It's a Chalk-A-Bration!

I have loved the idea of Chalk-A-Bration as soon as I read about the idea on Betsy's blog, TEACHING  YOUNG WRITERS.  for months and was determined to make time for it each month.  This Friday was the perfect day to begin. My third graders had been in class for 8 days and we had already started our Friday morning tradition of POETRY FRIDAY!  I figured Chalk-A-Bration would be a natural extension.

It was perfect for so many reasons!

-Chalk-A-Bration was a great way to begin connecting online with my class this year.  They could see immediately that we were part of something beyond the classroom walls.

-I showed them Betsy's blog and shared her idea of Chalk-A-Bration. I talked about how much I loved the idea--so much that I wanted to try it. That we get ideas and build on ideas by learning from and with others.

-They realized that others would see their work and that chalking on the playground would be a fun way to surprise others with fun words and illustrations.

-They LOVED the word Chalk-A-Bration and it served as a great word study discussion for the day.

-It was 15 minutes of joyful literacy!

Kids had great ideas for chalking.

Many kids had fun chalking bright, happy pictures!

Others decided to use a favorite line we read in our readaloud this week. "Make Like a Sponge!" was a funny line used in The Trouble With Chickens when the chickens were annoyed that J.J. Tully would not go out in the rain.

Others chose favorite lines from poems they enjoyed during our Poetry Friday! reading. This one --"My backpack weighs a thousand pounds." (Prelutsky)

Inspirational phrases were also popular!

And we had to share our love of books and reading!

We loved our first Chalk-A-Bration and can't wait until next month!

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Books I Could Read A Million Times--Chalk

A funny thing happened at school this week. One of my kids saw me in the hallway and yelled  "Mrs. Sibberson, when I come to library today, will you have any of those empty books?"  Empty books? What could she have possibly meant?  "You know, the books with no words?" So I decided to read CHALK by Bill Thomson aloud this week, since she had asked so cleverly for wordless books.

CHALK is a great new wordless book--one that I would love to see win the Caldecott Award.  Mary Lee reviewed it a few months ago but it wasn't a book that I took the time to fall in love with right away. You see, I am a text girl and I have very little patience for taking the time to enjoy a wordless book on my own.  I do not always take the time to really take in the visuals. But this week, I discovered what a treat sharing CHALK with children is!  I love watching the kids' faces each time I turned the page.  The amazement, excitement, surprise, fear, and discovery were all so clear on their faces.  Their conversations around the book have been amazing and this is definitely a book I could read a million times.

So, today, I am adding CHALK  to my list of BOOKS I COULD READ A MILLION TIMES.  I think this is the first wordless picture book to make the list but it is definitely one that deserves to be there.

I Have a New Friend

I Have a New Friend

I have a new friend.
We've never met.
She chalks art and exercise challenges on the sidewalk.
She leaves the chalk out.
I write and draw my thanks.
Her chalk sticks became a pile of chalk pebbles.
I left a package on her porch --
Highlights magazines and gently used sidewalk chalk.
She left a package on my porch --
coloring pages, crayons and markers, four Cra-Z-Loom bracelets.
And a note.
I have a new friend named Annie.
We've never met.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Poetry Friday -- Praise and Amazement

This week, I received a digital ARC of Irene Latham's September book, This Poem is a Nest.

At first, all I could say was, WOW. Over and over again. Wow. Wow. WOW. I said it to the publicist at Wordsong, and then I said it to Irene. She responded, "No project I’ve worked on has been more exhilarating than that one. Just me being me."

Irene being Irene means she wrote a poem...a "nest"....and then found ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-ONE other poems..."nestling poems"....inside that "nest!" I. Can't. Even. I'm still gobsmacked.

Here is a portion of her nest, and a few of the nestlings she wrote. These are used with permission of the publisher.

I gave it a try using a poem I wrote for my 2020 NPM project as my nest.

I Have a New Friend

I have a new friend.
We've never met.
She chalks art and exercise challenges on the sidewalk.
She leaves the chalk out.
I write and draw my thanks.
Her chalk sticks became a pile of chalk pebbles.
I left a package on her porch --
Highlights magazines and gently used sidewalk chalk.
She left a package on my porch --
coloring pages, crayons and markers, four Cra-Z-Loom bracelets.
And a note.
I have a new friend named Annie.
We've never met.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Here are some nestlings. Titles don't have to be found inside the nest, but the words of the nestling have to all come from the nest and have to be used in the order they're found in the nest.

Art Exercise

Draw a porch

a package

a note

a new friend.

My Favorite Squirrel Leaves a Message

Pile of pebbles on porch and sidewalk.

A note:

we've met.

Setting Sun

On the leaves, 

the sticks,

a pile of pebbles--

highlights.

Try it! It's addicting and not at all easy. But most of all, get excited for September when we can hold a copy of Irene's newest wonder in our hands!

Carol has this week's Poetry Friday Roundup at Beyond LiteracyLink, and next week, the roundup is here!

Poetry Friday -- Highlights of The Flipside

I had a lot of fun with this year's National Poetry Month poems. Early in the month I started writing etherees, inspired by Liz Garton Scanlon's video lesson.


Gratitude
I
give thanks
for the clouds.
Yes, the same ones
that spoiled your picnic,
that rained on your parade,
that flooded the soccer field.
I am thankful for clouds because
without them there'd be no rainbows, and
behind them there will always be blue skies.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Now, More Than Ever
Breathe
in hope,
then exhale
your gratitude.
Remember these truths:
students over standards,
patience over procedures,
compassion over compliance,
care over content, and grace over
gimmicks. We must humanize our teaching.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Fifth Grade Lessons
You're
only
eleven
and you're learning
life requires you to
(first and foremost) show up.
Read directions, do your best,
ask for help, give help when you can.
Put one foot in front of the other.
Never take "ordinary" for granted.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020



I wrote lots of haiku (sometimes that's all the brain space I had after a day of online teaching). Inspired by Jarrett Lerner, I kept a haiku diary for a day:

Haiku Diary for April 15

I wake up whiney

the sameness of every day

I'm on my last nerve

exercise, shower

a mug of hot tea, breakfast

sun peeks through the trees

my heart pumps, blood flows

lungs reliably inflate

some sameness is good

going to work means

down the hall into office

alone/together

Google Meet is fine

but like all the rest of life

you have to show up

food delivery

a small thing for us to do

makes a big difference

lunchtime luxury

listen to a podcast

nurture my spirit

hours and hours of screens

my brain is totally fried

the cure is ice cream

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Here are two of the stories I told. The first one is 100% true, but the second one is mostly fiction. In the first stanza, I am the Grandma, the second stanza is me, the third stanza is fiction (after the first line, anyway!), and the fourth stanza is where I was and what I was doing when I wrote the poem.

I Have a New Friend
I have a new friend.
We've never met.
She chalks art and exercise challenges on the sidewalk.
She leaves the chalk out.
I write and draw my thanks.
Her chalk sticks became a pile of chalk pebbles.
I left a package on her porch --
Highlights magazines and gently used sidewalk chalk.
She left a package on my porch --
coloring pages, crayons and markers, four Cra-Z-Loom bracelets.
And a note.
I have a new friend named Annie.
We've never met.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Lunch

When Grandma was a girl
she sometimes walked home from school for lunch.
She remembers grilled cheese and tomato soup,
kidney beans and cheese on toast,
peanut butter and honey sandwiches.

Now that school is in my house,
I eat lunch at home every day.
I like to eat the same thing I did at school --
pretzels and a cheese stick, veggies and a fruit.
Keeping lunch the same helps me remember the cafeteria.

The cafeteria was loud and messy.
I traded pretzels for bites of sushi or mini Oreos.
After lunch was recess. I miss recess --
the swings, the big toy, even the muddy soccer field.
I even miss indoor recess.

Sitting on my porch
eating my not-a-school-lunch
at home-is-now-school,
I close my eyes in the sun, listen to the birds,
and remember everything I miss about school.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Liz has the Poetry Friday Roundup for today at her blog Elizabeth Steinglass. Happy May!

Fun New Wordless Book

Chalk

by Bill Thomson

Marshall Cavendish, 2010

review copy provided by the publisher

I'm always on the lookout for new wordless books for my collection. They are great for limited English speakers and for small group work on making inferences.

This one tells the story of some children who find a gift bag full of chalk hanging from a playground dinosaur's mouth on a rainy day. The first girl draws a sun on the sidewalk, and lo and behold, the sun comes out.

The kids try out one fun possibility after another, but things get a little out of hand, until someone gets the idea to draw the rainstorm they started out with so that the chalk drawings wash away.

The kids carefully hang the bag of chalk back on the dinosaur's mouth and walk on (with a final, wary glance back -- reminiscent of JUMANJI).

Planning for Small Group Instruction: Problem and Solution

Moving from 4th grade to 3rd grade has been fascinating as there is a big difference between the two ages.  And I'm realizing again that 3rd grade readers are at a critical stage in reading development.  As they are becoming more sophisticated readers, the books become more complex. Not only are they building stamina to read longer books over several days but they are also learning to infer so much about a story.  Over the last few weeks I've been working with a small group on inferring problem and solution and I've learned so much from them. My thinking is that this cycle of lessons I've used with them might be the perfect cycle to use in whole class teaching early in the year next year.

I began working with several groups of students on inferring because although my students can infer isolated pieces in a text (what a word means in the context of a sentence, what a character meant by a phrase in a book, what might happen next, etc.), I am noticing a pattern that many of my students do not infer across the text and as texts become longer and more complex, this becomes more of a barrier to true comprehension. I'm finding students who can retell a story with every story part, but they miss some subtle thing that makes the story.  Their inferring is at the basic level and they rush through-making up their mind fast without pausing to think about the whole. So, I planned a few lesson and have continued from there.

I always thought that problem and solution was a rather basic thing to teach but there are so many conversations that have come from it that I am realizing how important it is for 8 and 9 year olds.

DAY 1

We began with Chalk by Bill Thompson. This is a wonderful wordless picture book that I thought would make sense for inferring. I started out with inferring predictions with this group. We did a shared reading of the book as a group, talking and predicting using evidence from the pictures. Kids could predict basic things but it became evident that they were reading for isolated events rather than the whole bigger story.  They seemed to pay close attention to minor details and went quickly over events that worked together to create a story. They didn't seem to have any focus in mind as they read that could help them put the pieces together.

DAY 2

I asked students to go off and read a wordless book on their own. I used A Ball for Daisy
Hippo! No, Rhino!, and Where's Walrus? and each student left with one of these books  I asked them to jot notes on stickies as they read.

We came back together to talk and their stickies confirmed my thinking from our reading of Chalk. I realized  that these students were reading events but not reading for the whole story to come together in some way.  I needed to help them read across a story. There were lots of stickies about little details not connected to the big story. I know that these are important for readers , but only if they can see how they fit into the bigger picture.  So I changed my focus to problem and solution to give these students a way to focus--how to read across a story for the bigger picture in a story--more than isolated events in a sequence.

DAY 3

One thing that struck me in all of our conversations in the first two days was the fact that my students equated "ending" with "last page". Whatever the characters were doing on the last page was described as the ending by these students. I knew if I wanted to change the way they approached story, they needed to understand that the "ending" was not necessarily a final event but the solution or the outcome of the story.  It wasn't always the very last thing that happened.

For the next lesson, I used the wordless book Fossil by Bill Thompson. This one is patterned similarly to Chalk so I figured the kids would be able to dig deeper and see the problem and solution more clearly after having read and discussed Chalk.  For Fossil, I asked students to focus on the big problem and the big solution and we talked through it. They were much better able to do this when they weren't jumping around to lots of unrelated details. Instead, they read with a focus in mind that they wanted to get a sense of the whole story.

In the meantime, during individual conferences, we also talked a bit about the book that each child was reading during independent reading. They were delighted to discover that the books they were reading had problems and that the longer the book, the longer it took to solve the problem!

DAY 4

I decided that once the kids knew that stories had problems and solutions, I wanted to give them ways to look at these more deeply.  I wanted them to learn two strategies for thinking of problem and solution. One was that the title of a book is often a clue about the problem or solution. The other was that the main character often DOES something to solve the problem.

One thing I am noticing is that my students are often missing the subtle things that a character does to solve a problem.  Often a character does something (like in Miss Nelson is Missing) that seems obvious to adult readers even though it is not stated in the story.  I wanted my kids to read knowing that often characters did something deliberate to solve the problem and that readers sometimes read for that.

For this lesson, we read the book, I Want a Dog!. I picked this book for a few reasons. First of all, the problem was hinted to in the title. Second of all, the character does something very obvious to solve the problem and I knew my kids would see that.  Finally, I knew that there were lots of books about kids who want pets and I wanted to be able to build on this lesson later in the study. So,  "What did the character do to solve the problem?" was the focus of this lesson and kids caught right on, excited to know this little trick for finding solution. (They acted like they were in on a big secret!)  The focus was helpful as they weren't jumping all over the place, hoping the random details they noticed would somehow make sense to them.

DAY 5

Following I Want a Dog, I gave each student a copy of the picture book A Small Brown Dog with a Wet Pink Nose. This book is about a little girl who wants a dog but her solution is quite clever and the reader has to infer quite a bit to see how deliberate the little girl is throughout the story in order to solve her problem. I knew that understanding this might be a stretch but I knew that it was a good next step to really dig in and figure out what the character did.

MOVING FORWARD

Before I finish up with this group, I want to give them tools to go a little deeper into their understanding. I want them to see that problem and solution matters and that often a character changes over time because of the problem. I know that they are at the point that they are reading across a whole story now and they are ready to see the impact of the problem/solution on the characters.  So my next few lessons with this group will be around the idea that the main character often changes because of the problem they encountered and that readers often ask themselves, "How does the character change in the journey to solve the problem?"  I have a few books in mind for this conversation and they are all three books that make sense as next steps and for this new focus: Those Shoes, The Summer My Father Was Ten, and A Bad Case of Stripes (Scholastic Bookshelf) are the three books I'll use next. I may only use one or two depending on how much support students need with this new idea.

REFLECTIONS

Planning for this group helped me to think about my planning for all small groups.  I have been involved in lots of thinking around small group instruction at school. A group of teachers is meeting to discuss Jennifer Serravallo's book Teaching Reading in Small Groups: Differentiated Instruction for Building Strategic, Independent Readers and  we have been involved in LLI training. I'm realizing that my small group instruction at 3rd grade needs to be as planned and focused as my whole group lessons.  And they need to happen over more than a few days.  Even though my groups are not really guided reading groups, they are strategy groups that need to move students to new behaviors quickly. When I started thinking about this group, the change they needed seemed too big to happen in a short time, but when I really looked at the students' behaviors and what they had in place, I was able to break the idea down into smaller chunks and change behaviors quickly. My students quickly learned to read across a story, to find the problem and solution and to focus on character actions.  Next I am confident that they will be able to see the changes a character has on their journey in the story.  These little behaviors have changed in a two week period and has transferred to their independent reading so that they are more engaged and thoughtful readers.

These kids are not necessarily struggling readers but they are struggling with this idea and it is keeping them from truly understanding what they read .  I am all about discovery, but sometimes kids need some ways into discovery. They need to know what to read for and some things to remember as readers. Then when they move into complex texts they know these things will hold true and that's where the real thinking and discovery comes in.  I've been careful to choose books that really make visible the things I want them to see that are true of many stories so that they differently on their own.  In less than 2 weeks, they've changed their expectations of story.

I am rethinking small groups to be a bit longer than usual (over 2-ish weeks) to really change several behaviors that add up over time. This cycle has taught me a lot about what transitional readers need and about how to better plan small group instruction so that in a short period of time, students can become more independent readers.

Poetry Friday -- Chalk-A-Bration -- Casting for Recovery

I have a multi-purpose offering for Poetry Friday this week. 

We went over to the neighborhood park yesterday evening to blow the dust off our casting in preparation for the Casting for Recovery Fish-A-Thon on Saturday. While there, I chalked a poem on the sidewalk:

Now for the PSA:

Casting for Recovery is a leading breast cancer quality of life program. CFR isn't trying to find the cure for breast cancer; the goal of CFR is to empower breast cancer survivors by giving them powerful tools to overcome the challenges of breast cancer.

One of those tools is fly fishing.

I'm involved in Casting for Recovery as a past participant and now on Ohio's retreat team. I teach casting and knot tying.

We're having a Fish-A-Thon tomorrow to raise money for the Ohio CFR retreat. If you'd like to sponsor me on a per-fish-caught basis, or with a one-time donation, send me a message through the blog email. 

"Casting for Recovery is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that relies solely on donations to provide all-expense-paid weekend wellness retreats to 14 breast cancer survivors per retreat. Through your support, we will be able to continue to enhance the lives of breast cancer survivors by providing retreats that promote mental, physical, and emotional healing."

Betsy, the Queen of the Chalk-A-Bration, has the Poetry Friday Roundup AND the monthly Chalk-A-Bration today at Teaching Young Writers.

Chalk-ku

Betsy, at Teaching Young Writers, is having a chalk poetry celebration tomorrow to cap off National Poetry Month. Write a poem, chalk it up, take a picture, and send it to Betsy!

Poem #29, National Poetry Month, 2012

Cathy, at Merely Day By Day, is joining me in a poem a day this month. Other daily poem writers include Amy at The Poem Farm, Linda at TeacherDance, Donna at Mainely Write, Laura at Writing the World for Kids (daily haiku), Liz at Liz in Ink (daily haiku), Sara at Read Write Believe (daily haiku), Jone at Deo Writer (daily haiku)...and YOU?

3 New Picture Books!

I picked up 3 great new picture books last week.

Alphablock is going to be my new go-to Baby Gift Book!   It was on display at Cover to Cover and it became an instant favorite for me!  It is this amazing chunky little alphabet book!  The design of this book is amazing as each letter is cut out as a page of its own.  The text is predictable and the illustrations are more detailed than I realized at first glance.  Really, a pretty perfect book for home and school. The images on the Amazon page will help you see the inside pages.

Outfoxed by Mike Twohy is one that was on my Goodreads "Want to Read" list.  I picked it up at Cover to Cover and laughed out loud.  I am trying to read more books with humor as they are not always my faves. This one is quite hysterical and I know my students will love it.  (Even my daughter, who is 14, laughed when she read it to herself on the way home from the bookstore.)

Fossil is a new wordless book from Bill Thomson, author of one of my favorites--Chalk !  I was happy to see this from him and know that kids will make some connections between the two. This one is similar to Chalk with some important differences. Definitely one I am glad to add to my collection of wordless books.

Poetry Wednesday: Two New Gems

Yesterday I set Florian's Dinothesaurus and Lewis' The Underwear Salesman out on the chalk tray in my fourth grade classroom at the beginning of the day to shouts of, "YAY!" and "Can I read that during reading workshop?" Neither book made it back to the chalk tray during reading time -- both were read by individuals or with partners and passed from hand to hand to hand the entire time.

Dinothesaurus: Prehistoric Poems and Paintings
by Douglas Florian
Athenium Books for Young Readers, 2009

Surely you've seen the sneak peaks of poetry and art from Dinothesaurus at Douglas Florian's blog? If not, get over there right now and take a look! 18 dinosaurs are described with wit, wordplay, and creative multimedia illustrations.

There is a pronunciation guide for each dinosaur name (thank you, thank you, Mr. Florian!) along with the meaning of the name. These name meanings are rich for conversations during word study around root words. Seismosaurus (earthshaking lizard) and seismograph; Tyrannosaurus rex (king of tyrant lizards) and tyrant and rex; Troodon (wounding tooth) and Iguanodon (iguana tooth) and orthoDONtist.

The collection also includes a Glossarysaurus, a list of dinosaur museums and fossil sites, and a bibliography with suggestions for further reading.

Every illustration adds an additional layer of meaning to its poem and makes this a book that will bring readers back again and again.


The Underwear Salesman: And Other Jobs for Better or Verse
by J. Patrick Lewis, illustrated by Serge Bloch
Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2009

More wit, wordplay and multimedia illustrations to be had in this volume as well!

This book is packed with short poems (a couplet for the job of exterminator), brief poems (for the job of underwear salesman -- ha ha!!), vertical poems (for the job of elevator operator), poems that take to the streets (for the job of marathon runner), poems in two voices (for the jobs of talk show hosts and ventriloquists), poems that flop (for the job of gymnast), and poems that soar ( for the job of bridge painter and skyscraper window washer).

At the risk of being repetitive: Every illustration adds an additional layer of meaning to its poem and makes this a book that will bring readers back again and again.

On My Walk

On My Walk

On my walk
around the block
what do I see?
I see a teddy bear
looking at me!

As we go
I look below
and what do I see?
I see chalk art
looking at me!

Walk some more
and on the door
what do I see?
I see a rainbow
looking at me!

Come back home
where we're alone.
What do I see?
A hopeful heart
is looking out for me.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Poetry Friday Roundup is Here!

WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE A REDBUD IN SPRING
by Mary Lee Hahn

Burst
first.

Amaze
with the cavalier way
you explode whole constellations of purple stars
from your smooth grey bark.

Add glory
to the understory.

This is my 2nd round poem from the Madness! 2012 kids' poetry writing tournament, along with the redbud in our backyard that saved me from writing a poem about dandelions. A tip of my poet's hat to Elaine Magliaro, champion of the List Poem form. You're still a great teacher!

Voting for the First Flight of the Regional Semifinals has closed! Regional Semifinals, Flight One

Voting for the Second Flight of the Regional Semifinals remains open through today!
Regional Semifinals, Flight Two

Add your Poetry Friday links in the comments. I'll start rounding them up as soon as you start sending them in!

Jone is looking for recipients for her students' Poetry Postcard project in April. Go to Check it Out and sign up! It's fun!

Robyn has cherry blossoms -- and A.E. Houseman -- on her mind at Read, Write, Howl.

Julie shares all three of the poems she's written for the Madness! 2012 poetry tournament over at The Drift Record. We "shook hands" via email before we got our words and agreed that no matter which poem won, we would have fun. Julie is an amazing (Capital-P) Poet and I am honored to have played a round with her!

April continues the Teaching Authors tribute that this blogging group has been giving in honor of team member Jo Ann Macken.

Charles shares his collection of poetry books for adults at Bald Ego.

Linda is combining Slice of Life and Poetry Friday today at Write Time with a poem she's written for her DARLING granddaughter, who just turned two.

Here are Diane's posts for this week:
At Random Noodling I have Donald Hall's "O Cheese."
Kids of the Homefront Army continues with "Selective Service."
Kurious Kitty has Richard Wilbur's "The Writer." And, Kurious K's Kwotes' P.F. quote is by Rita Dove from the introduction to the The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry.
At The Write Sisters we have a delightful poem called "Shadow Dance" by Ivy O. Eastwick.

Tara, at A Teaching Life, is also combining her Slice of Life with Poetry Friday. Like Robyn, she has cherry blossoms on her mind, but she brings us some Billy Collins to enjoy while the petals flutter down.

The bloggers at Gathering Books are celebrating Women's History month. Myra brings us a poem and a song that have her thinking about women's voices and women's silences.

Linda at TeacherDance is writing a series of poems of goodbye. Her poems say goodbye to different stages of growing up, and are written for her grandchildren. Linda is also a Slice of Lifer.

Violet shares an original "grandma" poem titled "To Liam when he asks, What's green?" It's at Violet Nesdoly / Poems.

Oh, YAY! David Elliot has a new book of poems, this time about the sea. Mary Ann, at Great Kid Books, gives it (and Holly Meade's illustrations) a glowing review.

At The Opposite of Indifference, Tabatha is linking poems with favorite book characters. She starts things off with poems that Hagrid, Calvin, and Hobbes each might have chosen. My fourth graders are her first guest contributors. They chose poems for the main characters from A Wrinkle in Time. Watch for more in this series, and if you want, you can play along, too!

Greg serves up a strong cup-o-Joe at GottaBook -- one of his poems from the Madness! 2012 poetry tournament. He is "versing" Susan Taylor Brown in the regional semifinals. Their poems will be live and ready for your votes at the tournament site, Ed DeCaria's Think Kid, Think, later today.

Heidi praises the process of "the curious and wonderful phenomenon that this March Madness has become" (the poetry tournament, that is) and shares a priceless poem composed by one of her kinders. Her blog's name -- my juicy little universe -- seems particularly apt today.

At Growing Wild, Liz has an original poem that will appeal to all cat lovers!

Jama has some drool-inducing strawberry shortcake for you today...if you have enough time to read that far! Be prepared for a laugh today at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

Renee shares an entomological love poem ("The Moth and the Flame") by the "pre-published" poet Cathy Mealey. Stop in at No Water River and enjoy the poem, the interview, and be sure you click through to see how Cathy met the rhyme challenge Renee offered up!

Carol's Corner is blooming with daffodils today! She's got a Ralph Fletcher poem for us, from a book with a title I adore: ORDINARY THINGS: POEMS FROM A WALK IN EARLY SPRING.

Welcome to Poetry Friday first-timer Natalie, who blogs at Wading Through Words. She discovered this fabulous community by participating in the poetry tournament at Think Kid, Think! She's got an original poem for us today, to make a monumental occasion in their household. The photo makes a great punchline!

Speaking of the poetry tournament, at Mainley Write, Donna shares an amazing grouse story that lies just behind her winning first round poem for the tournament, "Fox and Grouse."

Joy has a dream poem and a writing exercise for us at Poetry for Kids Joy.

Happy belated World Poetry Day (March 21)! Sally, at Paper Tigers, shares a site that features the seven winners of a poetry-writing contest inspired by the ancient poet Eratosthenes.

Pentimento shares a starting-over-in-Spring poem by Steven Kestenbaum.

Sherry, at Semicolon, has a great quote about form in poetry and Tennyson's "Ulysses."

Amy LV has written a poem that came from a seed planted in her writer's notebook TWELVE years ago! She also shares some happy publication news today at The Poem Farm.

Books 4 Learning reviews MIRROR, MIRROR by Marilyn Singer: "Mirror Mirror is a celebration of the vigor and potential of language." So true!

Karen Edmisten shares a different sort of starting-over-in-Spring poem by Gary Young. Compare/contrast with the one Pentimento shared (above). Turn and talk to your neighbor.

Sing along to "Gold," by Fergus O'Farrell with Little Willow over at Bildungsroman. This song can be heard in the film ONCE and the new stage adaptation of ONCE, which is now on Broadway. Little Willow shares links, in case you need some help with the tune!

At Wild Rose Reader, Elaine has an original acrostic using the word bud, and proud-grandma pictures of her family's little bud!

Laura (Author Amok) writes: "To celebrate spring, I have a gardening poem by Susan Hendrickson and an invitation to participate in my 2012 National Poetry Month Project, 30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets (odd or practical, you choose)."

Spring is bringing rain and a Sara Teasdale poem to Dori at Dori Reads.

Lori Ann Grover has two links for us today: "Little Bobby Snooks" at readertotz, and "Periscope" at On Point.

At Musings, Joyce reviews Paul Janeczko's REQUIEM: POEMS OF THE TEREZIN GHETTO. She's right -- it's not a fun book, but it's definitely an important book.

Betsy, at Teaching Young Writers, has a sidewalk chalk haiku for us today!

Thank you, Ruth (at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken Town) for the Billy Collins TED Talk! I missed that one and now I will not have to go any further than your blog to watch it!

15 Words or Less are accumulating at Laura Purdie Salas' Writing the World for Kids.

100 Scope Notes is gathering book spine poems again this year for Poetry Month. Start pulling books of your shelf and get your camera ready!

A slam-dunk review of Hoop Kings by Charles R. Smith can be found at All About the Books with Janet Squires.

Kelly Fineman, at Writing and Ruminating, is the interviewee, instead of the interviewer now! Congrats!!

Cathy has the perfect poem for the beginning of spring break, comparing the perceptions of eighth graders to first graders as they face a week away from school. You can find Cathy's poem on Slice of Life blog, Merely Day By Day.

Books I Hope Win Awards

There are so many great books from 2010, that I can't possibly choose the one book I hope to win the Caldecott and Newbery medals. This is a list of books I've loved that seem like contenders.  I'd be happy if any of these books won an award. They are all deserving.  There are others too but these are the ones that come to mind first.


Caldecott
Chalk
A Fabulous Fair Alphabet by Deborah Frasier
City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems
All Things Bright and Beautiful by Ashley Bryant
Mama Miti by Donna Jo Napoli
Mirror by Jeannie Baker
Mirror, Mirror by Marilyn Singer
A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Phillip Stead


Newbery
Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper
Keeper by Kathi Appelt
Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
A Million Shades of Gray by Cynthia Kadohata
A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord
As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins
Countdown by Deborah Wiles
The Water Seeker by Kimberly Willis Holt
Penny Dreadful by Laurel Snyder

June Chalkabration!

A Chalk-ku for Eastern Colorado

uncommonly cool...
gentle rain sprinkling down...
not ever enough...

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2013




2:30 PM and still only 76 degrees.

Only enough rain to get the street wet; not enough to make it through the trees and get the whole driveway wet.

Average YEARLY precipitation in Burlington, Colorado is 16.5 inches. They put the d-r-y in arid out here.



Betsy's hosting the monthly Chalkabration at Teaching Young Writers. Go check out the chalking others have done today!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Go visit TEACH MENTOR TEXTS for the whole round up of 

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? posts.  

Thanks Jen and Kellee!

This Week's Update is Brought to You by Mary Lee

I grabbed FAKE MOUSTACHE by Tom Angleberger at the library yesterday. (I was gathering books for the unit of study on empathy that we'll be beginning Monday. No, I don't think FAKE MOUSTACHE will be part of the study!) Based on all I've heard about it, including Franki's review last week, this is the funniest Angleberger yet. I can't wait to get started on it!

But before I start FAKE MOUSTACHE, I'm embarrassed to say that I need to get caught up and read DARTH PAPER STRIKES BACK. I started it last night, but I soon fell into a food-induced coma from a birthday dinner at Rivage. 

Actually, I need to put this one aside (yet again...and this is how it has happened that I haven't read it yet...) because...

...I really need to read the newest LUNCH LADY (LUNCH LADY AND THE MUTANT MATHLETES) so that it can be on the chalk tray first thing this morning and I can maintain my position as The Teacher With All The Coolest Books.

Now a peek at my adult reading...

I just finished listening to LITTLE BEE Saturday. Because of the two voices in the story, the audio experience was particularly powerful. Plus, this was the first audio book I checked out of the public library. CML has a really easy stepsheet for getting the free OverDrive app and checking out e-books and audio books. 

Now that I'm finished with LITTLE BEE, I'll get back to listening to 11/22/63 by Steven King. I sort of left the main character stuck back in time while I took a break to listen to LITTLE BEE for book club. It made for fascinating conversation to be reading a time travel book while my class was listening to/reading along with A WRINKLE IN TIME.

Happy Monday, and Happy Reading!!