Poetry Friday

Courtesy of The Writer's Almanac, today is John Masefield's birthday. I love his poem, Sea Fever.

In other poetry news, I borrowed the idea for having my students write letter poems from Elaine at Wild Rose Reader. I shared LOVE LETTERS by Arnold Adoff and DEAR WORLD by Takayo Noda. Then I invited my 5th graders to choose some object around the room or some activity we did in the past two years as the subject for a poem that I would post next year in the fall. These poems would be their way to tell the new loopers, the new 4th graders that I will teach for 2 years, a little about life in room 222. Here are a few of my favorites.

Dear Mr. Quaker Oats,

Sorry we
ate
some of you
Sorry we got
mold
on you from the apples
The taste
is still
in our mouths
We are sorry But
you taste
So good.

Formerly Known as Pests,
The Mealworms



Dear Future Class,

You
will have
lots of fun
with read alouds
and stories.

You
also will
have fun with
Christmas surprises but
you have

to
guess what
the surprise is.
You should behave
and be

good
sometimes the
best teacher in
the world a.k.a.
known as

Ms. Hahn
might give
you candy or
heads up
7

up.
Well what
I'm saying is
good behavior leads
to good things.

From,
The Teacher's Pet

25

USA Today is celebrating its 25th year with 25 lists of 25. This week's list is 25 Lives of Indelible Impact. I might have sorted the list in a different order, but these are all amazing and inspiring people from the last 25 years.

Last week was 25 Years of 'Eureka' Moments -- inventions that have changed our lives since 1982. As I scanned this list, some were integral to my life, and some seemed irrelevant. I wondered what my 5th graders would make of the list, how they would sort it (important vs. irrelevant), and if they would notice anything missing.

Predictably, things like debit cards, lettuce in a bag, and online stock trading aren't a very big deal for 11 year-olds. You want to know they think is missing from the list? (Cable TV was also on their list of missing items, but I just Googled it -- 1948, if you can believe that!)

• game consoles (PSP, Nintendo, X Box, Wii, etc.)
• self-scan lines at the grocery
• energy drinks
• hybrid cars
• Google and Wikipedia
• Pokemon and Yu-ghi-o cards
  

Which items on the list are most important in your life? Of the 25 USA Today picked, my important ones would probably be debit cards, pay at the pump gas and my iPod. Which items on the list are most irrelevant to you? Online stock trading, electronic tolls, TiVo, Big Bertha golf clubs, home satellite TV and karaoke are all at the bottom of my list.

8 Things Meme

We've been tagged for a meme! This one is the 8 Things Meme and it comes to us from Kelly at Big A little a. Here are the rules:

Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

This is just the time-waster I need when there are stacks of end-of-the-school-year paperwork calling to me from the kitchen table, so I'll go first:

8 OF MARY LEE'S FACTS/HABITS
1. My favorite colors in nature are the purple of a post-thunderstorm sky and the bright green of the freshly washed leaves against that purple sky.
2. My favorite landscape in nature is the flat, arid, emptiness of the western plains. That's where I grew up and it seems to have become a part of my psyche.
3. My favorite dessert is creme brulee.
4. My favorite exercise is swimming. I am addicted to the shock of the cold water and the smell of chlorine.
5. I love the art of Laurel Burch.
6. I own a polka-dotted purse.
7. I have a freckle on the palm of my left hand.
8. One of my favorite books as a child was Just Plain Maggie by Lorraine Beim. I still have the 1967 Scholastic edition of this book ($.35). Did anyone else ever read this?

8 OF FRANKI'S FACTS/HABITS
1. I carry a flashlight when I stay in a hotel, in case the electricity goes out.
2. I have fallen off of a treadmill 3 times.
3. I have a film credit in "Light of Day" (I was a one-day tutor)
4. In college, my music ed professor made me promise, in front of the class, to never sing in front of children.
5. Every Sunday, in 5th or so grade, I'd go up to my grandmother's attic to pick out another Nancy Drew book for the week.
6. My favorite movie candy is DOTS.
7. My purse is ALWAYS a mess.
8. I drink hot tea all day, every day.

We tag:
Chicken Spaghetti oops! A double tag! Kelly already got her. Okay, we'll go with...
Blog from the Windowsill
GottaBook
Mentor Texts
Proper Noun
This Just In
Inspiring Readers and Writers
Liz in Ink
Gathering Around the Table

The Fairy Chronicles

MARIGOLD AND THE FEATHER OF HOPE, THE JOURNEY BEGINS (Fairy Chronicles)
by J.H. Sweet
May 2007
Review copy compliments of the publisher

In the first book of the Fairy Chronicles, Beth’s dreaded visit to Aunt Evelyn’s takes a turn for the better when Beth learns she is a fairy. Marigold Fairy, to be exact.

The minute we got news of this book, I knew which of my fifth graders would be the first reader. I’ve seen her with other fairy books, and she took a spell book out to recess for weeks on end last fall. All of the characters in her writing have magical mystical powers and they go on epic quests.

Little did I know just how into fairies she is. She has read all of the Disney Fairies books, and owns several. She can recite the names, talents and adventures of all the Disney fairies. So it’s an understatement to say that she brought some background knowledge to her reading!

She was practically giddy with excitement when I showed her the book and asked her to read it in one night, if possible. (She managed in two.) She found one way that the Fairy Chronicles fairies differ from the Disney fairies: the fairies in the Fairy Chronicles are humans who can change back and forth from their fairy selves, while the Disney fairies are static fairies. Some of the fairies in both series have similar talents. There are Fairy Circles in both books, and the Fairy Chronicles has a handy fairy profile page which I missed, but she accessed several times when talking about the book to get the details right. She made a connection to GOSSAMER by Lois Lowry, and she was surprised and pleased to find the Tooth Fairy in the Fairy Chronicles.

Both of us were delighted by the Fairy Handbooks that automatically adjust the explanations and instructions so they are just right for that particular fairy and that particular age. (Magically leveled books! Hmm….) A Fairy starts with the First Fairy Handbook, moves to the Fortunate Fairy Handbook (for Fairies who are 10-12 years old and accident-prone), then the Formidable Fairy Handbook, and last of all, the Final Fairy Hand book.

What pleased my student most, however, was when I told her that she could read book two before me, and she could read it at whatever pace she chose, since she had read the first one so quickly to be able to give me her feedback!

Franki and her students loved it. She has lots of fairy readers in her class and they have a whole system of who gets the books next. Her students thought the illustrations were a bit like Spiderwick’s but in color. For Franki, it was like Bewitched—there could be a magical person living by her or...she could be a fairy and didn’t know it yet.

Fifth Graders Love Clementine

I knew if I didn't read Clementine and The Talented Clementine (by Sara Pennypacker) to my fifth graders, both books would be completely off their radar. A middle-schooler reading a thin, illustrated book about a third grader and a fourth grader? I don't think so.

But an end-of-year fifth grader listening to these stories? "Don't stop now!"

Clementine has become the 26th member of our class. We say, "Okay, fine," and we all know it's Clementine talking. Everyone is always paying careful attention in my classroom...but not always to the lesson, and that's all right, thanks to Clementine. Choosing what to do or what to pick? Not anymore. Now we honor all our options by not choosing (N-O-T not choosing) the ones we don't want. Laxative, Fluoride, Moisturizer, and Mascara will live forever in our memories as exquisite cat names. Things that amaze us will be "astoundishing." And we will work to be more empathetic.

Poetry Friday -- A Meditation on Creativity

Ars Poetica
By X.J. Kennedy

The goose that laid the golden egg
Died looking up its crotch
To find out how its sphincter worked.
(punchline here; rhymes with crotch).

Pay Dirt!

Do you know about Daedalus Books? They are "the online discount book and music store selling thousands of quality bargain books and overstock CDs for the independent reader and listener."

Books, CDs and DVDs at up to 90% off! Gotta love that.

I don't hit pay dirt with every catalog, but the Spring Children's Catalog had all of these:

Two by Carolyn Marsden, $2.98 and $3.98
THE GOLD THREADED DRESS
SILK UMBRELLAS




Three by Lucy Cousins (future baby shower presents) for $2.49-$3.98

I didn't know there was a companion for MY LITTLE SISTER ATE ONE HARE! Very fun! MY LITTLE SISTER HUGGED AN APE $3.98



LITTLE RUTH REDDINGFORD by Hank Wesselman looks like a fun twist on Little Red Riding Hood. A must for my collection! $4.98



SONG OF THE WATER BOATMAN by Joyce Sidman $10.95. Okay, fine, not such a great price, but might as well since I found so many others...





I've wanted this book since the first time I saw it! A BOOK ABOUT DESIGN: COMPLICATED DOESN'T MAKE IT GOOD by Mark Gonyea $4.98



There are also three from the Smithsonian Odyssey Series that look good ($3.98 each): A GOLDEN AGE: The Golden Age of Radio; THE LAST RAIL: The Building of the Transcontinental Railroad; THAR SHE BLOWS! Whaling in the 1860s. And for $3.98, why not check out THE ESSENTIAL ATLAS OF TECHNOLOGY from 2002. The information on basic technology (wheels and pulleys and the like) shouldn't be outdated.

This is why my classroom is positively overflowing with books!

Kid Quips

It's been awhile since I had a really good one to share. Today's was a doozie.

At the end of the day, Boy A was by the door tying his new sneaks. Real hot, fast looking shoes. I told him they looked like they ought to have wings on the heels, like that Greek god. "You know who I'm talking about, don't you?" I asked.

"The Red Bull guy?" he replied.

Groan. The curse of popular culture.

So I had to go over to my mythology shelf and check. On the way, I asked Boy B, who was likely to know the answer so I wouldn't have to look. "Is it Hermes with the wings on his shoes?" I asked.

"No, Herpes, isn't it?"

"Uh, no. For sure not Herpes. That's a disease."

2 New Books for Young Readers

I picked up two new picture books that would be great for primary kids. I thought ORANGE, PEAR, APPLE, BEAR by Emily Gravett was adorable. The whole story is told with the four words in the title. The illustrations are adorable and it is amazing how the author wrote the book with only four words. I actually bought it thinking it would be fun to share with older kids. I thought with all of our talk about visual literacy--with Hugo Cabret and other graphic novels, we have been talking about how readers get information from illustrations and graphics. I also thought it would be interesting to talk to them about how the author wrote a book with 4 words.



The other one that I bought has been reviewed on several blogs already. I finally found a copy of I'M THE BIGGEST THING IN THE OCEAN by Kevin Sherry. It is a VERY fun book! The colors are great. The story is fun. And the book is just oversized enough to work. It is one of those great books that should be in every K-1 classroom because it is one that new readers can read on their own once they've heard it read aloud. As you know, I am a huge advocate of new readers reading real books rather than ONLY leveled texts so books like this one are great for these classroom libraries.

Fabulous Fiesta of Children's Literature!

Head on over to Chicken Spaghetti for the 14th Carnival of Children's Literature! The setting is Texas and the Carnival is (appropriately) larger than life!