Slice of Life -- The Power of Moments

I wrote a blog post last August about our "failed" fly fishing trip to Vermont. I decided that I wasn't going to let one big expectation for this school year determine whether or not it was a good year. I made the choice to capture one shining moment every day, all year long. I bought myself a little purple journal, and every day I "caught a fish." What a gift I've given myself! Moments that would have been lost in the swift current of the flow of time are saved there for me to look back on and remember. It was a great year, and I lived it one day at a time.

My students and I captured moments every week when we created our "Top Ten" for the weekly newsletter I sent to parents. I have those newsletters archived on my class website.

On Tuesday, in the silence after we clapped the fifth graders out of the building and cheered the buses out of the parking lot, I wrote this Top 10 for the school year:

10  Our Friday routines (Poetry Friday, Top 10 and newsletter, blogging, Genius Hour), including "LUNCH!" and the laughter that brought us every week.

9  The list of read alouds on the closet door. We shared so many great books, and spent an hour finishing our final read aloud on the last day of school.

8  Our "words to live by." I loved that wall full of inspiration.

7  One Little Word. I hope the students will choose another word to live by each January. One word is so much better than a whole list of failed resolutions.

6  Our weird math schedule. At first it was so awkward to have 10 more minutes of math after related arts. But with time and flexibility, we worked that 10 minutes for all it was worth. I need to remember not to get hung up on things that don't work out the way I planned. I need to be flexible and creative and make the most of what I'm given!

5  Book clubs. The conversations and learning were priceless.

4  Open-ended ("rich") math problems. My learning curve for math instruction went steeply up at the end of the year when I started designing my own math problems, rather than finding them online. I can't wait to continue improving my math instruction next year!

3  Choice in writing workshop. The writing the students did at the end of the year, when they could choose their genre and topic, was phenomenal. I need to figure out how to build choice time into writing workshop throughout the year in between our mandated units of study.

2  Genius Hour. What a grand experiment this was! I think most of the students would put it at #1 in their own Top 10 for 5th grade. It was one of the best risks I've ever taken.

1  My class. It took longer than usual for this class to gel as a community, but perhaps it was because that gel didn't come easily or early that it made it so much sweeter when it finally happened. This group was filled with such an amazing collection of smart, funny, quirky, sensitive, creative, helpful, talented, honest, enthusiastic...characters. I am a better person for having spent the year with them.

Stenhouse Blogstitute is Coming!

Stenhouse's popular summer PD Blogstitute will celebrate its fifth year this year! 

Starting a week from today, on June 15th, head over to the Stenhouse Blog for a series of posts from Stenhouse authors -- two per week -- "designed to challenge your thinking and share new ideas that you can incorporate into your planning for the next school year." 

Click here for details!

Poetry Friday -- Silence

Silence
by Billy Collins

There is the sudden silence of the crowd
above a player not moving on the field,
and the silence of the orchid.

The silence of the falling vase
before it strikes the floor,
the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.

The stillness of the cup and the water in it,
the silence of the moon
and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.

(you can read the rest of the poem here)

I'd like to add a stanza to this poem about the silence after the busloads of cheering children round the corner and disappear from sight, the sudden unnatural silence of the school building and our empty classrooms.

And I'd add another stanza about the silence of the house the next morning as we get reacquainted with each other over a cup of tea and to-do lists.

I would finish with a stanza on my knees in the garden, weeding the beets and zinnias, the silence broken only by the buzz of a hummingbird  in the coral bells.

Buffy has the Poetry Friday roundup today at Buffy's Blog, and the July-December call for roundup hosts is here.

Poetry Friday -- Call for Roundup Hosts

It's that time again. Six months have passed since last we queued up to host the Poetry Friday roundups.

If you'd like to host a roundup between July and December 2015, leave your choice(s) of date(s) in the comments. I'll update regularly to make it easier to see which dates have been claimed.

What is the Poetry Friday roundup? A gathering of links to posts featuring original or shared poems, or reviews of poetry books. A carnival of poetry posts. Here is an explanation that Rene LaTulippe shared on her blog, No Water River, and here is an article Susan Thomsen wrote for the Poetry Foundation.

Who can do the Poetry Friday roundup? Anyone who is willing to gather the links in some way, shape or form (Mr. Linky, "old school" in the comments-->annotated in the post, or ???) on the Friday of your choice. If you are new to the Poetry Friday community, jump right in! If you've never participated, but you'd like to get started, choose a date later on so that we can spend some time getting to know each other.

How do you do a Poetry Friday roundup? If you're not sure, stick around for a couple of weeks and watch...and learn! One thing we're finding out is that folks who schedule their posts, or who live in a different time zone than you, appreciate it when the roundup post goes live sometime on Thursday.

How do I get the code for the PF Roundup Schedule for the sidebar of my blog? I'll post it in the files on the Kidlitosphere Yahoo group, and I'd be happy to send it to you if you leave me your email address. Speaking of the the Kidlitosphere Yahoo group, I'll try to set up reminders on the calendar there (currently it's not letting me in). Plus, I'll put the schedule on the Kidlitosphere Central webpage.

Why would I do a Poetry Friday Roundup? Community, community, community. It's like hosting a poetry party on your blog!

And now for the where and when:

July

3   Donna at Mainely Write

10 Katie at The Logonauts

17 Kimberley at iWrite in Maine

24 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche

31 Keri at Keri Recommends

August

7   Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference

14 Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe

21 Catherine at Reading to the Core

28 Sylvia at Poetry For Children

September

4   Linda at TeacherDance

11 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge

18 Michelle at Today's Little Ditty

25 Janet at Poetry For Children

October

2   Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe

9   Laura at Writing the World for Kids

16 Amy at The Poem Farm

23 Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup

30 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading

November

6   Katya at Write. Sketch. Repeat.

13 Bridget at Wee Words for Wee Ones

20 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect

27 Carol at Carol's Corner

December

4   Buffy at Buffy's Blog

11 Tara at A Teaching Life

18 Diane at Random Noodling

25 Irene at Live Your Poem

Summer #bookaday Begins!

Cleopatra in Space: Target Practice

by Mike Maihack

Scholastic, 2014

review copy purchased for my classroom library

Cleopatra in Space: The Thief and the Sword

by Mike Maihack

Scholastic, 2015

review copy purchased for my classroom library

School's out -- let #bookaday begin! And what better way to begin than with a fun new (to me) graphic novel series!

Columbus College of Art and Design grad Mike Maihack has plucked Cleopatra out of history and sent her to the future as the hero prophesied to save the galaxy from the evil Xaius Octavian who destroys civilizations by deleting all their electronic data and simultaneously stealing it for himself and his uses. 

Maihack's action and battle scenes are spectacular -- very cinematic. He is masterful at using flashbacks and flashforwards. At the end of the first book, her school/training academy is planning a winter dance, and at the beginning of the second book, the dance is in full swing. The second book ends with a more dramatic cliffhanger (think massive fleet evil army spaceships in close pursuit of the tiny spaceship our main characters are on) that will leave readers anxious for the next book in the series!

2 New Early Chapter Books

I bought a few of the Sofia Martinez books earlier this year when I noticed they were a new very easy reader for early 3rd grade. But last week, I order the new book, Sofia Martinez: My Family Adventure, which is more of an early chapter book.  The author, Jacqueline Jules is one I know from her series Zapato Power which I like for 3rd graders. This Sofia Martinez book is 92 pages and is about a character I came to like early in the book. There are several Spanish words embedded throughout the text (glossary in the back) which makes it different from other series chapter books i know. I liked lots about this book and it supports readers in several ways.  There are 3-4 separate stories in this book and each has 3 separate chapters. So for kids new to chapter books, this is a good one because they don't have to hold onto the story for over several days. Each story stands alone but is about Sofia and her family.  I've already had a few kids read and enjoy this.  I love that, like the Katie Woo series, there are easy readers and early chapter books about the same character.  They can grow with them and it also starts classroom conversations about choosing books about characters we love, not because of text difficulty, length, etc.  I am hoping the author writes more in this series.

Buck's Tooth is a book that Katie Dicesare told me about. It is a short early chapter book with a fun

character and a good message.  Buck is a beaver who has one big front tooth and "it ruins everything"  When the town talent show is announced, Buck doesn't know what he is going to do. He doesn't have a talent.  The book is fun and predictable and perfect for K-3 readers. (You might know this author from the Ollie and Moon series:-)

I love both of these books for our 3rd grade classroom, especially early in the school year. They are perfect for transitional readers!

Weird and Wild Animal Facts

We took our kids to the Dublin Library last week and Miss Val, one of the children's librarians there, shared lots of new books with the kids, getting them excited about summer reading. One of the books she shared was one I knew I had to add to our nonfiction library.

Weird and Wild Animal Facts by Jessica Loy is a book that is perfect for elementary readers. I am always worried that our students just love to read isolated facts, which is a good start for nonfiction. But I want them to move beyond that.  This is a perfect book to start that.

This book is filled with interesting animal facts.  But after reading the author's note, I see the way these facts go together and together they tell an interesting story about animal adaptations. Each 2 page spread focuses on a common animal, one most of us are familiar with.  (giraffe, jelly fish, tarantula) and for each animal there are several facts about that animal.  The author goes on to tell us how each thing helps the animal.  For example: "Sloths are covered in unique fur that's an ideal breeding ground for algae."  The author goes on to explain that, "The algae helps them blend into the environment and hide from predators.  The end pages also include fun facts and the author includes online resources at the end of the book so readers can continue to learn about animals.

This book is one that kids will grab because it is filled with interesting facts and the photos are engaging. But it does more than share isolated facts and I love that!

May Mosaic

Row 1: Hard to believe the blooming time is long gone already! And one month later, the Land Lab is now in desperate need of another big weeding.
Picture #4 is a joke -- Teacher Appreciation gift of hand sanitizer arrived on the same day as a notice to parents that there had been a case of pinkeye in my class. Ah, the joys of teaching!

Row 2: Food for Thought at Old Worthington Library was Dan the Baker. Yum.
"Beets, With a Side of Maple and Oak"
Race for the Cure, Columbus Downtown on Race Day

Row 3: Fox in the Snow (locals, if you haven't been there -- GO!)
My gerbera daisy bloom looked like it had cellophane on it. When I transplanted it, I clipped the bloom off and looked at it up close in sunlight -- tiny tiny spiders had built a web that encased the entire bloom!

Row 4: Last picture row 3 and first picture row 4 -- tartines from Dan the Baker's Toast Bar. (Again, locals, if you haven't been -- GO!)
Rafael Rosado and John Novak at Cover to Cover for Dragons Beware.

Row 5: Rosado signing and drawing.
Jeni's is back! YAY! I had popcorn ice cream. YUM!
Iris in the sun.

Row 6: Will in the sun.
3 Bean Salad (Summer is officially here.)

Row 7: The sore throat that felt like I was swallowing razor blades was a virus, not strep, but this sign at the Urgent Care was almost worth it. Almost. "Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy."
Oh, JOY! ARC of Selznik's new book!
Spotted the work of Sam Fout, our art teacher, in the real world at Rivet Gallery in the Short North.
Mini veggies at Kroger -- quarter-sized squash and finger-length zucchini. Why?



The photos in this mosaic are on Flickr here if you want to see them bigger.

All About Them Books

This darling video by a librarian in Worthington says it all!

And may I just add, how am I supposed to get any work done when THIS showed up in yesterday's mail:

Poetry Friday -- Probably Not Poetry, But a Darn Cute Rhyming Book

What This Story Needs is a Pig in a Wig
by Emma J. Virján
Harper, 2015
review copy provided by the publisher

So many rhyming animals (up to and including a panda in a blouse) join the pig on her boat that she finally sends them all away, which leaves her blissfully, and then forlornly, alone. Until...surprise ending!

A book with not too many words needs to have interesting pictures that help the reader and add to the story, like when the goat on the log performs a balancing act, or when the rat trades its top hat for a swimming cap when pig sends them all off the boat. And not only does this book have a pig in a wig, it has lots of hidden pig snout shapes to look for.

This book is kid-tested and kid-approved. With no prompting, kindergarteners began rhyming along with the book (although they did have to ask what a blouse was). And they loved the author's picture (she's wearing a drawn-on red wig and a pig nose).

Looking forward to more books in this fun series!

Margaret has the Poetry Friday roundup today at Reflections on the Teche. Next week we'll start building the July-December schedule!