haiku | Reflections on the Teche

Posts Tagged ‘haiku’

Celebrate Religions and Traditions

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Digital Learning, Poetry, tagged #DigiPoetry, haiku, Laotian New Year, Palm Sunday, Travel, video poem on April 4, 2015| 6 Comments »

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

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

Since this is Easter weekend, and I will be celebrating with my family, I am combining my weekend posts into one. Continuing my April commitment to digital poetry, a weekly celebration link up, and DigiLit Sunday all in one.

I think I am getting the hang of Nutshell now. You have to take the pictures on the spot because that’s how the app knows to take video. You have to keep in mind that after you take the picture, the phone is still capturing video.

I did not go on an exotic trip to Laos, but very close to my own town, there is a Laotian village complete with a Buddhist temple, Wat Thammarattanaram. This weekend they celebrate Songkran, the Laotian New Year. Yesterday we attended the opening prayer service.

For us in the Christian tradition, it is Holy Week. I began the week with Palm Sunday and a procession led by bagpipes to celebrate Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem. This video I took while participating in the procession of the palms at my parents’ church, St. James Episcopal Church in Jackson, MS. I uploaded it into iMovie and wrote a simple haiku using the title slides in iMovie.

There is stark contrast here in these two traditions. We felt uncomfortable seated on the floor in the Buddhist Temple; however, Bea, a Laotian woman with good English, welcomed us to sit with her and turned to tell us the story of what was happening throughout the service. This kindness made us feel more comfortable.

Today I celebrate the many religions of the world.
I celebrate that traditions are passed on generation to generation.
I celebrate resurrection and renewal.
I celebrate celebrations.

Link up your Digital Literacy posts. Happy Easter!

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Discover

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Spiritual Growth, tagged Chere' Coen, Eknath Easwaran, haiku, spiritual journey on March 12, 2015| 11 Comments »

SOL #12

On Thursdays I join Holly Mueller’s round up of Spiritual Journey posts. We are all writing around a theme. This week we explore Jaana’s one little word, Discover.

I have an offering of a beautiful photograph taken by my friend, journalist, Chere’ Coen and a small poem based on these words of wisdom from Eknath Easwaran:

This prayer (Seek ye first the kingdom of God) is not addressed to someone outside us, but to our deepest Self, the Lord of Love, who dwells in the hearts of us all. When we repeat it, we are not asking for anything in particular, like good health or solutions to our problems or richer personal relationships. We are simply asking to get closer to the source of all strength and all joy and all love. Eknath Easwaran

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PsyKu Poetry Form by Kids

Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged haiku, Laura Purdie Salas, MMPoetry, new poem form on February 27, 2015| 28 Comments »

Join the roundup with Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe

I have discovered from being surrounded by gifted kids and showering them in poetry that they get adventurous and brave. They try new things in poems. And they invent new poetry forms.

This week I used a picture prompt as I often do. This week’s Robin Update from Journey North was a close-up image of a robin with a berry in its mouth. I introduced Laura Purdie Salas’ latest poetry project, Why-Ku. I haven’t read Mary Lee Hahn’s activities yet, but I doubt one of them is to create your own poem form.

I have a few boys who seem to find every excuse to get distracted from the task at hand, but this time I waited and allowed their distraction to see where this would go.

“Let’s write a Psy-ku?”

“Great! A Sci-Ku with scientific facts.”

“No, Mrs. Simon, not Science haiku, Psy-ku, like crazy.”

While the rest of us worked on poems about the robin, the boys were scheming and making up a new form.

They created a syllable count: 5,4,5,5,5,6,5,7,5,8

Then the poets three headed to our Kidblogs site to try to create the next poetry phenomenon.

Reed wrote, “A new thing that me REED and Nigel have created is called a psyku. This is an out -of-the-world dumb type of writing. You just make up a topic and have it carzyfied! It can be something about a dumb person or a wacky topic.”

I would skate Monday,
With unicorns.
I would skate Tuesday,
With Spongebob Squarepants.
I would skate Wednesday,
With the Greek Roman gods.
I would skate Thursday,
With Godzilla and Bigfoot.
I would skate Friday,
With another bottle of gin.
Nigel, 6th grade

I know the bottle of gin is probably not classroom appropriate, but I had to laugh. They didn’t really know what it was. Who knows? This psy-ku form may become a thing. If you are so inclined to give it a shot, write one in the comments or comment on our Kidblog. Go for it!

Here is a link to our Kidblog site: http://kidblog.org/class/SliceofLifeChallenge/posts

Announcement! I have been selected to be one of the 64 authletes in the 2015 March Madness for Kids’ Poetry. The competition begins on March 10th. I am totally intimidated by the competition, but I am Reaching this year, and what better way to reach than to do something scary. Here is the tournament poster. You can find me in the Passion category. Check Ed’s site for updates.

MMPoetry bracket Round One

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Chalkabration Haiku

Posted in Chalk-a-bration, Gifted Education, Poetry, Teaching, Writing, tagged chalkabration, chalku, haiku, teaching gifted on April 30, 2014| 3 Comments »

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

Believe it or not, it’s the last day of April and the last day I will be posting Chalk-a-bration with this year’s bunch. I hope they will participate from home over the summer, though. My principal enjoys our chalking-up-the-sidewalks-with-poetry so much that she has asked us to decorate the walkways for the mother’s breakfast, “Muffins with Mom,” next week.

As we continue to work our way through the ABC’s of poetry, we have landed on H, and what better form to use for chalketry than haiku. We should coin the term, “Chalku.” Lots of different thoughts going on today. I was thinking about the humidity that has moved in thick and warm; the cold weather has definitely moved on. Vannisa is thinking about the end of school and summer coming. Kendall responded to music I played. I love the variety of ideas as much as the consistency of form.

This humidity
makes my hair curl like wild weeds,
all helter-skelter.
by Margaret Simon

Playing soft and smooth
having a fast-paced tempo.
Music comes from you.
by Kendall

School is almost out.
Summer means no more homework.
Summer’s almost here.
by Vannisa

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Retreat Mondo

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged Bonne Terre Cottage, Chere' Coen, haiku, mondo, Overgram on April 22, 2014| 7 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Spring break is here, and I am on retreat. My good friend Jen owns a cottage in Breaux Bridge, Bonne Terre Cottage, and she invited me to come stay as long as I want. Her generous spirit has led me to the “good earth.” Up early, watching the birds, listening to sounds of nature led to a mondo, a form of haiku that is a call and response. My friend and fellow writer Chere Coen is sitting on the porch with her camera, ready to capture whatever bird will let her. I took pictures with my phone and used Overgram to create the image-poem.

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Origami Poetry

Posted in Poetry Friday, Teaching, tagged fibonacci poem, haiku, origami on April 18, 2014| 11 Comments »

Join the Poetry Friday round-up is hosted today by Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge.

My celebration of National Poetry Month with my students has been interrupted many times by testing, field trips, and now spring break, but this week I had a few days to work with my youngest students, grades 1-3, on origami and poetry.

In a teacher workshop last week, I learned how to make an origami fox. I brought the activity to my little ones and we wrote Fib poems about foxes. A Fib poem follows a syllable count that corresponds to the first 6 numbers of the Fibonacci series, 1,1,2,3,5,8.

Here is Erin’s. She put her origami fox in a snow scene and made the poem appear in a flip-open book.

Origami fox in snow

Fib poem by Erin.

On Thursday, we made origami envelopes, read I Haiku You, and wrote love haiku. Some favorite teachers are going to be very happy.

Best teacher ever
makes origami poems
shine in the classroom.

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Haiku is here

Posted in Poetry, Teaching, tagged Butchart Gardens, Diane Mayr, haiku, Laura Shovan, source poems on April 10, 2014| 8 Comments »

Butchart Gardens vintage postcard, Victoria, B.C., Canada. Photo by John L. Barnard

Once again the postcards Laura Shovan sent me, along with Pantone colors, inspire my writing. This postcard shows the Rose Garden at Butchart Gardens in Victoria, B.C., Canada. The postcard states that the gardens were once an abandoned quarry. A quick Google search found that they are still blooming today, “over 100 years in bloom.”

Butchart Garden Haiku

Red fiesta blaze
arching overhead, a wreath
crowns this sanctuary.

–Margaret Simon, all rights reserved

On Laura’s blog, writers are sharing their source poems. Diane Mayr wrote about the haiku in this post.

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C is for Collaboration

Posted in Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged couplet, haiku, Kevin Hodgson, line lifting, Michelle Haseltine, notegraphy on April 4, 2014| 12 Comments »

Poetry Friday Round-up is at The Poem Farm.

Some days don’t go as planned. As you know, I am trying to do a poem a day using ABCs of styles, forms, and techniques. For Day 3, letter C, we got so wrapped up in book talks that we had little time left for writing.

As we reviewed the results of Round 4 on MMPoetry, we found the words for the final round. Incontinent, kerfuffle, confabulation, and defenestrate. After discussion, collaboration led to a haiku using the word defenestration. I showed my students this new app I learned about from Kevin Hodgson and Michelle Haseltine, Notegraphy. It works well for a collaborative haiku.

The line lifter lurked on my students’ blogs and left some cool response poems. The kids were so excited that their poems had been hacked! Thanks, Kevin.

Me –
the mold on the wall,
sticks to you like thoughts in your head
that you can’t ever shake loose
or clean with a swipe
or maybe I am more like a poem
that one shares on the Web
which then whispers melodies of meaning in your ear
all day.

– Mr. Hodgson
Sixth Grade Teacher
Norris Elementary School
aka, the line lifter
🙂

Kaylie stopped by our class blog and saw no poems using the letter C. That didn’t stop her from contributing. She wrote a beautiful couplet about pelicans.

The pelican flies out towards dawn
Past the orange sunrise and so on

They travel in pairs across the sky
When the bayou has gone bone dry

They long for the feel of the wet on their feathers
The bayou is where their hearts are tethered

The pelican flies out towards dawn
Past the orange sunrise… on and on and on…
–Kaylie, all rights reserved

Please click on over to Caroline Starr Rose’s blog where I am the guest writer. My post is more about anaphora.

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Celebrating Love

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Poetry, tagged Betsy Snyder, haiku, love poetry, Valentine's Day on February 15, 2014| 6 Comments »

This was a week of feeling the love. and spreading love. Here’s how we did it.

1. Valentines for the elderly: I co-sponsor a leadership group at my base school, Paw Pride. These students decided last week that they wanted to make Valentines for the elderly, so we had two recess crafting sessions, created original Valentines, and delivered them after school on Thursday to a local subsidized housing facility for elderly. The students who came were filled with love and joy as they talked with the residents. A few of them expressed to me how surprised they were at the fun they had. They want to go back at Easter.

Emily’s haiku to the moon

2. Writing Love Haiku: On Friday, I decided to forego a math lesson with my youngest group of students and teach them about haiku. (I guess you could argue that counting syllables is math.) I read to them Betsy Snyder’s precious book, I Haiku You. This was their first experience with haiku. In the 10 minute writing time, a few of them wrote up to 4 haiku poems. Then they illustrated them. The feeling of pride and joy in their writing was heartwarming.

3. Love Poetry Night: Not a huge crowd, less than 20, listened to love poetry Friday night. I read my own poem and a Jane Hirschfeld poem, For What Binds Us, and choked up at the end. “how the black cord makes of them a single fabric/ that nothing can tear or mend.”
Jim recited Rumi. Phanat sang us a French love song. Clare and Bonny both made us tear up with their touching poems. Love is just like that sometimes, touches the heart.

I hope you were touched by some love this week. Join the celebration over at Ruth’s blog, Discover.Play.Build.

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Chalking Out the Old Year

Posted in Blogging, Chalk-a-bration, Writing, tagged chalkabration, haiku, New Year on December 31, 2013| 3 Comments »

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

My students did not want to miss the Dec. 31st year end Chalk-a-bration, so on the last day of classes on Friday, Dec. 20th, we wrote year end poems. Some of them became too long for chalking, so they posted on our kidblog. I tried out a chalkboard app. Not sure if it is the best chalkboard app, but it was free.

Tyler borrowed a line from Naomi Shihab Nye to start his poem and drew it on our chalkboard contact paper.

“Goodbye 2013” by Tyler with a line from “Burning the Old Year,” by Naomi Shihab Nye

Year End Haiku by Margaret Simon

Where we have grown has disappeared
nothing is impossible
anything can happen
12 days till New Years
12 days of Christmas
12 months of Chalkabration
going by too fast
but slowly
every second counts
its all happening
nothing stops
running on a non stop trail of a timeline
crossing the border by the second of the clock

by Vannisa

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