help you when adding your own line, I suggest flipping through the slides on her site.

As I pass this on to Doraine at Dori Reads, I wonder if we will stay in the swamp. Does she have a friend in the trees? Perhaps an egret or a roseate spoonbill? Does she have a friend in an alligator or nutria? I wonder where this poem is going. That is the joy of a progressive poem. You must send her out in the wild like this mermaid.

She lives without a net, walking along the alluvium of the delta.
Shoes swing over her shoulder, on her bare feet stick jeweled flecks of dark mica.

Hands faster than fish swing at the ends of bare brown arms. Her hair flows,
snows in wild wind as she digs in the indigo varnished handbag,

pulls out her grandmother’s oval cuffed bracelet,
strokes the turquoise stones, and steps through the curved doorway.

Tripping on her tail she slips hair first down the slide… splash!
She glides past glossy water hyacinth to shimmer with a school of shad,

listens to the ibises roosting in the trees of the cypress swamp–
an echo of Grandmother’s words, still fresh in her windswept memory.

Born from the oyster, expect the pearl.
Reach for the rainbow reflection on the smallest dewdrop.

Follow the progress below:

1 Jone at Check it Out

2 Joy at Poetry for Kids Joy

3 Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe

4 Laura at Writing the World for Kids

5 Charles at Poetry Time Blog

6 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page

7 Catherine at Catherine Johnson

8 Irene at Live Your Poem

9 Mary Lee at Poetrepository

10 Michelle at Today’s Little Ditty

11 Kim at Flukeprints

12 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche

13 Doraine at DoriReads

14 Renee at No Water River

15 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge

16 Ruth at There is No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town

17 Buffy at Buffy’s Blog

18 Sheila at Sheila Renfro

19 Linda at Teacher Dance

20 Penny at A Penny and her Jots

21 Tara at A Teaching Life

22 Pat at Writer on a Horse

23 Tamera at The Writer’s Whimsy

24 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect

25 Tabatha at The Opposite of indifference

26 Brian at Walk the Walk

27 Jan at Bookseedstudio

28 Amy at The Poem Farm

29 Donna at Mainely Write

30 Matt at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme

Canoeing through the trees in Lake Martin.

Today is DigiLit Sunday, a link up of blogs using digital literacies in the classroom. If you are joining in for DigiLit Sunday or Digital Poetry, please link up your post below.

Posted in Digital Learning, Poetry, Writing | Tagged #DigiPoetry, collaborative poem, cypress swamp, DigiLit Sunday, Marjorie Pierson, nature poetry, Progressive poem | 17 Comments »