March Mosaic

March was a great month for photos.

We start and end March with birthday celebrations. The March 2 Chocolate Cake was the traditional recipe, but by request, the March 29 cake was made with coffee buttercream frosting. It was probably the best cake I've ever made. I'm drooling just remembering it.

We ate some amazing cinnamon rolls at Sunday Brunch at Natalie's (see that empty plate?!), and I'm trying to get better at taking time to play around with my photos using some of the many apps on my phone. I had a LOT of fun with that picture of Jack Nicklaus and the lampshade reflection that makes him look like he has on a tutu.

The fractal broccoli took me by surprise at Whole Foods. I wrote a Fib once upon a time about fractal broccoli, but I've never seen it in real life.

During spring break we went antiquing in Clintonville, and we went and saw the Bruce Munro light exhibit at Franklin Park Conservatory (with yummy hot chocolate in the Short North after).

Also during spring break, we had a mini-blizzard. Really. This has been The Winter That Will Not End. But spring is springing, whether it is out in the garden (covered in snow) or in the potato bin in the pantry.

Spring break was a great time to try out my new (old) desk I got when we went antiquing (and a good time to take illustrated notes with a few TED talks).

We went to (near) Lancaster to Rockmill Brewery for a tour and tasting. And even though I was on spring break, and on my way to a craft beer tasting, I was noticing an example of erosion to show my students. You can take the teacher out of school, but you can't take the school out of the teacher!

Happy March, even though I'm a week late!



Click to enlarge, or you can see all of these pictures on Flickr.

Our Wonderful World.5

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

5. Great Wall of China

Wikipedia

My Uncle's Getting Married

My uncle's getting married

in the church at Broad and High.

He's wearing a tuxedo,

cummerbund and bolo tie.

After all the boring stuff,

it's off to the party house.

We'll eat a fancy dinner

and we'll toast his brand new spouse.

The fun will really start then,

the groom will dance his bride,

we'll do the Macarena,

chicken dance, electric slide.

We'll boogie woogie, bump and grind,

we'll limbo way down low.

We'll shimmy, shake, we'll shuffle, swing

we'll do our best disco.

And when the bride says, "One more dance!"

the conga line she leads.

We ribbon all around the room,

we curve, we swerve, we weave.

A snake of happy revelers,

the young and old alike,

connected hand to waist to back,

we dance away the night.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

I'm giving myself permission to have more fun with this project. I don't think I can write 25 more poems that are exactly about the wonders. So anything at all about the wonder that inspires me is fair game. 

Can you tell how I got today's poem from the image of the Great Wall? I hope you can see the conga line in the photo!

Here's Kevin's beautiful poem, Walls Won't Hold Us.

Here's Carol's poem about the Catacombs from yesterday, at Carol's Corner.

Our Wonderful World.4

The details of my Poetry Month project can be found here.

4. Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa

Tripadvisor.com

We All Wait

What's a forgotten catacomb to do?

My tunnels sprawled,

my columns endured,

my stairways persevered.

What's a forgotten catacomb to do?

I cradled the bones of the dead

in silence.

My statues stood guard

in secrecy.

And I waited.

We all wait.

Sometimes

we even know why,

or what for.

Never

in all my centuries

would I have imagined

what would break the monotony 

and end my waiting.

What's a forgotten catacomb to do?

A thousand years I waited.

Then a donkey fell through my roof

and the silence, the secrecy, and the waiting were over.

Who would have guessed?

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014


This is the first wonder I knew absolutely nothing about. Based on my experience yesterday, I knew we would need to do a bit of research before we started writing. I showed my students the image above and we brainstormed the questions we hoped to have answered by our research:

What are catacombs?
Are there traps?
Can tourists go there?
Are there kings, or treasure?
Where are they?
How old are they?
How big are they?
What are they used for?

My reading minilesson plans called for us to think about how we can determine the speaker in a poem (or a text), and in writing, we would try to write from an interesting point of view.

Turns out this was the perfect wonder for personification. You could write from the point of view of the catacombs themselves (as I did) or from the point of view of the donkey that fell through the roof in 1900, leading to the rediscovery of the catacombs. You could be a serpent guarding the doorway, a statue, a dead person buried there, or one of the shards for which the catacombs are named: "Mound of Shards." You could be the desert around it, the sky above it, or the water that's flooded the lowest level.


Carol has a Colosseum poem from yesterday at her blog, Carol's Corner.

Kevin's poem today is multimedia.

All of my Poetry Month posts can also be found on my new poetry website.

Amy has the Poetry Friday roundup today at The Poem Farm. She's certainly one of the wonders of the world!

Hi, Koo! A Year of Seasons

I had not taken the time to look Hi, Koo!: A Year of Seasons until spring break. It was on display at Cover to Cover. I didn't plan to love it, but when I opened it up, I did! I fell in love immediately.  My poetry shelves are too full these days so I am trying not to add lots more poetry until I take time to weed. I have hundreds of poetry books and so I'm being very picky about the ones I add to the shelves. But this one was a must-have.

I love great Haiku for kids. I find that it is a fun type of poetry to play with--a comfy way to get them to move beyond rhyming poems and still have a ball.  I also think there is so much learning when you are playing with writing a haiku.  Syllables, word choice, message in so few words are all amazing writing lessons. So, when I find a great book of haiku that is accessible to young children, I am happy! And who could not love the cute panda? This book makes me happy.

The poems in this book (one per page) follow the seasons through a year.  A few poems per season capture the things outside as well as common activities for the season.  There are haikus that are more serious and some that are more humorous.  The variety of poems in this book will naturally create invitations for young poetry writers.

Love this book and can't wait to share it with kids. I have not been so good about embedding poetry this year and this book reminds me why it is so important and fun to make time for poetry.  So glad I finally took a good look at this new favorite!

Our Wonderful World.3

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

3. Colosseum

Wikipedia

COLOSSEUM

Broken soup bowl,
tarnished crown,
gaping eyeholes,
center of town.

Shaken, crumbled,
still you stand.
By history humbled,
yet you're grand.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014



Carol Varsalona has a Colosseum poem for today on Notegraphy. Kevin's Colosseum Fibonacci poem showcases HaikuDeck.

Carol's poem from yesterday about Stonehenge is at Carol's Corner.

Kevin wrote a Stonehenge poem in Notegraphy yesterday. (I can't wait to give this app/website a try!)



It was in my plans for us to write similes and metaphors about the Colosseum as a possible way into our poems. Good thing I tried that before I had my students do it -- I learned that you can't write much when you know next to nothing about your topic.  (DUH.) So we started with some quick research.

Bless you, KR. I knew I was ready to pull them all back together for some brainstorming when K said aloud, "I wonder how much cereal it would hold? It looks like a bowl!" We had our first simile.

Then, as they fed me facts they had learned, we worked together to bend them into similes or metaphors. Here's we came up with:

•The colosseum is a bowl. How much cereal would it hold?

FACT: It is big.

•It is as big as the moon. (Nice example of hyperbole!)

FACT: It is old, made in 70 AD.
•The Colosseum is nearly as old as the Pyramid of Giza. (We had a good conversation about why this isn't a simile. It is simply stating how old the Colosseum is. And it's not even true. The pyramid is WAY older.)

•My teacher is nearly as old as the colosseum. (Now that we're comparing two unlike things, we have a simile. And hyperbole, please!!)

•The colosseum is like a crown on a princess’ head. (Simile)

•The colosseum is a crown. (Simile transformed into a metaphor)

FACT: It's made of concrete and stone.

•The Colosseum is as sturdy as the tree branch Ry climbed on. (We wanted a simile that compared the Colosseum to something that really wasn't so sturdy, since it is falling apart. Our read aloud is AS EASY AS FALLING OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH, and Ry is the main character. You can probably guess what happened to the tree branch he climbed on!)

FACT: 500,000 people were killed and over a million animals were killed there.

•The colosseum is a graveyard.

Our Wonderful World.2

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

2. Stonehenge

Wikipedia

We stand.

Sun warms us,

wind pushes us,

people stare at us.

We wait.

Moon comforts us,

rain gouges us,

people stare at us.

We know.

Tools made us,

ancients moved us,

people stare at us.

We endure.

History created us,

future sustains us,

people admire us.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

S t o n e h e n g e

feels              hard,

can                lift,

sounds          silent

very              strong

reaches         high

to the            sky

feels             rough.

©JB, 2014

We did another two-column brainstorm for today's poems. This time we thought about what moods the picture evoked, and what sensory images we might include in our poem.

There's so much we don't know about Stonehenge. I tried to capture the solid silence of the stones, and the wonder and amazement that we continue to feel in the presence of this mighty ring of standing stones.

EDITED AFTER SHARING WITH MY CLASS: The last line of my poem used to read "people stare at us." AH suggested that perhaps since the poem shifts in that stanza to bigger themes, the last line could be "people admire us." I totally agreed and have made that change! Thanks, AH! (This is what I love about being a part of a community of writers...in my classroom!)

Carol and Kevin both wrote poems yesterday for The Great Pyramid of Giza. Check them out at Carol's Corner and  Kevin's Meandering Mind.

Little Poems for Tiny Ears

Sally shared this book with me at Cover to Cover when I visited over spring break. Little Poems for Tiny Ears is an adorable new poetry book by Lin Oliver. The book is illustrated by Tomie dePaola. It is a happy little book of poems for "tiny ears".

This book is filled with great poems for babies and toddlers.  The poems are short and very sweet.  They capture the joy of being a baby. One of my favorite poems in the book is called "I See a Baby" and it is about a baby seeing itself in the mirror.  There is a poem about walking and a poem about strollers and one about diaper time.  There is lots of rhyming so young children will love the language and rhythm even if they don't yet understand the words.  And Tomie dePaola's illustrations are quite adorable. Each child has his or her own personality and the colors are joyful and engaging.

This is one of those books that both child and parent will enjoy.  I plan on buying it for baby gifts in the future as it is the perfect baby gift. I also think it would be great to have in the classroom. I have so many students with baby sisters and brothers that they would enjoy this take on babies!

A great find--thanks Sally!

Our Wonderful World.1

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

1. The Great Pyramid of Giza

Wikipedia

TIME

Time

in the desert

is as vast as the sky

expanding across blue distance.

Ancient as sand, changeless and thirsty,

time waits, encased in a monumental tomb of stone.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

Stacking stones

all day and all night.

Just to make a pyramid

to store dead people.

This is all for naught.

But the Pharaoh wants it,

so he gets it.

©VS, 2014

This year, because April 1 is on a Tuesday, I am including my students in my writing process for this first week. Yesterday we looked at this picture of The Great Pyramid of Giza and did a two-column brainstorming activity with DENOTATION on the left and CONNOTATION on the right. Denotation is where we listed the exactly what we could see in the picture, or facts we gathered from further research. Connotation is where we listed what those facts made us think about, or feel. My denotations were big, old, triangle, sand, desert, brown. My connotations were important, valuable, knowledgeable, solid, balanced, sturdy, strong, classic, time, change, changelessness, vast, empty, silent, dry, hot, thirsty. You can see which ones made it into my poem!

It was fascinating to watch the students' writing move immediately in unique directions based on their own connotations. After 5 minutes of my own writing, I circled the room and found another pyramid-shaped poem, two acrostics (mummy and pyramid), three different voices (a slave, the pyramid, and a conversation between the pyramid and a visitor), and poems about the sand, grave robbers, and oldness. I hope a couple of them will allow me to post their poems here later today!

And (drumroll...) I am cross-posting my Poetry Month posts on my spankin' new poetry website!

Jama has a list of the Poetry Month projects around the Kidlitosphere at Jama's Alphabet Soup. Yours isn't there? Let her know!

Carol's pyramid poem is at Carol's Corner; Kevin's is at Kevin's Meandering Mind.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Thanks to Jen and Kellee for hosting It's Monday! What Are You Reading!  Stop by Teach Mentor Texts or Unleashing Readers for the round up and see what others in the blog community are reading.

This does not feel like enough reading for Spring Break week but it didn't end up to be a big reading week for me. But I did find some gems.

I've loved Jenny Offill since I read 17 Things I'm Not Allowed to Do Anymore so I was thrilled to see Sparky! by this author. A fun story about a girl who gets a pet sloth.

And Dan Santat has a new book out: The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend.  I received a review copy this week. A fun read! I need to reread and look more closely at his amazing art.  So much to look at!

And I was so happy to read Cynthia Lord's new book, Half a Chance. I love all of her books and loved this one as much as the others.

I am always looking for great nonfiction and Itty Bitty Kitty Committee looked like a good one. I spent some time browsing it and reading parts and pieces this week. Very cute kitties!

And I am about halfway through Under the Egg by Laura Marx Fitzgerald. I have heard lots about it so am happy to have a copy. I'm loving it so far!

Celebrating Pernille Ripp with a donation to Global Read Aloud

We continue our year-long blog birthday celebration by honoring blogger and Read Aloud Activist, Pernille Ripp. Even though our blog birthday was on January 1, we are celebrating it all year! On our 8th Birthday, we decided to celebrate 2014 by celebrating others who inspire us every day. Each month, on the 1st (or so) of the month, we will celebrate a fellow blogger whose work has inspired us recently. We feel so lucky to be part of the blog world that we want to celebrate all that everyone gives us each day.

We have been learning from Pernille Ripp for many years at Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension. She is a generous, honest, funny, and both thoughtful and thought-provoking writer. She is a constant contributor to the world of teaching and learning and always advocates for doing what is right for kids. A while back, Franki did an interview with Pernille for Choice Literacy. Pernille tweets @pernilleripp.

And, if you didn't know, Pernille INVENTED The Global Read Aloud! This international literacy event connects students, teachers and classrooms from all over the world around books and reading.
Because she is a classroom teacher, she has made the whole process doable for anyone who wants to participate. Just like her inclusive classroom, the GRA has evolved. There are now lots of options for readers and classrooms at all levels. If you've never taken part, make it your goal for the fall of 2014. Mark your calendar for October 6, and make your voice heard right now: second round voting is open now for the 2014 books/authors for Global Read Aloud.

We'd like to support Pernille's work on The Global Read Aloud, so our donation this month will be to her very own cause!

Thank you, Pernille for all you do and all you inspire others to do!