April Poetry Challenge #5 - ame

Word Brainstorming:  tame, flame, game, blame, dame, lame, name, same, exclaim, aim, shame

Poem Brainstorming:

A burning flame
Was to blame.

The teacher did exclaim
"Where is your name?"

These papers look the same
None of them have a name
The teacher did exclaim!

He hung his head in shame
Because he was to blame.

The kids look the same
Playing the twin game.

Happy Easter!

I added the bold missing name poem to the comments on Mary's blog Poems of Silliness.

April Poem Challenge #4 - ake

Brainstorming words:  bake, cake, ache, fake, lake, make, rake, steak/stake, take, wake, awake, break/brake, shake, stomachache, Blake, Drake,

Playing with words: 
Give him a shake
So he will wake.

The terrible cake
Made her belly ache.

I like to bake
But I burn steak!

The vase may be fake
But it still might break.

Drake fell in the lake!
Saved with a long rake.

She bothered the snake
His long tail did shake
Her knees began to quake!

Earthquake
House shake!

I added the last one to the comments on Mary's blog Poems of Silliness.

April Poem Challenge #3 - ain

Word brainstorm:  brain, crane, drain, Great Dane, gain, cane, lane, main/mane, pain/pane, rain/reign, sane, stain, train, vane/vain, Wayne, explain

Playing with the words:
Can you explain
this big Great Dane?

commons.wikimedia.org

I have a pain
From the Great Dane
(He sat on my brain!)

The Christmas queen will reign
over Candy Cane Lane.

This makes me think of My Fair Lady:
The rain in Spain
Falls mainly on the plain.

More playing with the words:
Did you know the train
Travels through the rain?

Let Wayne
Explain.

There's a storm in my brain
Words are falling like rain.

Mary said that I could add to the comments on her blog Poems of Silliness.  Thank you!  Now I will just have to choose one.

April Poem Challenge #2 - ail

Today's challenge began the same - brainstorming words:    ail/ale, bail/bale, fail, gale, tail/tale, hail/hale, jail, kale, mail/male, nail, pail/pale, rail, sale/sail, whale/wail, entail

Then, I realized that many of today's words are homophones.  (Homophone practice here.)

My first poem:  (again not a rhyming couplet)

Listen to my tale

about why I have no bail

to get out of jail.

My second poem:

Did you see the whale

At the seashore sale?

My third poem: (trying to make the couplet the same length led to adding "juicier" words)

The adventurous ant set sail

Across the ocean water pail.

P.S.  I am reading Edgar Allan's Official Crime Investigation Notebook by Mary Amato.  I love how the main character records his thoughts in his notebook.  It also has poetry embedded throughout - great coincidence for poetry month!

April Poem Challenge #1 - ack

Mary Bauer from the blog, The Artistry of Education and Poems of Silliness, challenges her class and other classes to write a rhyming couplet every day in April.  She talks about it on her blog here.  She even provides a word family calendar grid to use for inspiration each day.  Since we are on spring break it is not possible to challenge my class, but I also know that teachers should write every day. I am considering it my challenge.  :)

First, I opened the sticky notes on the computer and brainstormed ack words.  Then I played with the words to make a rhyming couplet.  I also looked up the definition of a rhyming couplet.

Here are some words:  quack, stack, rack, jack, whack, back, tack, hack, lack, knack, pack, sack

My first poem:  (not a really a rhyming couplet & ing added to the ends - poetic license?)

The grocery store clerk prefers

Can stacking

To 

Food packing.

My second poem: 

The pantry food lack

Caused a sad lunch pack.

I added my poem to the comment section of Mary's Poems of Silliness blog and asked if that was okay.

Books I Want To Read - Reading Roundup

Mary Pitner at Pitner's Potpourri is hosting a book linky party.  She asks that each person share three books on his/her "to be read" stack.  I certainly have one (or two or three) of those!  So I thought I should add a new post to this long-ignored blog and link-up.

a professional book that I want to read...

Day by Day:  Refining Writing Workshop Through 180 Days of Reflective Practice by Ruth Ayres and Stacey Shubitz  
I follow/read/blog stalk the Two Writing Teachers blog. Ruth and Stacey have lots of great tips about writing workshop.  I really need to work on improving my conferring skills, so I guess I need to start on chapter 5!

a pleasure book that I want to read...

Undead and Unpopular by MaryJanice Davidson

Betsy the vampire queen is just for fun.  I am working my way through this series and this is number 5.

a book I want to use to teach a skill in my classroom...

Fly Guy Presents Sharks by Tedd Arnold

We are beginning a unit on nonfiction text features/expository writing.  Since my kiddos really like these books in the Fly Guy series, I think it will be fun to see how Buzz shares facts this nonfiction shark book.  Maybe it will turn into a mentor text.  It is in the January Scholastic book order.

I have been having fun reading everyone's book suggestions.  My TBR pile is always growing!  Thanks!

Movie Hunt/Slice of Life

Did you see the movie Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief? Since I have now read the 5 books in this series and the movie recently became available on DVD, I decided that it was time to see the movie. I was looking forward to seeing the movie with the hopes that it would hold me spell-bound like the Harry Potter movies based on the books by J.K. Rowling. I unclipped my Family Video gift card from Teacher Appreciation Week and headed for the video store. I entered and immediately saw the posters showing the June releases. Right there on June 29th was a picture of Percy. So in I went, walking the movies backwards. Around the corner to the left about halfway down the wall I saw row after row of Percy Jackson DVD cases. "Here they are. I have found them." I thought. But upon closer inspection, I realized that none of the actual DVDs in the clear cases were left behind all the tantalizing covers. Well, that was disappointing. Now what would I get. I began my normal stroll through the nearly new releases where I usually find my movie of the night. Nothing was beckoning, probably because I really wanted to see PJ. I saw scary movies, romantic movies, funny movies, silly movies, kid movies and Christmas movies. There wasn't anything that appealed to me. I decided to wander around the new movies and see if anything caught my interest. As I began to walk toward the back wall, I noticed an employee carrying several of those clear cases. He was returning movies to the shelves. I began looking at the choices. But my attention was drawn back to the employee who was headed toward the wall with the PJ movies. Could it be? Yes! I think he was returning a PJ movie. I headed that way. There were two clear cases hidden behind a PJ case. I picked them up as a man and his daughter came that way. Happily, there was one for me and one for them. Sometimes patience pays off.

Abecedarian Poem

Tricia from The Miss Rumphius Effect challenged everyone to write an Abecedarian poem this week. I have seen them before, but had never tried one. Here is my attempt.

ABC Summer

After the end and
Before the beginning,
Classes have been
Dismissed.
Everyone has
Fallen under the spell of summer.
Giving way to
Happiness and relief.
Ignoring the educational call
Just waiting
Keeping the memories
Loving the freedom of
Managing time differently.
Never forgetting
Only
Preparing for the next.
Quietly
Regenerating
Students and
Teachers slumber
Until the arri-
Val of autumn
Wakes them e
Xcited to begin a new
Year of
Zany learning adventures.

June 29, 2010

Gift Card Slice of Life

My dad and I went to eat at Longhorn Steakhouse tonight. We used one of my gift cards from Teacher Appreciation week. The food was delicious and we had a bit of an adventure as well. We had eaten our salads and our steaks had arrived. After about 3 bites, the lights all dimmed! Everybody looked around wondering what was happening. There was no storm. It was a perfectly sunny day so it was not really very dark in the restaurant. We all went back to eating. Soon a manager came around and said that a circuit breaker had a problem and they hoped to fix it soon. Since it wasn't really a problem, we weren't concerned. Now parts of the restaurant had lights, other parts had lights that would dim, get brighter and then dim again. The computer station near our table would beep occasionally. When we finished eating, the waitperson came with our bill, so a computer was working somewhere in the building. We paid, finished our drinks and walked out into the bright sunshine. It seemed an odd time for a power surge, but it added a little excitement to our outing. It was a yummy dinner!

The Cookies are Calling...

I have a Hallmark card that says, “The cookies are calling...” “Give in!”

Today, after school, I zipped open the first box of Girl Scout cookies. I ended up with two boxes this year. I usually buy one box from each child that asks and the number varies greatly. I pulled out the long, silver sleeve anticipating the chocolatey, mint flavor. I tugged open one end and slid out a lone cookie. I nibbled the edge, crunched the middle and caught the crumbs with my tongue. Three more would be today’s limit, I decided. I removed them, twisted the sleeve closed and pushed the rest back into the box for another day. Happily munching helped to satisfy that ever present after school hunger as I prepared for Monday morning. Yum!

Signs of Spring

Last summer I did an entry about Signs of Summer. It was inspired by Ali Edwards, but I can't find the exact post. Anyway, it certainly feels like spring here. Thank goodness! My school playground has no protection from the wind and it feels like we have been inside forever.



Spring Bulletin Boards








Disappearing Snow
& Mud Everywhere (My students have actually done a pretty good job of avoiding the mud. Yeah!)







Standardized Testing (Our 3rd, 4th and 5th graders are working hard. Our Stanford 10 tests will be in April.)








Light Outside at 5:30 p.m. (That's my watch and the view from the hallway outside my classroom. I'm sure the camera couldn't decide what to focus on!)







Sprouting Hyacinths (These are inside, but the ones outside are sprouting too.)




Happy Spring!

Detective Work at the Gym

I was winding up my stress relief at the gym by diligently pumping up and down on the elliptical when I looked at the book prop. This is what I saw - 2 books. My teacher’s edition of our current math topic. We have a new series which we are implementing with fidelity. So, I really need to look it over each day before teaching. I also had my latest library stash which is Sue Grafton’s newest book, U is for Undertow.

I began to wonder just how much these clues revealed to my fellow pedalers. Obviously, I am a teacher and it even discloses my grade level if you look closely. Good detectives will also deduce that I am a mystery reader. One might also infer that I must distract myself from the exercise by doing something else. Other clues that lead to this deduction would include the gum and the iPod! Perhaps, I should think about what I inadvertently reveal without even trying.

Feathery Alarm Clock

Scritch! Scratch! Thump! Thump! Thump! It sounded like someone was walking on the roof. I slowly opened my eyes and squinted at the clock. 6:30 a.m. I put on my glasses and looked up at the skylight above my bed. A black shadow appeared. Too small for a misguided roofer. Click. Click. Click. The black shadow began pecking on the skylight. A neighborhood crow had decided that it was time for me to get up. I turned over and pulled the covers over my head. I wonder how you “hit the snooze button” on a crow.

Out the Door

I threw on my favorite pair of work out pants and a bright pink long-sleeved t-shirt. Pulling my hair into a ponytail, I headed out the door. I poked the garage door button, opened the car door and slid in. The engine roared to life with a turn of the key, unlike last year on March 1, when the battery was dead! I backed out of the drive and headed toward the gym. The hardest part was accomplished - getting motivated to get out of the house and just go!

Happy Casimir Pulaski Day!

Slice of Life Story Challenge 2010

I'm thinking about flexing my fingers and exercising my brain. It is time for Two Writing Teachers' month-long Slice of Life Story Challenge. I don't know that I quite feel up to writing every day, but good writing teachers must practice their craft. Right?

Day 28

Snowflakes

Snowflakes

Silently falling
Noiseless creation
Of a
Winter Wonderland.
Flakes of ice crystals
Laying in drifts
Across the frozen ground.
Kisses of cold
Eager to greet you
Sparkling in the sunlight.

Day 25 - Christmas Day

Day 24 - Christmas Eve

I baked these cute, scrumptious chocolate cupcakes for dessert.

Day 23

Our winter break challenge is to write every day in our winter writing mini-notebooks. So far, I have done pretty well. Of course, I have the incentive of posting to the Internet every day. Lots of second grade eyes will know almost immediately if I have not done my writing homework! Hopefully, there will be lots of notebooks returned on January 5th and we will be able to celebrate our writing in some fun way.