Celebrate!

Check out more Celebration posts at www.ruthayreswrites.com

1. Franki has unveiled her new digital learning blog: Click Here Next. What an amazing resource for teachers K-5 who are anywhere on the spectrum of learning about and using digital tools in their classrooms!

2. My multi-equational "Gardener's Math Poems" poem-set was accepted for publication in Carol-Ann Hoyt's upcoming (October) anthology of poems for children about food and agriculture.

3. One of the swallowtail caterpillars that I am hosting in a big jar on the counter by the fish tank is now a chrysalis! 

4. The Choice Literacy writing retreat. What a gift to be able to relax in a beautiful setting, connect with smart and funny teacher-writers, and have the gift of TIME to be able to write without interruption.

5. This cute little baby:

Poetry Friday -- The Writer's Wish

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by see like click

The Writer's Wish

Come, words.

Pour down like rain in the night,
with or without the thunder.

Sit on my shoulder like the wren on the fence.
Sing to me; sing through me.

Rise dependably, like sun behind clouds.
Glow with promise and purpose.

Follow me down the pine-scented forest path.
Follow me, or perhaps lead me. Better yet, walk with me.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014



My theme for my poems this summer seems to be "Wishes." Two have been sent out to Summer Poem Swap recipients, another is ready, and I'll keep this one for myself, and for my fellow writers at the Choice Literacy Writing retreat.

Buffy has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Buffy's Blog.

The Poetry Friday roundup schedule for July-December 2014 is complete! THANKS! I'll get the dates and links on the Yahoo calendar and the Kidlitosphere Central Website by the end of the week.

Catching up On Professional Journals

March 2014 Teaching Children Mathematics (NCTM)
"Digital Date Equations"

Although this is not a particularly new activity -- use the digits of the date to create an equation -- I have a couple of big take-aways:

• I rant that teachers of reading and writing need to be readers and writers themselves. If I follow the same logic, then I need to create equations, too.
• By making some equations of my own, I know how hard it is to keep the digits in order.
• If we begin the school year making these equations, we will be able to have conversations about order of operations, estimating, mental math, inequalities (and more) all year long instead of during a particular unit of study. Like read aloud, Poetry Friday, and 15 Minutes on Friday blog writing, this seems to be a small but mighty practice.

My equations for 6/24/2014:

(6 ÷ 2) x 4 = (2 + 0 + 1) x 4
(6 + 2 + 4 + 2 +0) = 14
(6 ÷ 24) + (2 x 0) = 1 ÷ 4
6² ÷ 4 = (2 x 4) + 1 + 0
62 x 4 > 20 x 14

 March 2014 Language Arts (NCTE)
"Addressing CCSS Anchor Standard 10: Text Complexity"

This article includes a really nice chart that summarizes all the ways a text can be complex:

Level of Meaning and Purpose
     Density and Complexity
     Figurative Language
     Purpose

Structure

     Genre

     Organization

     Narration

     Text Features and Graphics

Language Conventionality and Clarity

     Standard English and Variations

     Register (Archaic, formal, domain-specific, scholarly)

Knowledge Demands

     Background Knowledge (experiences)

     Prior Knowledge (specialized or technical content knowledge)

     Cultural Knowledge

     Vocabulary Knowledge

ReadWriteThink Text Complexity strategy for primary readers (following this link will take you down a really nice rabbit hole of ReadWriteThink resources for all levels)

Breathe: Early Summer Edition

All around me, esteemed colleagues are reading and reflecting on professional books, tearing through #bookaday books that make them bubble with excitement, and taking coursework to advance themselves professionally.

I'm growing corn.

And carrots.

And swallowtail butterflies.

I haven't written any articles or many blog posts, but I have had a poem accepted for a new crowd-sourced anthology and I am pretty pleased with a new series of poems (code name "Wishes") I am working on for the Summer Poem Swap (and who knows what other venue).

I am healing,

celebrating good news about our test scores, and volunteering most days for our Summer Lunch program.

It's not like I've been sitting on the couch frittering my time away these past three weeks. I have to remind myself of that, remember not to beat myself up because my "did it" list isn't filled with the same things my esteemed colleagues' lists are, and continually celebrate every moment of my happy, busy, productive (on my terms) SUMMER!

New Baskets for Our 3rd Grade Classroom Library

We should be curators of our libraries, not just collectors.

  Offering students an engaging, diverse classroom library requires more than buying books and putting them on bookshelves….Managing a classroom library requires curation-selecting the best most current materials for both curriculum needs and student interests.

  Donalyn Miller , Reading in the Wild  p. 80

I love this quote from Donalyn Miller's new book Reading in the Wild. It reminds me how important it is to be thoughtful about the books we put in our classroom libraries. When I first started teaching, I just collected books. My goal was to fill the shelves. I still love to collect books but I am a bit pickier about what goes in the classroom library and each year I reflect and revise.

It's that time of year when I begin to think about baskets of books that were not really used by students and new baskets that are needed.  Most of the fiction section of the classroom library are organized by series and author.  I find that this organization supports readers.

I am thinking about new baskets I'll add to our library this year.  Some of these are new series or series I didn't know about last fall.

We LOVED The Quirks (and author Erin Soderberg) in our classroom this year. Even though there are only 2 books out in this series, the third is due out in December and with 3 books in a series we love, we must have a basket!  This is a great series for 3rd and 4th graders and I am excited that it is becoming a series. I definitely want to highlight this one next year.

The third book in the series by Julie Sternberg was just released this spring. I Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie as a stand alone book. But I was thrilled when the author continued the story with Like Bug Juice on a Burger and Like Carrot Juice on a Cupcake. I love the characters in the story and the problems are perfect for 3rd graders. I am thinking lots of kids will read this once they see it is a series.

The Magic Bone series -Be Careful What You Sniff For #1 (Magic Bone) was a huge hit in my classroom this year. One of my George Brown, Class Clown (Super Burp! #1 (George Brown, Class Clown) fans discovered it (same author) and shared it. The series definitely made its rounds in the classroom and was a definite favorite. This is also a fairly new series as the 5th one was released last week.

Two series I have not yet read but am confident they will have baskets in the fall are The Sasquatch Escape (The Imaginary Veterinary) series and Andy Griffith's series The 13-Story Treehouse. They are on my stack to read soon but I have heard from so many people that they are both perfect for 3rd graders, I imagine I'll be adding these as baskets too.

Passionate Learners: A New Professional Book by Pernille Ripp

 I am not sure how I discovered Pernille Ripp (@pernilleripp), but I am so glad I did! Her blog, Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension, has had a huge impact on my thinking and learning. Pernille is one of the most student-centred teachers I know and she shares generously with the global community. Pernille was the person who invented The Global Read Aloud, something that continues to grow each year.  I was lucky enough to talk to Pernille a few months ago for a Choice Literacy podcast and again, learned so much from her. I am a huge Pernille fan, so I was thrilled to see that she had written a book and pre-ordered it the minute that I could!

Passionate Learners: Giving Our Classrooms Back to Our Students is now available and once I started reading it, I had trouble putting it down.  The book is available as an ebook and I am so glad about that.  The highlighting tool came in handy and I can now go back and revisit the many powerful lines and ideas I marked.


I am so glad I waited until the school year was over to read this book.  I loved reading it as I thought ahead to the fall and what I wanted for our classroom next year.  It is the perfect summer read for thinking and reflecting.

I loved so much about this book. First of all, Pernille is such a humble educator. She doesn't claim to know all of the answers but she shares her story honestly and passionately. She talks about her journey to become the teacher she is today and shares the challenges. I don't know any teachers who feel that their classroom is a perfect match to the vision they have and Pernille lets us know that that's okay. But she lets us know that we have the control to make our classrooms what we want if we trust ourselves as teachers who know what is right for kids. One quote I loved early in the book was this, "We can change education from within. We can change the way our students feel about coming to school, but we have to take the first step."  She also reminds us that we don't have to change everything all at once. She wisely shares,  "And what I discovered was this: even the smallest changes can make monumental differences."

I loved every invitation Pernille gave me to reflect on my practice because she invited me by telling stories of her own change. She lets us know about challenges along the way and how she handled them.  She shares research she listens to and research she doesn't. She is so passionate about the environment she creates for her kids and she continues to change to meet her vision.

The book is a great combination of reflective thinking and helpful ideas. Pernille shares her thoughts and goals and then continues by sharing steps you can take to make each change that you want to make.  She talks about the year as a whole and also spends a bit of time talking about those first days of school and how important they are if we want to create a classroom of passionate learners.

One thing I was struck by was that the book is perfect for both new teachers and veteran teachers. Pernille talks directly to new teachers often in the book, encouraging them to trust themselves, trust their students, and connect with colleagues. As a veteran teacher, the book also spoke to me. Pernille understands the reason most of us went into teaching and she empowers us all to do what we know is best--even if it isn't the norm.

Pernille is an advocate for students and she is also an advocate for teachers-as-decision-makers. I am glad to have read this book early in the summer, to sit with her ideas and think about how important they are.  I know I will revisit the book, my highlights and my notes often as I create a vision for the upcoming school year.  

Thank you, Pernille for writing such an honest and powerful book!

(You can read more about Pernille and her book in an interview that she did at Powerful Learning Practice.)

Picture Book Surprises, part 3: Poetry Friday

Dear Wandering Wildebeest: And Other Poems from the Water Hole
by Irene Latham
illustrated by Anna Wadham
Millbrook Press, August 1. 2014
review copy provided by the publisher

What a surprise to visit an African Water Hole with Irene Latham!

The fifteen poems in this picture book introduce us to the importance of the water hole to the African grassland ecosystem. Each poem is accompanied by a short bit of nonfiction text that tells more about the water hole or the animal featured in the poem.

Working alone or in small groups, I can imagine students using this book (and others like it that combine poetry and nonfiction) as a mentor text for their own writing about an ecosystem, their neighborhood, or the cultures they are studying in social studies.

The other two rhyming/poetry books in this week's Picture Book Surprises series:

Picture Book Surprise #1 -- THE GREAT BIG GREEN by Peggy Gifford

Picture Book Surprise #2 -- JOY IN MUDVILLE by Bob Raczka


Jone has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Check it Out.

Poetry Friday Roundup host/hostesses are still needed in July, August, November and December. Sign up here.

Picture Book Surprises, part 2

Joy in Mudville
by Bob Raczka
illustrated by Glin Dibley
Carolrhoda Books, 2014
review copy provided by the publisher

What a surprise to pick up the story of Casey at the Bat...the day AFTER Casey strikes out.

In the next game, Casey's got his game back on, knocking one over the fence. However, the starting pitcher has walked three straight batters and it's time to bring in a relief pitcher. Luckily, it's Joy Armstrong who's brought in on a hunch.

Because she was a girl, the fans
    assumed she'd come up short.
She'd show them soon enough that girls
    excel in many sports.

And excel she does! She hikes one pitch like a football, lobs another like a tennis serve, and delivers a third like a basketball jump shot. The batter bunts the third pitch and as the runner on third races to the home plate intent on scoring, Joy doesn't bother to scoop up the ball and throw it to the catcher, she kicks it in soccer style...for the out!

Joy's originality is a surprise, she definitely proves that she was a good choice for relief pitcher, and her name is a perfect fit for the ending of the poem:

And yes--you guessed it--
    there was joy in Mudville once again.

Ernest Lawrence Thayer's poem, Casey at the Bat is included at the end of the book, in case there are readers who need a refresher on Mudville's baseball record and famous players. Glin Dibley's illustrations use a variety of perspectives and points of view to bring the story to life.

This will be a fun read aloud, and a great mentor text for students who want to write a prequel or sequel to a well-known story or poem.

Picture Book Surprises, part 1

The Great Big Green
by Peggy Gifford
illustrated by Lisa Disimini
Boyds Mills Press, 2014
review copy provided by the publisher

Readers who know and love Peggy Gifford's Moxy Maxwell series of chapter books will be surprised to read this rhyming riddle book. In years to come, readers who know The Great Big Green will be delighted to discover Moxy Maxwell!

The Great Big Green describes every possible shade of green and many green things, both living and non-living. You might guess what The Great Big Green is...if I tell you that where it's not green, it's blue!

The detailed multi-media collage illustrations are worthy of child-in-lap explorations to find and name as many green things as possible.

Blogging in the Classroom: Thinking Ahead to Fall

I've been thinking about how best to kick off Writing Workshop in the fall. With all of the new digital tools and all of the possibilities, I want to make sure I am strategic about launching in a way that embeds the tools, but that is also grounded in all that I know about a good Writing Workshop.  For the past few years, I've had students blog (both with a class blog and on individual kidblogs). I have always felt like I've kicked those off in a good way--with lots of mentor blogs, lots of time for learning about commenting, etc.)  But I want a bit more than that this year.  This year, I want to do the study of blogs and blogging but I want to embed it in Living Your Life as a Writer and I want to make sure that I start conversations early, that we can carry throughout the year.  To help me think through mini lesson work and to give kids a visual as they begin to blog, I created this graphic.

I want students to know right away that blogging, (and any writing) requires the writer to make a lot of decisions. And with every piece a writer writes, the questions are a constant part of the process. I know this visual does not include everything but I am hoping it gives us some great ways into the conversation about being a writer who blogs.

(You can access the visual here if you think it will be helpful for you and your students.)