A brain dump. That’s what Barbara asked us to do as part of the #verselove poetry prompt for today. And I don’t think I followed the rules at all. Maybe my poem isn’t a poem at all or maybe it is an 100 word prose poem or even a manifesto in the making. Whatever it is, it was fun to write. There might be some more there there.
Teachers and Unicorns
They tell me I’m a unicorn. A serious person who believes that learning should be fun–should be real. Experiences immersive: audio, visual, tactile, numerical, connected. Classroom walls don’t contain learning. A serious person who believes that play is essential. For children in and out of school and for adults too. That reading and writing and math and science are all opportunities for play and playfulness. School is a place for making–friends, memories, art, poems… Where processes are more important than products and where kids matter. I’m a teaching unicorn who’s serious about the joy of learning. We need more unicorns.
What do you need right now? That was the question Amber over at #verselove asked today. While she suggested some fanciful supplies, I couldn’t get my current favorite pen out of my head. So today is a sort of ode to my pen.
Many days when I go to write a poem I have some idea what I will write about–often inspired by a photo I have taken or an experience I had. But today’s poem came from a different place. The #verselove prompt suggested borrowing a line for Jane Hirshfield’s poem My Life was the Size of my Life and using it to say something about yourself.
Weirdly enough, I picked the line “There were times we made bread.” I say weirdly because I am not a cook–my husband does all the cooking and baking in our family. But somehow, it spoke to me and represents for me the idea of making and nurturing–threads that do run through my life and my profession.
I’m not sure that I understand yet what I am saying in this piece, but I will let it sit a while. Maybe at some point it will speak its truth.
Some days you just need to write a list–and lucky for me, that was the prompt provided by Denise over at #verselove. It turns out that this was not my typical list, it is more like advice to myself. After all, it is April and there are 37 more school days in this school year. What that means is that things start to get a bit frantic in the world of teachers. There is all the uncertainty that comes with staffing from year to year–a third grade teacher needs to move to 4th grade. Will they hire anyone this year? Who will retire? And there’s also the drama…on the playground, in the teacher’s lounge, sometimes even in the classroom.
So here we go…
How to Maintain Sanity with 37 Days Left in School
Introduce students to amazing mentors like Amanda Gorman, Jan Goodall, Rachel Carson and more.
Take long walks–everyday–even when you don’t feel like it.
On those super stressful days, indulge in a class of red wine.
Make time for some trashy and/or light reading. Get lost in a world different from yours.
Keep learning activities light and varied. Remember, students learn and remember more when they’re having fun.
Buy yourself flowers (Trader Joe’s is a great source)–smell them, photograph them, enjoy them.
Break out the play doh! Give students challenges: make something that is food; create an animal; something with straight and curved lines… Be sure you are building too!
Breathe. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat as needed.
Laugh. A lot. With your family. With your students. By yourself. In your car. In the shower. Just laugh.
Write poetry. Read poetry. For yourself and with your students. Leave a poem where someone will find it. Or better yet, post it on your blog!
I think this was the first day in my long teaching career that I have ever taught during a solar eclipse. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a total eclipse in our area, but still an eclipse. And on this first day back from Spring Break, we were fortunate. All our of classes were supplied with eclipse viewing glasses…so why not turn the day into an eclipse-centric science phenomenon-based day of learning?
Even before the eclipse began (around 10am our time) we reviewed what we had learned about solar eclipses before our break by watching and listening to a song called “Total Eclipse of the Sun” by PBS kids. I did remind students that we were not going to see totality, but the energy in the classroom was rising. We took our first peek at the sun shortly before recess. With glasses in place, we looked up and could see right away that our usually round sun had a big bite right out of it! From that moment, these first graders were hooked.
After recess, I set up the livestream so that we could keep track of the eclipse for those places in the path of totality and we headed outside with our solar glasses to view the partial eclipse progress about every ten minutes, coming in to sketch and document the time after each viewing.
Totality, even via livestream was exhilarating! “The diamond ring!” they shouted as we watched the sun just about disappear. Four minutes of “nighttime” passed so quickly and then we watched the sun reappear. And just when students thought there was nothing more to notice about our partial eclipse, one more viewing before we headed out for lunch revealed that the “bite” of the sun had changed sides!
And no day of science learning would be complete without adding in some art and writing. After lunch we tried our hand at creating our own eclipses using oil pastels and a masking technique. Students were encouraged to use some artistic license with color–and enjoyed creating these colorful coronas.
Inspired by a poem from the book Welcome to the Wonder House by Rebecca Kai Dotlich made up of all questions, students took a first try at crafting a question poem about their eclipse experience. While we ran out of time before we really had time to finish, here is an early look at a first grade question poem by F.
The Solar Eclipse
When is the next solar eclipse?
Can America have a full eclipse?
Who can track the eclipse?
Can someone see the eclipse from inside an airplane?
Why do we have the moon come in front of the sun on special days?
When was the last eclipse?
When I look up at the moon at night I see a smile on it, but why?
For my own poem, I turned the #verselove Zip Poem prompt into an eclipse teaching poem using my school zip code (and using emoji’s as suggested for the zeros). Thanks for the inspiration Mo!
Zip Poem: Teaching Under the Influence of a Partial Eclipse
9-Solar science eclipsing school day, igniting first grade wonder
2-Planetary alignment
0-☀️
0-🌙
7-Young astronomers’ energy fueling totality-free sky learning
Some days poetry is about big ideas and big emotions and other days poetry is about…taffy!
Today’s prompt suggested a Tanka–a five line poem that has a (suggested) syllable pattern of 5-7-5-7-7 where James over at #verselove suggests we use it to express a moment where life felt wonderful, peaceful, or perfect. Not so sure that eating candy actually qualifies, but then again, why not?
That phrase–a picture is worth 1000 words–reminds me of the power that photographs have to tell stories. So today, when the #verselove prompt asks to tell the story of a photo in a poem, I knew I would have thousands of choices. Katrina suggested choosing a photo that includes yourself in it…hmmm, now my choices are much more limited.
So I picked this image and the first three lines kept echoing in my head. So…etheree it is…a poem in 10 lines.
Have you ever written a sevenling? Me either. Leilya’s prompt over at #verselove suggested we write about a Friday date night–and try on a short form. Sevenling was a suggested form, and one I was unfamiliar with. And Friday date night turned into Friday road trip…in the form of a sevenling.
On the road (again)
In the car we sit, miles accumulating like snowdrifts
Mind numbing, body cramping, time freezing
Traffic and Google navigation mishaps punctuated with alltheswearwords
We burst into song, another oldie even I know the lyrics to
Seeking attractions from concrete dinosaurs to indie bookstores
Adventures found in unexpected places
In the hate/love struggle of roadtrips, when I’m with you love always wins
World’s largest flip flop, Rainbow sandal store, San Clemente, CA
Today’s #verselove prompt asks for poetry inspired by a place your favorite writer loves. I have so many favorite poets, but honestly know little about their favorite places. Today as I explored CA central coast beaches, my writer-mentor became clear.
Rachel Carson is best know as a scientist and environmentalist, but her writing evokes the essence of poetry. An internet search uncovered an article where historian and author Jill Lepore described Carson as a “scientist poet of the sea.” Just what I was looking for.
So I let the sea inspire my poetry today. Today dawned cloudy and cool, yesterday’s sunshine merely a memory. To try to capture both the science aspect and some spare nature poetry, I chose a Haibun as my format.
Sea-spiration
Into the clouds we plunged, shrinking my field of vision. Purple sand dollars waved from the wet low-tide sand, many sporting a barnacle rider or two. As they lighten, becoming delicate skeletons, a charcoal-traced design appears. Like the sand dollars, I tunnel in, finding quiet in the symphony of wave and wind. Beauty emerges in the smallness.
Thinking Through My Lens 