I love children’s picture books. I might even fancy myself a connoisseur of sorts. I have old favorites, but I am always on the look out for new titles. Apparently I have a “type” when it comes to books. Our school librarian can pick a book for me…and most of the time, it is a perfect book for me.
One Day This Tree Will Fall by Leslie Barnard Booth appeared in my book bag a week or so ago…and before I even opened the cover, I was pretty sure it was a book for me. When I opened it and read through it, I nodded to myself. Yes, I’ll be reading this to my students, I said to myself. But of course, the true test is reading it aloud to kids.
Ah…the language flowed. Rhymes mingled with repetition, questions jumped in creating a refrain like a long lost friend. And wrapped in this gorgeous package was an appreciation of nature and an acknowledgement of the resilience and fragility of this ecosystem along with the introduction of important concepts like drought and decomposition (we had quite a discussion about drought–something we deal with regularly in our Southern California community).
Honoring the value of scars and hardship is a river that runs along the story of the tree. It’s a story of ecology and of acceptance and inclusion. When I finished reading it I told my students I knew I would read it again.
And I did. Later that same day, before we headed into some writing under the influence of acorns, I read the book to my students again. They didn’t complain. They noticed more…and so did I. I’ll be reading this one again…probably even buying my own copy. If you love great non-fiction for children, written with attention to the beauty and purposefulness of language…you’ll love this book. I’ll probably read this book to my students again before the school year ends! It really is that good.
In my first grade classroom, we started #writeout way back in August. Our school garden is a perfect place for observation and writing. By the second week of school we were out in the garden with our clipboards looking closely, sketching carefully, and adding captions as well as considering what the object they were examining (a passion fruit, a ladybug, a yellow cherry tomato) reminded them of. (I start planting that seed of figurative language very early in the school year!). We continue to venture outside, at least monthly, with our sketchbooks in hand, sometimes on a color walk, sometimes in search of questions… You can check out a variety of past explorations through this year’s #WriteOut choice board. Let’s Take a Wonder Walk is my offering.
While sharing information about #WriteOut at a recent San Diego Area Writing Project conference, I overheard someone mention the book, Through Georgia’s Eyes, which reminded me of the powerful connection of Georgia O’Keeffe’s art and close observation in nature. I returned to my classroom, pulled that old favorite picture book out along with another Georgia O’Keeffe picture book, Georgia’s Bones and created a plan for introducing my students to this incredible artist, encouraging close observation, carefully enlarged sketching, and descriptive writing.
We’d been on a Wonder Walk the previous week, using nature collectors to pay attention to small natural items around our schoolyard. Students picked one and sketched it. They were small drawings, nicely done, and the perfect prelude to this introduction to Georgia O’Keeffe and her attention to detail. Knowing I had a bin of seashells stashed in a cabinet in my classroom, I pulled them out and picked out a selection of some of the most interesting–enough that every student would have variety to choose from and varied enough that the shells were mostly different from one another.
After reading Through Georgia’s Eyes, we talked about the way that O’Keeffe loved to make her paintings large, bringing attention to things others might otherwise miss. Students each picked a shell from my collection and studied it carefully. We took out our sketchpads. Students were encouraged to sketch the shell, filling the page with every detail they could. Drawing big is hard for young students, so practicing this technique is important. Then I gave them a larger piece of watercolor paper and a sharpie marker and asked them to draw their shell again, even larger!
The following day, after reading the second picture book about Georgia O’Keeffe, we pulled out the trusty trays of crayola watercolor paints, mixing colors in the lids to capture the details of the shells. They looked carefully again, noticing nuance in coloring and shading, figuring out how to best capture the beauty of their shell. They also painted a background color to help their shell stand out. The results were stunning! (I decided to photograph them with the shell to show how much their study of the shell influenced the paintings.)
I was already excited about the work students were doing. These 6-year-olds were impressive with their attention to detail and care using watercolor paint–which can be unforgiving! My next request of them was something they initially found perplexing. I told them now we were going to paint our shells with words. What?!? I explained that our words were going to be the paint that helped others “see” the shell through our eyes. As is typical, I pulled my writer’s notebook out, took a close look at my teeny tiny shell, and started to think aloud about my shell. I wrote a few sentences, continuing to talk through my decisions. And then it was their turn.
You know that magic is happening when that hush falls over the room. First graders are not quiet writers so I get glimpses of their thinking as they work through words, help each other with spelling, ask questions about sounds, and speak the words they are putting on the page. I also knew something special was happening when no one was “done,” even when we had to stop for our reading groups and lunch. While my students were out of the classroom I walked around the room reading their words. Every single student was truly painting with words!
After lunch I gave students a few minutes to read through their writing and finish what they were working on. Then I pulled out the highlighters (first time this year!). I explained how I wanted them to use the highlighter–but first they had to pick a “golden line,” their favorite idea they had written about their shell. After highlighting we had a whip around where every student read their golden line out loud. My heart was full.
T wrote seriously, using all the time available to describe the shell.
My shell has a swirl in its window. Beige is the color that is the starting color but then white takes over. It has a pattern it goes purple to white. My shell has lines that curve to the end. My shell is very flat. In the inside there is white. If you touch its tip you would get poked on the finger. My shell has some green. It reminds me of a whale tail flaming in the ocean. My shell’s window is by the tip. It reminds me of a bucket of water filled. It’s my favorite shell.
M is an emergent reader and writer, working hard to capture sounds in words. This took effort and great perseverence to produce independently.
My shell has a triangle. My shell has a spiral inside. My shell has a window. My shell has pink.
Sometimes a prompt inspires me. That was my experience when I read Padraig O Tuama’s prompt– the one that arrives in my email inbox each week. After reading a poem by Jane Mead, O Tuama suggested describing a place you go to. I’m a beach goer–and this week offers low-tide walking beaches timed to fit in after I finish work each day. So instead of taking my daily walk around the neighborhood, I’m heading to the beach each afternoon–my favorite beach–to walk and breathe and appreciate this place not far from where I live.
Today I decided to go with a Haibun–that form that allows for some meandering prose followed by Haiku. And while the beach is always enough, it is such a delight when I come across something special. Today it was a wavy turban snail–one of those hearty sea creatures that thrives in the intertidal zone, a harsh place that is exposed during low tide.
The puzzle of tides keeps me guessing as I walk the shoreline. Familiarity interlaced with mystery, each day brings new treasures to discover. Fall, summers’s sister, opens space to breathe, mixes heat with edges of crispy coolness, feet immersed in the translucent turquoise only the sea can offer. This is my place, ordinarily extraordinary.
While I have continued my daily writing and posting, I haven’t been posting in this space. Today seems like the day to give a peek in to what I’ve been up to. After a month of daily slice of life posting and a month of daily poems in honor or National Poetry month, in May and June I shifted to writing daily #smallpoems (thanks for the inspiration Georgia Heard!) to accompany my daily photo post on Instagram. For July, again inspired by Georgia Heard, I am writing #tinyletters also inspired by my photography and posted on Instagram.
Here is the one I wrote today in response to an egret sighting on my daily walk.
Dear Egret,
We’re both drawn to the shoreline: you to eat, me to drink in the wonders of the sea. I know when I see you that this is my lucky day. And lucky I am, day after day after day.
Neither of us is gregarious by nature, enjoying solitude and blue skies. A space for listening to the roar of ocean waves and my own thoughts far from the noise and chaos of the internet and politics.
You are a whisper of grace and natural beauty, wings that lift you and lift me above the fray. A respite, a pause, a moment of stillness.
So I can breathe and the re-enter the world with renewed strength and resolve.
Today marked 7 more school days until the end of year. It’s a bittersweet time of year. I can’t wait for summer, the way my schedule changes, spaces for some travel, time for family, warmer weather… And I will be saying good-bye to my students after 180 days of learning and growing together. We’ve become like family: getting on each other nerves, supporting one another when someone is feeling down, and depending on that comfortable atmosphere that comes from being home. My students have become confident almost-second-graders full of year-end bravado–nothing feels out of their reach!
I’ve written in the past about the power of pen pals and the reasons why I love it when the opportunity to exchange correspondence with another class presents itself. Again this year, the first graders in my class became pen pals with 5th graders in one of my colleague’s classes. After exchanging letters throughout the school year, today was our day to meet one another in person.
This year my colleague and I decided to have the first graders teach the fifth graders something when they met. Throughout the school year, my students have made zines–small books folded from a single sheet of paper. So today I reminded my students about the zines they have made (and many reminded me that they make zines at home since learning about them in class this year) and that they would be teaching their pen pal how to fold and write a zine of their own.
It was such fun to watch my suddenly shy seven-year-old students walk their much older pen pals through the folding and assembly of the zine and the older students coax their young teachers into choosing a topic. Some pairs wrote their zines about the same topics, collaborating on ideas while others chose to focus on an individual approach.
The classroom hummed with the 50+ bodies in the room, writing and chatting. Everyone was successful in the folding and writing, although there was no end product expected. Our gathering ended with a shared snack time and recess. For most of the fifth graders, it was a walk back in time reconnecting them with the school they attended when they were first graders. For the first graders, it was the excitement of hanging out with their new buddies–throwing basketballs with big kids, kicking soccer balls with big kids, reminding those big kids of the fun of just playing at recess.
Later, after the fifth graders returned to their school, I had the time to walk around the classroom, picking up and perusing some of the zines my students had created. I read the zine about playing hockey (step 3: wait for the zamboni to leave before getting on the ice), the one about mythical animals (clearly there are 7-year-olds who know way more about mythical beasts than I do!), and fell in love with the unexpected Poetry Is… zine written by a student who I would have expected to have written about sports!
I’m reminding myself not to waste these last 7 school days. This is the time when students revel in the possibility of choices, in exploring options, in exercising their creativity, in trying things that felt too scary just a few months ago. I’m also reminding myself to breathe through the hard parts of all that independence, to take a step back and enjoy this family the school year built.
Some days it’s the unplanned lessons that have the best results. A few weeks back I came across a picture book that looked interesting. I ordered it, it arrived, and I set it aside. Then yesterday, our first day back after spring break, I found myself with some unclaimed time and reading a book seemed like the perfect solution.
I walked over to the shelf where I stash the books I haven’t gotten to yet…and Together, a Forest: Drawing Connections Between Nature’s Diversity and Our Own called out to me. I started reading the book and those wiggling post-lunch students settled. We learned about different students in the book and their affinity to plants and animals in the forest. There was the student who was interested in everything–and forgetful–just like the squirrel who buried acorns and the ones it forgot later grew into trees.
We started to think about the plants and animals who were like us…and while we didn’t have enough time to finish the book, the seed was planted in the poetry ecosystem that is our classroom.
Today our planned ceramics project went well and we finished successfully before recess. That meant the time I had allowed for the completion of the project after recess was now open and free. So, we went back to Together, a Forest and completed the reading and discussion. And then we started thinking about that question from yesterday…what plant or animal are you like?
The first graders grabbed their notebooks and started to write. They asked the usual questions, “Does it have to be a plant?” (No) “Does it have to be a part of a forest?” (No) “Can I use metaphorical thinking?” (Yes). I wrote–and I made the rounds around the classroom peeking over shoulders, listening to ideas, watching these comparisons turn into small poems, taking root in this poetry ecosystem.
J wrote:
I am an army ant. My super power is strength and I work with people. I eat fruit and I get it at the store then bring it home. My strength is teamwork.
H wrote:
I am an octopus. I am smart. I act like I have eight hands and I am super fast and tricky and change colors.
B wrote:
I am moss. I am like moss because I soak up everything I hear. I remember everything and if it is something bad I can squeeze it out.
And I wrote:
I am an egret. I am quiet and still. Patience is my super power. Most of the time I am good at waiting and thinking. Other times I startle and fly off in a flurry of feathers. I am good at being alone without being lonely. I love to reconnect with my family at the end of the day.
These first drafts will be fodder for the writing we will continue to do, this month and into the future. Right now, my students are writing easily, adding details and elaboration, beginning to play around with language and ideas…and willing and eager to read their writing aloud to their classmates. We have truly built an ecosystem of poetry and writing in our classroom.
It’s National Poetry Month (no joke!). My intention was to use the Verselove prompt to launch my daily poem post…but today’s prompt didn’t quite work for me.
A morning in traffic (typical) followed by art museum exploration–a perfect stage for a first day of daily poetry.
So instead of exploring a collection of verses for today, my post is a poem that explores repeating dots, colors, and patterns inspired by Yayoi Kusama, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein and a visit to The Broad in LA.
Part I
Each car a dot, nestled against another
dot to dot to dot until the entire freeway is miles of dots
On this 31st day of writing and posting, I’ve found a rhythm. Somehow, even when it seems that an idea for writing will elude me, something shows up. There is something about writing every day that brings forth writing every day.
On my most stuck days I do a couple of things.
Take a walk through my camera roll to find an image that sparks something: a memory, a metaphor, a story, a connection…
Read other people’s blog posts–either from fellow slicers at Two Writing Teachers or those I follow from other sources. Reading the writing of others might offer a structure I can adapt (13 ways, things worth sharing). I might remember a way to offer myself a lifeline when feeling overwhelmed and under-timed (6-word stories). Or I might more generally find a topic I relate to and allows at least a trickle of ideas to flow.
But what I love best about writing every day during the month of March is writing in community. The Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge brings together writers who are challenging themselves to write, even when writing feels hard. And, they are taking the time to read and respond to the writing of others. There is a spirit of generosity in this space that pushes writing forward–at least for me. These generous writers, most of whom I do not know, take the time to read and comment on the posts I publish. In a short period of time, they feel like friends. And these friends keep me accountable to myself, helping me trace a path through my brain in search of ideas that will set my writing loose.
Last night when I went to bed, I told myself I would get up and walk in the morning while my husband was at the gym. I wanted to get my daily walk done and out of my way on this first “real” day of spring break so the rest of the day could unfold without attention to a need for exercise. When I awoke this morning, everything was wet.
What? Rain in a place where it seldom rains? I consulted my weather app (as though the wet ground were not evidence enough), sure enough, precipitation expected for the next couple of hours. Hmmm–should I walk or not? I checked outside–drizzle seemed a good word to describe this event.
The raincoat with the hood up was a good idea. The damp began to layer and droplets started to trace a path off the edge of my hood, making its way onto the toes of my shoes, and into the recesses of my brain. Everywhere I looked pathways opened. I could see sap rising and feeding the greening trees. Closed flower buds waited, ready for the sun’s light to highlight a path for the bees to follow. But it was the snails that spoke to me.
I knelt low, camera in hand, noticing the paths traced on the wet sidewalk. Tiny snails smaller than the nail on my pinkie finger, others the size of my thumb slimed their way across the walking path. Where are they going? Where did they come from? If I didn’t know better, I would think they drop from the sky in the raindrops! Their zigzagging paths unloosed a path in my writing brain, as I traced the wonder, struggle, and yes, delight in the act of writing and posting every day. Will my ideas go back into some kind of hibernation (wherever snails go when the weather is dry) if I don’t keep up my writing practice?
Lucky for me, tomorrow marks the beginning of National Poetry Month and I have gotten in the habit over the last few years of writing and posting a poem each day in April. Many in the Two Writing Teachers community also find themselves posting to Verselove at Ethical ELA. Maybe I will see you there.
Most people see the beach as a playground, a gym, an opportunity to commune with nature, a place to get away from stresses and routines of the work week. Sometimes, though, I notice artists at work.
There are artists who are inspired by the natural beauty of the beach and drag their easels, paints, and canvases to the shore and set up to work en plein air trying to capture what they see in front of them. Today’s artist used the sand as both canvas and paint and a rake as his brush.
When my walk began, he was just getting started and had traced some circles on a large flat spot near where I walked onto the beach. I paused long enough to watch his technique for creating even circles–although I doubt I could replicate his motions. I walked some miles, stopping to watch egrets and other shore birds. I noticed some places where the cliffs have crumbled since my last visit to this beach. I took photos of sand dollars, sea birds, and the piling remnants of a structure that existed on this beach about a hundred years ago.
As I returned back to where I began, I noticed the completed art raked into the sand. As the mom of an artist, I’m fascinated by artists’ processes. I see the compulsion to create, the need to express, and how artists find their own tools of choice. When I see the scale of a piece like this in the sand, I have so many questions!
Is the work pre-planned? Does the size relate to the size of the rake? The size of the artist? Are the measurements a felt sense that the artist intuitively knows as the pole end of the rake traces circles and then the rake is turned to brush in the texture?
What is it about temporary art that is so question-invoking? I’ve seen other sand artists who place their art strategically where they can stand above it and photograph their work. Did the artist take a photo before he left his art for beachgoers to admire?
I did notice others like me taking the time to photograph this piece of temporary art, admiring its scale and shape. And there is something spectacular about art with the Pacific Ocean as its backdrop.
What found art have you come across? What surprised you? What wonderings did you have?
“Ort, ort” That’s the sound of sea lions. In my family, we’ve taken to calling them orts (which also means if we’re not sure from a distance whether it’s a sea lion or a seal, ort works for either).
Today while walking on our usual beach, we encountered this sea lion…who almost seemed to pose as I worked to capture this photo.
Unfortunately, this beautiful animal was probably this close to shore because it is experiencing negative effects from the algae bloom along the coast. I just heard a news report on our local NPR station explaining that the algae bloom produces a neurotoxin that harms sea life. Sea World has been rescuing sea lions and trying to save them.
I loved getting to watch this sea lion up close and was happy that it didn’t seem to be beached. When I stopped to photograph, it was swimming in the waves and walking along the shore–which also let me try my hand at some action photography. On my way back, I noticed it out a bit further in the water–I hope that is a good sign!
Algae blooms have become a regular occurrence on our beaches. At worst, we experience lots of sea life deaths. At best, we get spectacular bioluminescence displays where the beach lights up at night as the waves crash.
Photo of bioluminescence from 2020
I’m grateful to live where I get to experience nature’s wonder and beauty…and understand that there will be some bad things that come with the spectacular sightings. I also know that it is important to protect our natural resources–and foster a love for nature and help children learn to take care of these spaces.
Yesterday a sea star, today an ort…what will tomorrow bring?
Thinking Through My Lens 