Showing posts with label Cats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cats. Show all posts

Friday, March 01, 2019

Poetry Friday -- A Small Sized Mystery


Our Not-So-Small-Sized Mystery


A Small-Sized Mysteryby Jane Hirshfield

Leave a door open long enough,
a cat will enter.
Leave food, it will stay.
Soon, on cold nights,
you’ll be saying “Excuse me”
if you want to get out of your chair.
But one thing you’ll never hear from a cat
is “Excuse me.”

(read the rest of the poem here)


Here's another small-sized mystery, if you have nine minutes to watch (make time...it's worth it). The Kid Should See This is a most excellent site filled with videos that are vetted for kid viewing. I've used these videos in every subject area for every reason: instruction, inspiration, and just plain FUN. 

Are you planning ahead for an International Women's Day poem next week for Catherine's roundup at Reading to the Core? Get on it! (...I'm saying to myself, too!)

Linda B. has today's roundup at TeacherDance.


Friday, December 12, 2014

Poetry Friday -- Sneaky Cat



HE THINKS WE DON'T KNOW WHERE HE'S BEEN

sneaky cat comes up
from a basement adventure --
cobwebs on his head

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014



This is one of my Haiku-a-day from the past week. Paul has the Poetry Friday roundup at These Four Corners. Welcome to Poetry Friday, Paul!!

The call for Poetry Friday Roundup hosts for January-June 2015 is here.


Friday, January 31, 2014

Poetry Friday -- Sweet Little Kitty

Photo by Mary Lee Hahn


Sweet Little Kitty

Cat curls up tight,
closes eyes, purrs.
Disguised by sleep,
sinks down deep where
cat dreams are found
and stalks, soundless,
huge now, lethal.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014


This is the poem I wrote for this week's Poetry Stretch at The Miss Rumphius Effect. The form is called "Climbing Rhyme." Each line can either have four words or four syllables. I went for syllables. The rhyme is internal. For more details, read this post. Here's a nice visual Tricia gave us to track the rhymes:

xxxa
xxax
xaxb
xxbx
xbxc
xxcx
xcxx


Besides hosting the weekly Poetry Stretch challenge (c'mon, folks, jump in and give them a try!), Tricia has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Go check out the week's offerings!


Friday, May 03, 2013

Poetry Friday -- Cats

Photo by Yathin S Krishnappa, on Wikimedia Commons


THE CAT'S SONG
by Marge Piercy

(excerpt)

You feed me, I try to feed you, we are friends,
says the cat, although I am more equal than you.
Can you leap twenty times the height of your body?
Can you run up and down trees? Jump between roofs?




"QUICK! QUICK! ..."
by Anonymous

Quick! quick!
The cat's been sick.

(the whole poem is here, but be forewarned, it includes a disgusting but accurate description of cat behavior)



The Poetry Foundation has a whole collection of cat poems here.


Liz Steinglass has the Poetry Friday roundup today.


Sunday, April 14, 2013

A Wordless Book for All Cat Lovers

Franki and I were just talking about how much we both love wordless books. The possibilities for use in the classroom are endless, spanning from enjoyment and appreciation of the ability of the artist to communicate the story without words, right through differentiation for students who are striving text readers and ELLs.

I have been a fan of the Simon's Cat videos on YouTube since the first one came out in 2008. You've never seen them? Okay, take a minute and watch this:





Simon Tofield, the cartoonist, does so much with gestures, facial expressions, and, of course, a deep and personal knowledge of cat behavior.

Tofield, who struggled with dyslexia as a child and who was constantly urged to quit drawing and focus on getting a "proper job," created the first animation when teaching himself to use some animation software. He is now adding new videos to the Simon's Cat website on a monthly basis, and there are all kinds of Simon's Cat items for purchase, a soft toy and a newspaper strip. And there are books.


by Simon Tofield
Akashic Books, on shelves April 16, 2013
review copy provided by the publisher

In this book, Simon finds a kitten, abandoned in a rainstorm in a cardboard box. He brings it home and every manner of chaos ensues. There is the getting-to-know-you phase, the competing-for-attention phase, the I-terrorize-you-you-terrorize-me phase, and finally, the I-guess-we-can-get-along phase.

As much as this book is about a single-cat family with a new kitten, this can probably also be read as a single-child family with a new sibling. Kids will be able to relate; parents (and cat owners) will giggle, chortle, and sometimes laugh until tears stream down their faces.

Move over, Garfield. Simon's Cat is the new funny fat cat in town!

Thursday, April 05, 2012

YOU'RE MAKING A HUGE ASSUMPTION - a cat poem, a pet poem, a clerihew



YOU'RE MAKING A BIG ASSUMPTION

Willie Morris 
is a catasaurus,
yet his voice is a dainty "mew."
Don't let that fool you.

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2012




Our cat (known variously as Willie Morris, William, Will, and Bubba) is a gentle giant...most of the time (see first picture). He has enough LION in him, though, that he chased this visiting lab down the hall and then co-opted her den and blankie (second picture). Notice that Ruby is not even allowed to look at Will, let alone have her den back until Will decides it's time...


This poetry form is a clerihew. Wikipedia defines the form thus:

"A clerihew has the following properties:
  • It is biographical and usually whimsical, showing the subject from an unusual point of view; it pokes fun at mostly famous people
  • It has four lines of irregular length and metre (for comic effect)
  • The rhyme structure is AABB; the subject matter and wording are often humorously contrived in order to achieve a rhyme, including the use of phrases in Latin, French and other non-English Languages
  • The first line contains, and may consist solely of, the subject's name."


Poem #5, 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)...and YOU?

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

This Could Be Our Cat

Except she's skinnier and louder and older (20 years and counting).

Thank you, Alyssa, for the link and for making us laugh until we cried. Maow.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

The Cat Master


The Cat Master
by Bonnie Pemberton
Marshall Cavendish, 2007
review copy courtesy of publisher

Remember my former student who is the Warriors series expert? She's the one who read and reported on the new (then) Warriors graphic novel last spring.

When the box of books came from Marshall Cavendish and I came across The Cat Master, I knew Warriors Girl was the one who should read and review it. Here is a loosely reconstructed transcript of our discussion of The Cat Master over ice cream at Graeters:

Me: So tell me a little about the book.

Warriors Girl: Well, it's the author's first book, and it took about 10 years for her to write. I know this because I googled her and read her website.

The two main characters in the book are Buddy and Jett, cats who are brothers. Jett is greedy and ambitious. When the Cat Master dies -- he's their father, but they don't know it -- Buddy is chosen to be the next Cat Master, but he doesn't know it because Jett intercepts the message. Jett wants to kill Buddy before Buddy becomes the master.

Me: Is this book at all like the Warriors books?

WG: It's like Warriors in that there are indoor and outdoor cats, but they are named differently (feral/indoor). It's different because there are other animals besides cats in the story (dogs, a possum, a lizard). Both have good and evil characters. The Cat Master feels really different than Warriors -- the chapters alternate between characters.

Me: Which series do you like better?

WG: It's too soon to tell, but I will definitely read more books by this author if she writes more. It seems like she will. You can kind of tell that the next book will be about Soot, Buddy's son, becoming Cat Master.

She dedicated the book "In Memory of Buddy" and in the acknowledgments she says Buddy was "a stray cat who changed my life forever." She has lots of cats and she really gets cat behavior. She even has a business that sells anti-scratching stuff that keeps cats from scratching on furniture.

Me: Anything else?

WG: I think I'm going to start reading prologues. If you skip them, you miss out on some pretty important information. I've always read epilogues; they give a summary and some good hints.

Me (in my mind): It's good to know that she's still growing as a reader! It's never too late to learn that prologues are pretty important!

Saturday, May 19, 2007

WARRIORS: THE LOST WARRIOR

Her love affair with the WARRIORS series began when she was in 4th or 5th grade. Upon her recommendation, I read one of them back then. (It's pretty powerful when the teacher reads the student's recommendation, rather than vice versa.) I brought her ARCs from NCTE. (Getting the next book in a favorite series before it's out in the bookstore? Priceless.)

She's in 7th grade now, but when TokyoPop sent the uncorrected proof of the new graphic novel parallel series, I knew she was the expert I would need to call on for an opinion.

Her life had been taken over by the middle school theater production when I dropped the book off at her house, but we had a good chat about it when she brought me my Girl Scout Cookies.

The graphic novel is not exactly the same as the novels, she was quick to point out. "You wonder when Greystripe is coming back, and the graphic novel shows what happened to him. It also shows how he motivated to leave house cat life."

She sees the graphic novels as companion books to the regular series. They have a mixture of new story lines and they fill in between the parts of the series. And she is absolutely savvy to the marketing of the graphic novels, "They will lure in young readers and get them ready for the series."

Nevertheless, she plans to own all of the graphic novels, because they will "complete my collection...my library."

She recommends the Warrior Cats website and writes: "The field guide comes out May 29. I have the new book and after today and a little of yesterday reading I am on page 167. It is so good. Also Graystripe the lost warrior (cough title of cough manga cough book cough cough cough) comes back with Millie (cough another cough cat from cough manga). There is already another book coming after this called Dark River. Now I can't wait until September because an extra book called Firestars Quest comes out. I love when you get the unedited versions when I can read them. I wish I could meet Erin Hunter it would be so cool.




According to her book this is how the books go in order:

Warriors

Into the Wild
Fire and Ice
Forest of Secrets
Rising Storm
A Dangerous Path
The Darkest Hour

Warriors: The New Prophecy

Midnight
Moonrise
Dawn
Starlight
Twilight
Sunset

Warriors: Manga

The Lost Warrior

Warriors: The Power of Three

The Sight
Dark River- not out in stores yet

Warriors: Extra

Field Guide: Secrets of the Clans