Slice of Life: Lost and Found Writing

Almost 20 years ago, we lived in a neighborhood with a magnificent gingko tree at the end of our street. It stood, not in a yard, but in front of an industrial business. One autumn morning, when I was out early walking the dog, I found the tree, which had been full of yellow light just the day before, a skeleton of bare branches with a perfect circle of yellow leaves on the ground underneath it. I went home and wrote this story.

*   *   *   *   *

In the Way Back, in the time of naming things, Earth Woman lived beside the Gingko Tree. 

During the Hot Time, its fan-shaped leaves cooled her all through her working days. 

As the nights grew chilly and the days shortened, Earth Woman was more and more thankful for the warmth of her fire.

One morning, Earth Woman noticed that the tree who had fanned her in the Hot Time had turned the bright yellow of the flames of her fire. Even though the tree gave off no heat, its yellow light warmed her all through her working days.

Soon there came a night of sharp frost, and the day that followed was no warmer. The Cold Time had stopped teasing and had finally arrived. 

Earth Woman sat in the yellow light of the Gingko Tree and pulled her blankets more tightly around her on that first morning of the Cold Time. She turned her thoughts back to the Hot Time and thanked the Spirits for all of the particular joys of that time. Then she said goodbye to those memories as she prepared to embrace each of the particular joys of the Cold Time.

As she began releasing her memories, she heard a faint rustling around her and felt light kisses on her head and shoulders and knees. She opened her eyes for a moment and saw that the Gingko was also releasing its memories in a steady flutter of leaves -- the yellow light, like shattered rays of sun or individual flames of fire, was leaving the tree to join Earth Woman on the ground.

Earth Woman smiled, closed her eyes, and resumed her goodbyes.

When she opened her eyes again, the tree was bare and she sat in a pool of fallen light. Her memories of the Hot Time had all been released and she was ready to accept this first memory of the Cold Time. She looked around at the fallen leaves, the fallen light, and she named her first memory of the Cold Time. 

She named it Fall. 

*   *   *   *   *

On Sunday, we biked through our old neighborhood and then south for an hour in the glorious autumn sunshine. The gingko tree is still there, and so is the ghost of Earth Woman.

Jessica Day George

We were lucky to have Jessica Day George visit our school last week. It was very exciting for everyone and the kids are still talking and writing about the day. Thank you to Cover to Cover Bookstore for this opportunity!

Not sure when I discovered Jessica Day George but I have loved her books for years. I love fairy tales and I especially love to see new versions of tales I love.  I think I stared  reading Jessica Day George with her book, Dragon Slippers. A few years ago, my younger daughter and I were hooked on her middle school princess series (Princess of the Midnight Ball, Princess of Glass). And of course, I loved Tuesdays at the Castle when I read it a few years ago.  I love every book she's written.

Jessica Day George doesn't know it, but she is one of my favorite people to follow on Goodreads. We seem to have the exact same taste in books. And why wouldn't we--she writes the books I love to read. She is my go-to person when it comes to adult fiction. If Jessica gives a novel a 5 star rating, it is one I definitely check out.

Jessica is touring because her new book, Thursdays With the Crown has just been published. This is the 3rd book in the Tuesdays at the Castle series).  Tuesdays at the Castle was the well loved by students in grades 3, 4, and 5. Most classrooms shared the book as a read aloud. I worried early on that it would be too hard for my 3rd graders but I was wrong. We had to do a lot of thinking and talking early in the book. Before we began, we thought about fairy tales we knew and created a chart listing Things We Could Expect, knowing it was a fairy tale.  We listened to the audio version of the book as I wanted my kids to have the experience of an audiobook. The audio is fabulous and the kids really enjoyed the book.  They talk about Celie sometimes like she is a member of our classroom.

There is nothing like having an author that kids connect with visit a school. After the excitement of getting books autographed wore off (it is still not quite worn off), I listened in on what it was that Jessica Day George told them that stuck. What would stay with them about her visit? First of all, they loved her--there was lots of laughing and humor in her talk and I think kids liked knowing that this author they loved was a real person, someone they liked a lot.  She shared the book that changed her and that inspired her to be a writer. She was also very honest about her rejections and let kids know that she didn't get her books published until she wrote what she loved to write. She talked to kids about the process of revision.     The story of her writing life is a powerful one and she shared it in a way that made sense to young children.

Jessica Day George is definitely a rock star at Indian Run Elementary.  Her visit was a day that I think most kids will remember for a very long time. A definite highlight of the year for the kids. And for me, what a great day to be able to meet one of my favorite authors with my students!              

Google Drive in the 3rd Grade Classroom

Our district went Google this year and I've been wanting to take advantage of all the ways Google Drive allows for collaboration and creation.  So a few weeks ago we jumped in. I set up a doc and shared it with various groups of kids to work on.  Everyone signed in at once and it was a chaotic disaster.  I realized that I had forgotten one of the most important things I've learned as a 3rd grade teacher when it comes to new tools--that a shared experience is the best way for kids to see what is possible.  Instead of just sending kids off to explore a tool that they know nothing about, using the tools in shared experience can often give them a vision for what is possible.  So this week, we used Google Docs in two ways.

We did a Google Hangout with Colby Sharp's class on Friday.  We are trying to get together via Skye or GHO regularly about math and this week my students taught his students a math game. It was a game that requires a board and guessing. So, before the Hangout began, I shared the board with Colby in Google Drive. When we were in the Google Hangout, we shared the document on the screen so both classes could fill out the board and watch the game progress. (This is a game where one player/class guesses a number and the other player/class lets them know how many digits and numbers are correct. The kids enjoyed playing but were really excited about the way we both shared the same board and we could see Mr. Sharp's class adding a guess to the board.

Another thing we did this week was to preview our next read aloud.  We'll be starting The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane this week and I wanted to give kids time to preview the book before we begin. So I took photos of each piece of the book that one would preview (the epigraph, cover, illustrations before the title page, first page of the book). I included these in a Google Doc and gave kids the link for commenting.

These two things have given kids ideas for what is possible.  Doing a few things in a shared way always gets kids to play around and then imagine what else can be done with a tool.  This week in math, we'll use Google Forms for some surveying with a data lesson.  There are so many tools I am comfortable with and that I really don't even need to think about using in this shared way. Google is not one of those tools....yet. So I am trying to be better about embedding it naturally into what we do so students can see what is possible for their independent work.

My husband, Scott Sibberson, has lots on his blog about what Google offers. I need  to really dig into this more over the next few weeks.

In the Early Morning Dark, In the Fall

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Graham and Sheila

In the Early Morning Dark, In the Fall

I step out onto the front porch
thinking it must still be raining,
but the steady patter I hear
is the oak being deconstructed
by a light breeze.

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2014



Cathy has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Merely Day by Day.

I Shouldn't Be Blogging

I shouldn't be blogging.

I should be grading papers.
I should be reading students' blog posts.
I should be sending post-conference follow-up emails to parents.
I should be watching training videos for my new school laptop.
I should be deconstructing standards and digging into resources.
I should be reading so I have something to blog about.
I should be doing amazing things in my classroom so I have something to blog about.
I should be reading the blogs of our faithful blog readers.
I should be cleaning the house.

Okay. That helped. It always does. Best One Little Word ever.

Remember at the end of last summer, when we went to Vermont on a fly fishing trip...and didn't catch any fish? And how I vowed to "catch" a "trout" every day of the school year so that no matter what kind of picture the high stakes testing paints of my students, I will be able to look back on a year full of great moments of learning and joy?

I've got a "creel" full of fish.

We're 40+ days into the school year, and in my special little purple Moleskine I have 40+ "trout." Some days when I look back, they make me laugh, or swell up with pride. Some days I get a little teary.

At the exhaustion end of Parent Conference Night, a dad told about organizing his 30th high school class reunion, and how much it meant to him and the others who attended that some of their elementary school teachers attended. Even their first grade teacher was there. "You are making a difference in these students' lives, you know," he said. "You have no idea right now how the seeds you plant will turn out, but you are planting seeds for the future."

The next day, I got an email from a student who was in one of my looping classes 10 years ago. I helped to get her on an IEP back then. She's a junior in college now and she wanted to come interview me for one of her classes. She just switched her major. To education.

All the "I shoulds" will have to wait. I have some seeds to plant. I have some fish to catch.

Some Favorite New Books for 3rd Grade Transitional Readers

I have been on the lookout for short reads for my 3rd graders. I still have a handful of students who are struggling with finishing books.  Finding quality books for 3rd graders is always a struggle. So I am always thrilled when I find something with a little more to it than most.  And with a humor that is perfect for 8 and 9 year olds. I've found several great ones for kids pretty new to chapter books lately.   Here they are:

Digby O'Day:  In the Fast Lane

Shelter Pet Squad

Leroy Ninker Saddles Up

Emma and the Blue Genie

Dory Fantastamagory

Princess in Black

Digital Literacy K-8: Empowering Our Students

Saturday, I had the opportunity to work with Ruth Ayres, Bill Bass and Colby Sharp in Indiana. We worked with 50ish Indiana teachers through the All Write consortium and learned together about digital literacy.  I loved Saturday. The teachers were incredible and the conversations at each table that I joined pushed me to think about things I haven't thought of before when it comes to digital literacy.

I left with lots of new thinking. How can you work with Ruth, Bill and Colby and not come away with new thing to think about. Each of these 3 people grounds me in different ways.  We each bring something different to the conversation around digital literacy and that alone is worth it.  Ruth continues to remind us that staying true to our core beliefs matters.  Colby reminds us that kids' voices are the most powerful voices there are.  And Bill's belief that technology can change classrooms to empower all children reminds us that we can't take our time with this.  The most powerful thinking happens when different voices come together.  I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to learn from and with these 3 amazing people on a regular basis.  

We created a Weebly site so participants had all of the resources at their fingertips. The site grew and evolved as the day went on.  Such fun to update a site as new things came up in conversation.  You can find the site: Digital Literacy K-8.    Some of it might make no sense to you but there are pages that I love (Colby's iPad screen is one of them:-). There are pages that give me things to follow up with--things I didn't have time to explore Saturday. And there are slides and quotes that reground me, remind me why digital literacy matters.

People always ask me how and why I sometimes spend Saturdays working. And some days I wonder that myself. But then I have a day like yesterday--and I think "How could I not?" When else would I have the chance to be inspired?  Learning with amazing teachers,  laughing with friends, learning myself. What could be better?

Poetry Friday -- My New Hero

"Time to Dust"

Delight in Disorder
by Robert Herrick

A sweet disorder in the dresse
Kindles in cloathes a wantonnesse:
A Lawne about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction:
An erring Lace, which here and there
Enthralls the Crimson Stomacher:
A Cuffe neglectfull, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly:
A winning wave (deserving Note)
In the tempestuous petticote:
A careless shooe-string, in whose tye
I see a wilde civility:
Doe more bewitch me, then when Art
Is too precise in every part.

Herrick is writing about those who are careless in dressing, but I am taking this poem to heart as a person who is careless in housekeeping, and Herrick is my new hero. Last weekend, I finally got around to dusting took five minutes to Swiffer a few key surfaces in the house. After reading Herrick, I quit beating myself up for the cobwebs, cat hair, and kitchen table clutter. I am choosing to "see a wilde civility," become bewitched, and find the wonderful imprecise Art of our home. (Also giving thanks that Mr. Mary Lee cares less than I do about a clean and tidy house!)

Michelle has the Poetry Friday roundup at Today's Little Ditty.

The Jacket

The Jacket
by Kirsten Hall
illustrated by Dasha Tolstikova
Enchanted Lion Books, 2014
review copy provided by the publisher

This is a book about a book who wants nothing more than "for a child to discover him. / To disappear into his pages. / To laugh at his story. / To love him and care for him in a way all favorite books know."

That day finally comes for Book, but unfortunately, the girl who loves him also loves her dog, who loves to roll in the mud, which spells disaster for Book.

All is not lost, though. The girl is creative. Can you guess what she makes for her book to cover the mud stains? Yup. A jacket!

Directions for making a book jacket are included. ("*Don't forget to cut eye holes for your book's eyes!")

Mister Horizontal & Miss Vertical

Mister Horizontal & Miss Vertical
by Noémie Révah
illustrations by Olimpia Zagnoli
translated from the French by Claudia Bedrick
Enchanted Lion Books, 2014
review copy provided by the publisher

Mister Horizontal and Miss Vertical couldn't be more different.

Can you guess who likes gliding, boating and "walking in the desert, with sand as far as the eye can see?" And who likes bungee jumping, rockets, and "New York, the city of sky scrapers?"

More than just a concept book about horizontal and vertical, this is a book about opposites, and a fabulous mentor text for writers of all age and experience who need to practice describing their characters in a variety of ways.