Fred and Lee Slideshow

Toward the end of the school year we did a digital storytelling project in my language group. I asked the children to think of what adventures our frog stuffie, Fred, and our Lemur stuffie, Lee, might have on our playground. The children had been taking Fred and Lee home for months and writing in a journal about what they did together there.

Each child planned out a picture of Fred and Lee at some spot on the playground. After taking the pictures, each child looked it over and wrote about what Fred and Lee were doing. Then we looked at the pictures and writing together. A couple of the children suggested we should make the pieces more connected so it seemed like one story. One suggested we use the picture of Fred and Lee on the playground "car" to link the individual pictures. We worked together to smooth out the story. Someone suggested they come back to the class and tell the other stuffies what they did, and I took a picture to go with that. Here's the final product (minus the music- I'm still trying to figure that out!):

Fred and Lee

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Summer Reading, Shared Reading

Summer is a chance for all sorts of reading. I have several different piles of books to work on. Some are related to my teaching (a couple on writing workshop, a couple on teaching math, one on teaching reading, one on science and wonder, a few journals to catch up on.)

Other books are for pleasure, exploration, and sharing. Sharing books makes them special. Some are books I share with my granddaughters. When I go to visit, I like to stick one or two books for them in my suitcase. The picture shows the three of us sharing a book by Oliver Dunrea that I took to them in April. I discovered his Gossie book series several years ago when looking through the children's section of my favorite independent bookstore, The Regulator Bookshop, in Durham. Rachel was a toddler at the time, and we both enjoyed reading these book together. My daughter-in-law Liz told me last winter that Rachel's younger sister, Isabel, had discovered them and was carrying them around the house, asking others to read them to her. So I was excited to discover one I had not given them yet.

I also enjoy reading books that others have recommended. One of the books I am currently reading, The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman, is one I got from a cousin when we gathered with a group of cousins at the beach in May. Another, The Case for God by Karen Armstrong, was recommended by a cousin-in-law that was part of the same group. So many books, so little time! It's great to have family and friends who can help one find some of the gems out there.

Book Spine Poems

I subscribe to quite a few education related blogs. One of my favorites is A Year of Reading: Two Teachers Who Read. A Lot. This blog is by Mary Lee and Franki. A post there recently features a new idea for me: a book spine poem. You can check out the poem to see what inspired me. This idea has captured my fancy.

The kids aren't here today as it is a teacher workday. Between getting the tasks done that I had planned for today, I have been playing around with this type of poem. Not surprisingly (partly because I love math and partly because I have a shelf of math books close to my desk) math is the theme here.

Word Choice in Poetry

In our recent poetry mini-lessons, we have worked on how our word choices and our endings for our poems affect the way our readers experience the poems. Recently we worked together to come up with words that describe and tell about spiders. Then we drew from those words in two different ways to make two different poems. The resulting poems showed us how important the word choice and the end of a poem are. We talked about how a good poem can leave us with a clear picture in our mind and often with clear feelings. Here are the two poems:

Quiet Spider
Quiet spider
Patient spider
Spinning
Weaving
Twirling
Long, thin, silky threads
Making a silvery, soft
whirly, twirly web!
Wow!

Creepy Spiders
Spiders, spiders, spiders!
Creepy, creepy spiders!
Smooth, shiny black widows
Hairy, bushy tarantulas
Crawling on their 8 legs
Crawling and sneaking
Up on me!
Ahhhhhhhh!

As Quiet as

Last week we read the book, Quick as a Cricket, by Audrey Wood. We have used her work to inspire us as we write poetry. A couple of days later we talked about what we are working toward when we center ourselves for our quiet settling in time at the beginning of the school day. We brainstormed comparisons for quiet as, peaceful as, and calm as. Looking at our list, I chose one, as peaceful as a lamb, to model how to stretch it out to make it a fuller image. Drawing ideas from the students, I added to our simple simile. "As peaceful as a lamb" became "as peaceful as a lamb sleeping on soft hay in a grassy field." Then each student worked with a partner to stretch out some of the other comparisons from our list. They came up with some lovely images, which we will make into a book and illustrate together.

As quiet as a cloud floating in the blue, blue sky.
As calm as a bird in a nest at the top of the tree at night.
As peaceful as a kitten sleeping in its soft, cozy bed.
As quiet as meditating on a cloud drifting along.
As calm as a butterfly drinking some nectar.
As peaceful as a sky kitten sleeping on a cloud in the sky.
As quiet as a little mouse snug in its warm, cozy home.
As calm as a dove flying over the ocean.
As peaceful as a swan swimming in a beautiful lake.
As quiet as a dark, empty room in an abandoned house.
As calm as a lotus flower bending gently on a windy day.
As quiet as bark on a tree resting in the breeze.
As calm as the ocean on a windless night.
As quiet as a rabbit nibbling on clover in the spring.

Writing Poetry

We have been reading and writing poetry the past few weeks. For my lessons I draw from resources such as Regie Routman's Kids' Poems: Teaching First Graders to Love Writing Poetry (I love her emphasis on reading and talking about poetry by children) and Lucy Calkins and Stephanie Parson's Poetry: Powerful Thought in Tiny Packages, which is part of Units of Study for Primary Writing: A Yearlong Curriculum. I also have lessons of my own that I have developed over the years.

It is an exciting time as we explore this very different way of looking at and writing about the world.

Mystery Lemur

A little over a week ago a box appeared on the bench where we gather each day. On it was a velvet frog with a word balloon above it. The frog introduced himself as Fred and invited the children to submit yes/no questions about who was in the box. They excitedly wrote questions. The next day "Fred" had answered their questions, giving them clues. More questions, then answers followed. The students worked to think of good yes/no questions that would give them helpful information. After a week several of the students had solved the mystery of who was in the box. They wrote "Is it a lemur?" and they got the answer, "Yes!"

So we opened the box and met Lee the lemur. Now students will take turns taking Fred and Lee home for a night. Fred and Lee have a backpack that they "ride" in along with a journal for students to record their adventures with Fred and Lee.