Broadening Horizons, Part One

This is How We Do It
by Matt Lamothe
Chronicle Books, 2017
review copy from the public library, on order for my classroom library

First of all, props to Columbus Metropolitan Library for not pasting down the flaps on the cover so that the reader can study and appreciate the endpapers!

Readers of all ages will want to pore over every inch of this book! By showing how families from seven countries around the world in such common ways as where they live, how they get to school, how they play, and how they eat dinner, we can find the things that connect us to others, and the things that make us unique. In the back of the book, the photographs of the actual families the book is based on add to its authenticity. Wouldn't it be fun to have your students share photos of their meals, their families, their bedrooms...discovering the ways they are the same along with all the ways they are unique?

I briefly previewed this book in my 5th grade classroom, and it was positively magnetic the next time students had a chance to get their hands on it.

Science Comics: Get to Know Your Universe!

How will your students know that graphic novels are a format and not a genre, unless you have titles that are history, memoir, and now...science?

Bats: Learning to Fly
written and illustrated by Falynn Koch
Science Comics Series
First Second, 2017
review copy from the public library

Thank goodness for Goodreads and for the public library. This title came up on my Goodreads feed and I clicked straight over to the Columbus Metropolitan Library and reserved the entire series.

I was not disappointed. The Science Comics (Get to Know Your Universe) series includes books about Dinosaurs, Volcanoes, Coral Reefs, Flying Machines, and coming up is Plagues. Although it's a series, because every book is not written/illustrated by the same teams, each book is unique. No cookie-cutter here!

I'll be ordering this entire series for my classroom!

Poetry Friday -- Peony Poem

Peony Poem

an idea
sudden, surprising
like red peony shoots
the first color in a spring garden

a draft
leafy, bushy
too much green, but with buds
sweet enough to attract ants

a poem
lopsided, fragrant
overly showy, flamboyant, glorious
cut for a vase or for a grave


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017


This poem was written for Melissa Manlove's challenge at Today's Little Ditty: "Write me a poem that explores how writing (or a book) is like something else. Convince me!"

Margaret has today's Poetry Friday Roundup at Reflections on the Teche.

My Stack for #cyberPD 2017

Dynamic Teaching for Deeper Reading
by Vicki Vinton

MUST read.

Disrupting Thinking
by Kylene Beers and Bob Probst

MUST read.

No More Telling as Teaching
by Cris Tovani

Probably more secondary and probably preaching to the choir, but MUST read because we get so caught up in galloping toward the test that sometimes we forget. (We...meaning I.)

The Teacher You Want to Be
edited by Matt Glover and Ellin Oliver Keene

Yes, next year I'll be entering my 32nd year of teaching and I'm down to less than one hand before retirement, but I'm STILL trying to be the teacher I want to be. Why stop now, right?

Poetry Friday -- Student Blackout Poems

I Wanna Be Mature
by A. E.

ten
nine
eight
seven
six
five
four
three
two
one

some days
each year
even months
I wish
I was one hundred



Irene Latham was wondering if students could be successful with found poetry/blackout poetry. We had some time this week to give it a try, and I was pleasantly surprised by my students' poems. This is one of the best so far.

I gave them this first page of Sandra Cisneros' "Eleven" in a page protector, and they used wipe-off markers to find their first drafts.

Happy Friday! Happy Poetry! Happy 4 more days of school!

Kiesha has this week's Poetry Friday Roundup at Whispers from the Ridge.

Music and History, Part Two

Soldier Song: A True Story of the Civil War
by Debbie Levy
illustrated by Gilbert Ford
Disney Hyperion, 2017
review copy provided by the publisher

"That's amazing!" Zak said, after reading Soldier Song yesterday. "All that happened because of a single song!"

My 5th graders recently completed work on a standard that asked them to describe how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described. We talked about first- and secondhand accounts. Then in writing workshop, they crafted a piece of narrative nonfiction, blending researched facts (secondhand information) with invented firsthand points of view. I shared this book with them to show that the thinking they'd developed via the reading standard and their own writing are not just standards to study or hoops to jump in school, they are alive in books being published out in the "real world."

In Soldier Song, Debby Levy focuses small, on one standoff of the Civil War -- the battle at Fredricksburg and what happened within both sides and between the two sides via a musical volley across the Rappahannock River. Woven throughout the facts are snippets of actual soldiers' letters and journal entries. The woodcut illustrations perfectly invoke the mood/tone of the story.

Music and History, Part One

Stand Up and Sing! Peter Seeger, Folk Music, and the Path to Justice
by Susanna Reich
illustrated by Adam Gustavson
Bloomsbury, 2017
review copy provided by the author

After spending the month of April with the folk singer and activist Malvina Reynolds (list of posts here, or read from April 1 here), I was interested to find similarities and differences between her life and Pete Seeger's.

Both grew up in a house filled with music, and both had parents who were politically active, though Pete's parents weren't labeled Socialists, resulting in him being denied a high school diploma.

Pete and Malvina both learned from other folk singers/songwriters. They even learned from each other, having met in the late 1940's - early 1950's. It was Pete Seeger who made Malvina's song "Little Boxes" famous.

Both Pete and Malvina wrote and performed for children.

Pete Seeger went on to have a stronger voice and presence in the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War protests, and the fight for clean water. Because he lived until 2014 (Malvina died in 1978), his voice lingers more clearly in our collective memory.

Without either Malvina or Pete, American folk music would have been less of a treasure, and less of a force for good in our world. This book, Malvina's songs, and Pete's recordings can remind a new generation of the power of music to change the world.

For a closer look at Stand Up and Sing, see Jama's Poetry Friday Post at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

Summer #Bookaday!

Well with nine days of school left, it is time to get ready for the Summer #bookaday Challenge invented by Donalyn Miller.  If you missed Donalyn's Facebook Live event where she kicked off this 9th Annual event, you an watch it on her Facebook Page.

To get started, I counted the days of summer. If I counted correctly, we have 80 days of summer so I will try to read 80 books. I try to read a book every day but sometimes that doesn't work out so it works for me to have a total number goal that matches the total days of summer. So 80 is my number this year.  I need this because I have gotten very behind in my reading lately.

I will be moving to a 5th grade classroom next year and I am excited to catch up on books for 5th grade readers. Thanks to lots of friends I am building a stack and a list of books that are popular with 5th graders today. There are stacks all over my house, just waiting for Summer Bookaday Reading time. I hope to fit in a few YA and adult fiction and of course I'll be reading lots of picture books!

I'd love any suggestions as I move from 3rd grade to 5th grade.

Here is one of my stacks!

If you have never participated in Summer Bookaday, I would highly recommend it. A fun challenge and a great way to catch up on your reading!

Poetry Friday -- Mother by Ted Kooser

Mother
by Ted Kooser

Mid April already, and the wild plums
bloom at the roadside, a lacy white
against the exuberant, jubilant green
of new grass an the dusty, fading black
of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet,
only the delicate, star-petaled
blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume.

You have been gone a month today
and have missed three rains and one nightlong
watch for tornadoes. I sat in the cellar
from six to eight while fat spring clouds
went somersaulting, rumbling east. Then it poured,
a storm that walked on legs of lightning,
dragging its shaggy belly over the fields.

The meadowlarks are back, and the finches
are turning from green to gold. Those same
two geese have come to the pond again this year,
honking in over the trees and splashing down.
They never nest, but stay a week or two
then leave. The peonies are up, the red sprouts
burning in circles like birthday candles,

for this is the month of my birth, as you know,
the best month to be born in, thanks to you,
everything ready to burst with living.
There will be no more new flannel nightshirts
sewn on your old black Singer, no birthday card
addressed in a shaky but businesslike hand.
You asked me if I would be sad when it happened

and I am sad. But the iris I moved from your house
now hold in the dusty dry fists of their roots
green knives and forks as if waiting for dinner,
as if spring were a feast. I thank you for that.
Were it not for the way you taught me to look
at the world, to see the life at play in everything,
I would have to be lonely forever.

Tara has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at A Teaching Life.

Two Silly Books

The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors 
by Drew Daywalt
illustrated by Adam Rex
Balzer + Bray, 2017
review copy provided by the publisher

So fun to read aloud! So fun to know the back story behind the popular game!

And isn't it true that everyone wants a worthy opponent?

Rodzilla
by Rob Sanders
illustrated by Dan Santat
Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2017

review copy provided by the publisher

There are plenty of visual clues to help readers predict the true identity of Rodzilla. By the time the truth is revealed, it is not really a surprise, but still fun, all the same.

This book is sure to be a favorite of the toddler set, and anyone who once was one!

Two Serious Books

I Like, I Don't Like
by Anna Baccelliere
illustrated by Ale + Ale
Eerdmans Books, 2017
review copy from the library

The child on the left page likes shoes (getting shoes, wearing shoes, playing dress up with shoes). The child on the right page (shining the shoes of others) does not like shoes.

The child on the left page likes soccer balls (playing with them).
The child on the right page (sewing soccer balls by hand) does not like them.

This book prompts powerful conversations about child labor and the rights of children worldwide.

Still a Family

by Brenda Reeves Sturgis

illustrated by Jo-Shin Lee

Albert Whitman, 2017

review copy from the library

The reality of living in homeless shelters often means that families must be split up with fathers staying in a men's unit, and mothers and children in a separate unit. The little girl in this book holds tight to the notion that hers is still a family, even if they are separated at times.

My fifth graders wondered how homelessness could happen, and were able to understand the illustrator's choice to use a very childlike style in order to reflect the point of view of the child in the story.

Poetry Friday -- Hippos

Hippos on Holiday

by Billy Collins

is not really the title of a movie
but if it were I would be sure to see it.
I love their short legs and big heads,
the whole hippo look.
Hundreds of them would frolic
in the mud of a wide, slow-moving river,
and I would eat my popcorn
in the dark of a neighborhood theatre.
When they opened their enormous mouths
lined with big stubby teeth
I would drink my enormous Coke.

I would be both in my seat
and in the water playing with the hippos,
which is the way it is
with a truly great movie.
Only a mean-spirited reviewer
would ask on holiday from what?

Surely you've seen videos of the premature baby hippo at the Cincinnati Zoo, Fiona? No? Well, let's take care of that with my favorite one where she learns to use the ramp into her pool.

I'm sorry I didn't get around to all the the end of Poetry Month posts last week. This weekend feels like there's more elbow room than I've had in months. To that I say, "WHEW!"

Jama has the Cinco de Mayo Poetry Friday Roundup at Jama's Alphabet Soup. Olé!

3 New Nonfiction Books for the Classroom Library

I discovered 3 new nonfiction books that I am excited to share with my students.  

I love anything by Suzi Eszterhas so when I saw she had a new book I ordered it immediately.  Moto and Me: My Year as a Wildcat's Foster Mom is Suzi's newest book and this one is a bit different. It is a narrative with more text than many of her other books. The photos are amazing as always and this book tells the story of one wildcat-Moto-and how Suzi cared for him after he was separated from his mother.  It is a great book and a great addition for readers who know Eszterhas's work or for readers in the middle grades who are ready for a bit more text in their nonfiction reading.

125 Pet Rescues is new from National Geographic Kids and it is great fun.

Each page gives the short story of a pet that has been rescued. There are lots of dogs but also pigs, goats and snakes.   Each story is a paragraph long with details of one animal's rescue and new life.  The photos are happy and the Table of Contents will be a huge help to readers. There are so many possibilities with this book for minilessons in both reading and writing.

Shell, Beak, Tusk: Shared Traits and the Wonders of Adaptation by Bridget Heos shows the ways that animals around the world adapt in order to survive. The thing I love most about this book is the way that it is organized to compare the same adaptation on different animals.  The book will introduce readers to some animals they may not be familiar with.

Professional Books on My Stack

As I get ready for summer reading, my stack of professional books is growing. Right now, these are the 4 I am looking most forward to reading.

I read Ralph Fletcher's Joy Write last weekend and loved it. It reground me-brought me back to the roots of writing workshop and helped me realize what we've lost with the additions of mandates and testing and units of study.  It helped me remember what it is that is important. I read it quickly and want to reread it this summer to really think about the year in writing workshop and to think about joy in the writing workshop.

The others are on my stack but I haven't had much time to dit in yet.

Another writing book that I am anxious to read is Feedback That Moves

Writers Forward by Patty McGee. I have been doing more with feedback and love the way it looks like Patty approaches it in this book.  The chapters I am most excited to read are "Integrading": How to Live in a Grading World and Still Gibe Feedback and When It Is Time to Stretch and Grow: Feedback for Goal Setting.  Really, when I look through the Table of Contents, they all look like fresh new thinking that will help me be a better teacher of writing.

And I love everything written by Vicki Vinton and am very excited to read her newest book, Dynamic Teaching for Deeper Reading.  Vicki always reminds me how to let go and let the kids do the thinking and she helps me to find ways to help them read with deeper understanding. I am so excited to read her newest thinking!





And I purchased Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had by Tracy Zager in February but knew I needed to wait until summer to really dig in and start to think about next year. This book is packed with so

much that I want to give it the time and energy it deserves. I think it will be a critical book for me.



Which professional books are on your summer reading list?

This World

For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

What Scientists Know That We All Should Remember

This world values diversity
over singularity

adaptation
over stasis

the many
over the few

balance 

over imbalance.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

I saved this song for last because, as you can hear, it is simultaneously a goodbye song and a love song to the world. The world she sings about in this song is the natural world, but it is also the world of humanity. 

Malvina loved this world (these worlds) enough to fight for all she found to be right and true, using her musical and writing talents. Her name needs to be added to our list of women heroes who 

Persist (like Elizabeth) 

Inspire (like Malala)

Speak (like Maya)

Influence (like Sonia)

Defy (like Rosa)

Fight (like Hillary)

Empower (like Gloria)

Focus (like Michelle)

Rule (like Ruth)

Sing (like Malvina)

My poem today was doubly inspired by a month spent with Malvina and the book I'm currently listening to, The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses, and Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History by Thor Hanson. My wish for the future of the human race would be that we could come to know about ourselves the things that scientists know about life in general on this planet. Maybe if we could build our human society to be in tune with the scientific principles of life, we could keep the whole planet alive.

There's a Bottom Below

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Children's songs, songs about current events, the environment, politics, and gender inequity -- I've gotten to know Malvina Reynolds, but today's song makes me laugh. It's as though Malvina Reynolds has gotten to know ME! Add blues to her list of musical genres. My version of this song doesn't match her rhythm well enough to be sung, and I certainly could have written a more sobering and depressing version about my March, but I couldn't resist capturing a snapshot of the past couple of days.





The Fifth Grade in May Blues

Do you think you've hit bottom?
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Oh, no.
There's a bottom below.

There's a low below the low you know.
You can't imagine how far you can go...down.

Every once in awhile your lesson hits home
It clicks, it’s fun, but don’t forget...next time you’ll go...down

Do you think you've hit bottom?
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Oh, no.
There's a bottom below.

You watch the Kleenex fill up the trash can
Wash every surface with Chlorox and then (on the weekend)

you go...down

Do you think you've hit bottom?
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Oh, no.
There's a bottom below.

You’re patient and kind and your voice is kept low
You’re frustrated and angry and then you yell...you’ve gone...down

Do you think you've hit bottom?
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Oh, no.
There's a bottom below.

There's a low below the low you know.
You can't imagine how far you can go...down.

©Mary Lee Hahn (with apologies to Malvina Reynolds)

Pennies

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Along with all of the songs she wrote about the issues of her times (still current now), Malvina Reynolds also wrote songs for children. In the documentary Love it Like A Fool, she mentioned that it irked her that men were taken seriously when they were any age, but with her white hair and her songs for children, she became known as "The Singing Grandmother." Anyone who's been listening along through this month knows without a doubt that Malvina Reynolds was much much more than a "Singing Grandmother."

Pennies

The beaded coin purse
full of loose change,
mostly pennies,
bulged on the kitchen counter
beside the mug full of leaky pens and
pencils with dried out erasers.

In the top dresser drawer
beneath silky slips
that hadn’t been worn in decades
was stashed a plastic bag of pennies.
All wheatheads,
collected because perhaps they’d become valuable.

Mom’s laudable thrift,
learned at the knee of necessity
makes my lack of frugality
appear extravagant.
Her someday was always out of reach.
Mine jingles in my hand.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Sing It, Malvina!

April 1 -- Working for Change
April 2 -- A Lifetime Filled With Change
April 3 -- Red
April 4 -- Little Red Hen
April 5 -- Childhood Dreams
April 6 -- Lonely Child
April 7 -- Quiet

April 8 -- Storyteller
April 9 -- Troublemaker
April 10 -- Girl Power
April 11 -- Choices
April 12 -- My Gal, Mother Nature
April 13 -- Not a Joke
April 14 -- I Don't Mind Failing

April 15 -- What is Feminism?
April 16 -- Holes
April 17 -- They Can Have Their Cake and Eat it, Too
April 18 -- We Won't Be Nice
April 19 -- Grass is Persistent
April 20 -- Ticky Tacky
April 21 -- Regrets

April 22 -- Skagit Valley Forever

April 23 -- The World's Gone Beautiful

April 24 -- Rain

April 25 -- I Live in a City

April 26 -- The Hard Work of Real Human Beings

April 27 -- Current Events

April 28 -- Pennies

Joann has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Teaching Authors.

The Hard Work of Real Human Beings

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Through her music, Malvina addressed issues of diversity and collaboration, as well as economic and labor issues.

The Hard Work of Real Human Beings

Where do cherries come from?
They come from a tree!
And who picks them one by one?
Neither you, nor me.

Where does asparagus come from?
It grows in a field!
And who stoops down to cut each stalk?
Neither you, nor me.

Where do apples come from?
They grow on a tree!
And which strong worker fills buckets all day?
Neither you, nor me.

Where do peppers come from?
On bushes, low and green!
And who must pick each single one?
Neither you, nor me.

How much money do they make?
Do they have the things they need?
Who values their important work?
Neither you, nor me.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

4 Labor-Intensive Crops Farmers Wish They Had Robots to Harvest

I Live in a City

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Through her music, Malvina addressed issues of diversity and collaboration, as well as economic and labor issues. 

Riddle Poem

What is bigger than all its parts,
full to the brim of stops and starts,
more colorful than the boldest rainbow,
only silent when buried in snow,
less significant than it wants you to believe,
a problem to solve, a tragedy to grieve?

("...a city made by human hands")

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Rain

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Another unifying topic in Malvina Reynolds' songs is the environment. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

Ode to an Inch of Life-Giving Rain

Oh, Rain!
You fall so abundantly further east
but we treasure every hundredth of an inch
here on the western high plains.

Oh, Rain!
You have rescued the wheat crop,
not to mention the Russian Olives
in the windbreak on the north side of the house.

Oh, Rain!
You lift every spirit.
Are your ears burning? The inch that fell last night
is the topic of every conversation at the post office.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

The World's Gone Beautiful

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Another unifying topic in Malvina Reynolds' songs is the environment. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

The World is Asking Not to Die

The world is asking not to die,
yet humans look away,

overpopulating the planet,
changing the climate past the point of repair,
destroying biodiversity in a mass extinction,
killing oxygen-producing phytoplankton with nitrogen runoff,
polluting fresh water sources,
acidifying the ocean,
contaminating air, water, and soil with plastics and chemical compounds,
depleting the ozone layer,
clearing forests at an alarming rate.

How can humans look away
from a world that is asking not to die?

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Skagit Valley Forever

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Another unifying topic in Malvina Reynolds' songs is the environment. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

wild is worth saving --
find your own Skagit Valley --
fight for our future --

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017