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.
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.
Join Jama for Poetry Friday at Jama’s Alphabet Soup.
This week my students and I were wondering about Aerodynamics. I love framing my weeks with so many wonders at Wonderopolis. We learned about jet streams and lift. We watched some cool time-lapsed videos.
Since we were wondering and wandering around in the clouds, I found some cloud poems to share. From The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School, I read Racing the Clouds by Jacqueline Jules (p. 45) and Biking Along White Rim Road by Irene Latham (p. 109). From The Poetry Friday Anthology For Science, I read Clouds by Kate Coombs (p. 85) and Tropical Rain Forest Sky Ponds by Margarita Engle. (On a side note, I am thrilled that my students are learning the names of wonderful Poetry Friday poets.)
My students noticed metaphors, personification, onomatopoeia, rhyming, and more. The Poetry Friday anthologies suggested the website Clouds Appreciation Society. (Is there a website for everything?) I pulled up a cloud picture on the board to inspire writing. Even though some of my young students go back to the acrostic form, their writing was richer, emoting more sense of tone, and embedded with metaphor. Models, models, models, teachers. They work!
Coming together
Like a school
Of fish
Under the big blue sky
Disaster, waiting to strike
Couldn’t be better
Laying under the sun
Once it was peaceful, no clouds
Underneath, we are the unsuspecting victims, of the next
Deadly hurricane
–Tobie
(To leave comments for this poet, go to his post.)
In Vannisa’s poem, you will see words and phrases borrowed from the poems we read, mixed together with her words to create a new poem.
Over Afganistan
sunlight is hidden,
for it is somewhat forbidden.
Because this is the clouds,
the round, puffy, white clouds.
The cloud of wish,
the cloud that is as flat as a dish.
They are all lakes in the sky.
Whether it is a flat, small pond,
or a fat navy ocean,
there are no
empty spaces.
–Vannisa (To leave comments for this poet, go to this post.)
Dear Emily was moved to make her poem into an Animoto video. Prepare for tears. Her poem is dedicated to Amy Ludwig VanDerwater. Amy knows why.
I have been thinking lately about what makes magic happen in writing workshop. I’m not sure, but I do know that my students feel like they are writers. This year I have a single third grader in my gifted group. She is pretty capable of doing what all the older kids are doing. But the other day, on a whim, she brought me this poem she had written. She glowed. She was so proud of it. I don’t know where it came from. It was not any prompt we had talked about. She explained to me that it just came to her. Maybe it was a stroke of genius. Or maybe it was a classroom atmosphere of poetry appreciation and writing freedom. Whatever it is and wherever the inspiration came from, I know enough to celebrate this lovely poem today on Poetry Friday.
Red petals flying with the wind.
O such grace dancing through the wind.
Sparkling shimmering as the sun joins you.
Even at night you’re dancing in the moon light.
–Erin
You can leave comments directly to Erin, aka Pegasus Lover, on our kidblog site.
Happy National Poetry Month! I have set a goal to write a poem a day for this month. I will also be featuring classroom poets and other fun poetry happenings. I’ll be part of the Progressive Poem, so hit the link on the sidebar to see how the collaborative poem is progressing. Greg at GottaBook is posting a poem a day. Today is a delightful spring poem from Mary Lee Hahn.
As we drove home from Austin yesterday, Easter Day, I enjoyed the blankets of bluebonnets that line the highway between Austin and Bastrop. An acrostic poem is one in which the lines begin with the letters that spell a word, usually the theme of the poem.
Blanket of blue
lines the highway
under a cloudy Texas sky.
Every pod pops
blue topped with promise
of more blossoms
nudging up, nodding to the day,
nestled with fiery Indian paintbrush,
elegantly announcing
the arrival of spring.
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She is a retired elementary gifted teacher who writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
Reflections on the Teche 