Slice of Life 19: Making a Poem Out of Legos

March 30, 2019April 13, 2019 Catherine Flynn8 Comments

Another March is coming to a close. After five years of successfully blogging every day, this is the second year that I haven’t been able to keep up with the pace of slicing. As my friend Heidi so wisely stated: “It might be okay to miss a day, because, you know, LIFE.”

And meetings. Have there always been so many meetings? It seems like they’ve multiplied exponentially lately. At a recent meeting in our Library/Media Center, I happened to be sitting at the end of the row, near a table where a bin of Legos awaited the next day’s students. They intrigued me because they were many more colors than I remember from my children’s Legos. There were brown bricks, orange bricks, gray bricks! I confess, my mind started to wander. The next thing I knew, this draft of a poem was in my notebook.

Brown earth thaws, softens
Green shoots peek out of the soil
Gray clouds skitter across the sky, unveiling an
Orange sunset blanketing the sky, cradling a
Yellow crescent moon.

Naomi Shihab Nye is absolutely correct: “Poems hide…What we have to do is live in a way that lets us find them.”

What I didn’t know as I jotted down my ideas was that I was inadvertently warming up for Mary Lee Hahn‘s National Poetry Month project, “Playing With Poetry!” And though I doubt I’ll get a poem up every day, I’m looking forward to joining in the fun!

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

Slice of Life 19 & Poetry Friday: Pancakes!

March 29, 2019April 13, 2019 Catherine Flynn18 Comments

Congratulations, Heidi Mordhorst! You are the lucky winner of a copy of In the Middle of the Night: Poems From a Wide-Awake House! I know you and your second-graders will LOVE Laura’s new book.

There is a lot going on at my house these days. Our renovation project is winding down and we’re hosting an engagement party for my son and his fiancee next weekend. I know we all have busy lives, and kudos to all of you who juggle everything so well, but my attention has NOT been on my writing. I have managed to jot down a few ideas and make some notes, but not much more than that. I am looking forward to writing more in April, but have no particular project in mind for National Poetry Month.

Last week, it was my turn to post a prompt for Laura’s Food Poetry Project. Deciding what to favorite food to post was more difficult that I thought it would be. In the end, I went with the my idea of the delicious breakfast food ever, the pancake.

Writing about pancakes turned out to be just as difficult as choosing them. Sometimes when I’m stuck, I write acrostics to get ideas flowing. This week, after a bit of tinkering, I decided to stick with the form.

Pancake

Piping hot,

Awash in butter

Nine in a syrup-

Covered stack

Abounding with blueberries

Keeps hunger away and

Energizes me for the day!

Be sure to visit Carol at Carol’s Corner for the Poetry Friday Roundup! Also, thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

Poetry Friday & A Slice of Life 19: Soup

March 22, 2019 Catherine Flynn11 Comments

I’m a recipe follower. Before I got married, I told my mother I wasn’t moving out unless I got a Betty Crocker cookbook so I’d have the recipe for apple pie. After many years of trying new recipes, though, I learned to be a little more flexible about improvising when I cook. In fact, when it comes to chicken soup, I just start tossing ingredients into the pot. So when my poetry pal and critique group partner, Linda Mitchell, suggested writing about soup, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about. This poem, which is basically how I make chicken soup these days, is still a very rough draft.

Soup

In a pot as blue as the sky,
a poem simmers.
Corn kernels
become a hundred tiny suns.
Carrots and potatoes
are the warm, rich earth
while parsley and rosemary
are fresh and green and fragrant.
Chunks of chicken add
more earth and sunshine.
Water,
bubbling up as if from a spring,
mixes and melds
with salt,
with pepper,
with love
sating my soul.

Please be sure to visit Rebecca Herzog at Sloth Reads for the Poetry Friday Roundup. Thank you also to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

Slice of Life 19: A Writing Friendship

March 21, 2019March 22, 2019 Catherine Flynn6 Comments

In a separate post, today I’m hosting a stop on the blog tour of In the Middle of the Night: Poems From a Wide-Awake House, by Laura Purdie Salas. (Leave a comment on that post, and you’ll be entered in a drawing for your very own copy!)

There is a direct link between being part of Laura’s blog tour and participating in the March Slice of Life Challenge. I “met” Laura when I responded to a tweet she sent out looking for teachers to write activity guides to a series of poetry books she was self-publishing. Designing activities to support favorite books is something I love to do. But I wasn’t confident I had the writing experience that Laura was looking for. As I worked to summon up the courage to write to Laura, I reread past blog posts and people’s comments, many from fellow Slicers. Indirectly, this community gave the push I needed to send the email. And, miracle of miracles, Laura put her trust in me! A few months later, Wacky, Wild, and Wonderful: 50 State Poems, part of Laura’s “30 Painless Classroom Poems” series, debuted with an activity guide written by yours truly.

Thanks to a supportive administration, I was able to attend NCTE later that year and meet Laura in person. Since then, we’ve seen each other at other conferences and connected online through Twitter and our blogs. This is exactly the kind of supportive friendship that I’ve been fortunate enough to develop with many other teachers and writers, all thanks to everyone, past and present, at Two Writing Teachers!

In the Middle of the Night: Poems From a Wide-Awake House by Laura Purdie Salas & a Giveaway!

March 20, 2019March 20, 2019 Catherine Flynn14 Comments

Welcome to the next stop on In the Middle of the Night’s blog tour! What a whirlwind! If you missed any of the previous stops, click below for interviews with Laura about how she came up the the idea for these “Poems From a Wide-Awake House,” her writing process, and more. There are also suggestions from teachers on different ways to use In the Middle of the Night in classrooms to support and inspire student writing.

When I first read Laura’s book, I immediately noticed her word choice. Laura has chosen exactly the right words to bring so many everyday household objects to life. A “Mixed-Up Mixing Bowl wobble[s] and sway[s]” in a “bowl ballet.” After a day of pounding the floor, an aching basketball’s “head is sore” and he’s sleeping “in ice.” And who can’t relate to “Lidless Marker’s Lament?” With an aching head and a throat that “feels dry,” this marker is “useless since/you lost my lid.” Angela Matteson’s exuberant illustrations capture the wide range of emotions felt by all the wide-awake objects frollicking through this book.

I shared these poems and more with a fourth grade class at my school as a spark for their writing. They loved the poems and were eager to write their own “wide-awake” poems. Here are just a few.

“Sneaky Button”
by H.

I’m a sneaky button
creeping through the night
clinging to some clothing
to see which one looks right.
Then I see a woodland shirt
that seems to shine with light.

Now the sun is shining
And I am all attached
waiting for my owner
to grab me with with a snatch.
Then we will go fishing
to get a big fat catch.

“Utensils Vs. Pot”
by E.

The pot grabbed the spoon
From its napkin cocoon
The fork went to help,
But he began to yelp.

The clock struck four
When Mr. Spoon opened the drawer
He whacked the pot of soup
And it began to droop.

The pot dropped the spoon
and he began to swoon.
Dang! It’s 6AM so soon!

“Pineapple Escape”
by J.

Pineapple feared the big knife
would bring an end to his life.
So he tried to delay
by rolling away.
Now the pineapple
hides out in the stairway.

Your students can write their own wide-awake poems! Laura has created a Padlet where they can share their work and read poems by other students. There are also fun activity sheets available here.

Thank you, Laura and Angela, for this clever, inspiring book! And thank you to Boyds Mills Press for generously donating a copy of In the Middle of the Night: Poems from a Wide-Awake House to one lucky winner. Be sure to leave a comment by Tuesday, March 26th, to be entered in the drawing.

Blog tour links:

Monday, 3/11 Mile High Reading
Tuesday, 3/12 Reflections on the Teche
Wednesday, 3/13 A Year of Reading
Thursday, 3/14 Check It Out
Friday, 3/15 Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme
Sunday, 3/17 Great Kid Books
Monday, 3/18 Simply 7 Interview/Jena Benton blog
Tuesday, 3/19 My Juicy Little Universe
Wednesday, 3/20 Live Your Poem
Thursday, 3/21 Reading to the Core
Friday, 3/22 KidLit Frenzy Beyond Literacy Link

Slice of Life: Fake It Till You Make It

March 16, 2019 Catherine Flynn7 Comments

Fake it till you make it. We’ve all heard it. We all know people who do it. We’ve all done it ourselves. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t. I thought about this yesterday as I stood by the window in my classroom while my lunch was heating up. I looked out onto a playground filled with first and second graders reveling in the spring-like weather. Then I noticed three boys by the basketball hoop. Dribbling, passing the ball, taking shots. I thought about how much fun they were having, even though they didn’t come close to making a basket. They were practicing the moves they’d seen other, more seasoned players make.

As I watched, I thought about what else in life we approximate until we “make it.” Adulting, parenting, you name it, we fake it. Eventually we gain a certain level of competence and confidence. We don’t feel like we’re flying by the seat of our pants ALL the time! But what about our students? How much approximating do they do every day? It exhausts me to think about it.Which makes me wonder about our expectations. Perfect, polished writing is a challenge for us all. Why would we expect first graders to write flawlessly? We shouldn’t. What we should do is help them approximate being a writer, to copy the moves their favorite authors make. Sometimes their imperfections show us the most about their learning, about them as learners. So let’s make our classrooms places for taking risks that help us grow. That’s how we make it.

Thank you to everyone at Two Writing Teachers for this space where we can all take risks.

Poetry Friday: “Landscape” by Eve Merriam

March 15, 2019 Catherine Flynn12 Comments

My friend Heidi Mordhorst is hosting the Poetry Friday Roundup today. Heidi is a passionate, brilliant, funny, caring person. She brings these qualities and more to everything she does. Poetry Friday Roundups don’t usually have a theme other than poetry, but from time to time, the host will suggest an optional, unifying theme. Several weeks ago, Heidi announced that she wanted to highlight and support the worldwide School Strike for Climate that took place today. I wanted to write a poem worthy of this important event. As I looked through my notebooks for an idea, I discovered I already had. (Read more about this poem here.)

In her post today, Heidi is sharing Alice Schertle’s “Secretary Bird,” from Mary Ann Hoberman’s gorgeous anthology, The Tree That Time Built: A Celebration of Nature, Science, and Imagination. This is a book I return to often. Here is another poem from the collection that feels appropriate for today.

“Landscape”
by Eve Merriam

What will you find at the edge of the world?
A footprint,
a feather,
desert sand swirled?
A tree of ice,
a rain of stars,
or a junkyard of cars?

What will there be at the rim of the earth?
A mollusk,
a mammal,
a new creature’s birth?
Eternal sunrise,
immortal sleep,
or cars piled up in a rusty heap?

Slice of Life 19: Lesson Learned

March 14, 2019 Catherine Flynn9 Comments

I don’t know if it’s because of the time change or because we had parent conferences at the beginning of the week, which altered our schedule or a combination of these and other events, but I feel like I haven’t gotten much accomplished this week. (Check my recent blog posts for confirmation. Oh wait, I haven’t written since Sunday. I rest my case.)

Last night I was planning a lesson on elaboration for a fifth grade class. I had my teaching point, the basic sequence of the lesson, and the mentor text I wanted to use. But I hadn’t written my model. I knew what I was going to write about, but it was after 10:30 and I was just too tired. Knowing I had time to write it in the morning, I headed for bed.

But I couldn’t get the lesson out of my head. Sentences from my unwritten model were swirling around in my head. At 2:00 I told myself to just follow my breath back to sleep. At 2:30 I got up for some water. At 3:00 I gave up and got up to write the model. Then I wrote a possible sequence for future lessons. Then I figured that I was on a roll and might as well write a Slice of Life.

So what’s the lesson? Next time, instead of losing at least four hours of sleep, I’ll make myself a cup of tea and power through another half-hour or so of work. I’ll have a much better chance of getting a good night’s sleep!

Slice of Life 19: 13 Ways to Eat a Chocolate Chip Cookie

March 10, 2019March 10, 2019 Catherine Flynn15 Comments

13 Ways to Eat a Chocolate Chip Cookie

When my poetry pal and fellow Slicer Molly Hogan posted a poetry prompt to write about “Cookies!!! Christmas cookies, sugar cookies or any sort of cookie,” I had to think for a bit. Like many of you, my family has many cookie traditions to choose from. In the end, I decided to stick with the cookie that’s been part of my memories forever, chocolate chip.

Once I settled on the kind of cookie, I had to come up with a form. I like to play with poems I’m working on in my head as I drive to work. This isn’t always a good idea because I have to actually pay attention to the other cars on the road! But, as sometimes happens, inspiration struck. Wallace Stevens “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” popped into my head. There must be at least 13 ways to look at a chocolate chip cookie. Or, even better, of eating a chocolate chip cookie. So here you have it, my “13 Ways to Eat a Chocolate Chip Cookie.”

Raw*

Sugar dissolves on your tongue
Sweetness fills your mouth
The chocolate chips still crunch.

Warm

Eleven minutes of heat transform
Lumps of dough into a golden brown,
Gooey confection.

With a glass of cold milk

Break the cookie in half
Dunk one end into the milk,
The longer it’s submerged, the softer will be.

At Nana’s House

There is always a tray of my favorite treat
Waiting on the table by the kitchen door.
Nana serves me two cookies on a red and white plate.

In small pieces

Break the cookie into small bits around the chip.
Nibble slowly. The sweetness of the softened
Morsel explodes like a ripe blueberry.

With Breakfast

Instead of pancakes
Both have eggs and flour
Sometimes people add chocolate chips to pancakes.

Crispy

Let them cool completely
They will crunch when you bite down
And leave crumbs at the corner of your mouth.

After school

When I get home, I’m so hungry
Lunch was hours ago
Cookies ease my hunger pangs.

In two bites

This way your entire mouth
Can savor the flavor
But they’re gone faster.

Chewy

If you put a slice of bread
In the tin
Your cookies will become soft and chewy.

After sledding

While my cheeks are still cold
Cookies and hot cocoa
Warm me up in no time.

Before bed

A single cookie
Helps me forget my cares
And sweetens my dreams.

Anytime

Because chocolate chip cookies
make everything better and
Are the most delicious cookie ever!

* I know all about salmonella concerns, but some habits die hard

Poetry Friday: Celebrating International Women’s Day

March 7, 2019March 7, 2019 Catherine Flynn43 Comments

“It is always better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”
~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~

Hello, and welcome to the Poetry Friday Roundup! (Visit Renée LaTulippe at No Water River to learn more about Poetry Friday.)

Two months ago, when I was efficiently filling out my calendar with important dates, I realized I was hosting Poetry Friday on International Women’s Day I never pass up the opportunity for a theme, so I suggested that we share poems celebrating women.

I found this to be a bit more challenging that I anticipated. Right after I posted my idea, astronomer Nancy Grace Roman passed away. After reading about this amazing woman, I thought I might write a poem to honor her. But then I found a post by Maria Papova on BrainPickings about Ellen Harding Baker, an Iowa teacher who lived from 1847-1886. During her short life, she created a quilt depicting our solar system to use during her lessons. Her stunning creation is now part of the collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

The National Museum of American History,
Gift of Patricia Hill McCloy and Kathryn Hill Meardon

This confluence of needlework and astronomy drew me to Ellen’s story and made me want to celebrate her life. This poem has proven quite a challenge to write, and I hope it does her justice.

An Ode to Ellen Harding Baker

Silenced by society’s
rules and regulations,
she adhered to its conventions,
fulfilling expectations.

Smiling on her sister,
Minerva granted her a gift:
The skill and creativity
to share her story visually.

Denied the power of the pen,
she embroidered woolen cloth.
Inspired by the spangled sky
and swirling stars above,
she stitched a blazing tapestry
detailing our corner of the galaxy.

Her masterpiece invited
wonderment and awe,
spreading knowledge and delight,
helping imaginations to take flight.

Today’s post is also doing double-duty as my Slice of Life. Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

And now for the Roundup! Please join today’s celebration of poetry by sharing your link.

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Month: March 2019