Category Archives: Slice of Life

Rich Lens of Attention: SOL24 Day 20

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I love to take photos–and I take and post photos daily and have more more than 12 years. Some days and weeks I find myself in the doldrums where it seems like I have taken that same photo again and again. Sometimes the photo I see with my eyes just doesn’t come out of my camera no matter how hard I try.

What I love about photography is that it forces me to slow down and pay attention to the moment. I find myself paying attention to shadows, textures, colors, the interplay of light and dark…and then I notice sounds and smells and find myself wanting to run my fingers over a surface that looks bumpy or smooth or somehow different that I expect.

I came across this Mary Oliver poem the other day while scrolling my Instagram…and kept returning to it until finally I just took a screen shot so I could reread it over and over and over again.

Screenshot

In some ways this poem expresses how I feel about taking photos. Through my camera my aim is to be that rich lens of attention that allows me to take in the world, learning along the way. Breathing in and breathing out, slowing down, taking time, and looking with all my senses as I capture an aspect of my experience with a click of the shutter.

Welcome Spring! SOL24 Day 19

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If you want to know when it’s spring, don’t bother with a calendar, just walk into my first grade classroom. The energy is palpable. Those babies that entered the classroom at the end of last summer are growing into knowledgeable and sassy almost second graders. They are readers and writers and fact collectors extraordinaire (although fact-checking is not yet in their realm of expertise). So what do you do at the end of conference week when it feels like the classroom is fitting like last year’s t-shirt–way too tight? Head out to the garden…with iPads in hand!

We’d been out in the garden with our notebooks earlier in the week–observing carefully in the spirit of Jane Goodall. So on Friday I asked students to go back to the place where they observed earlier in the week and find three photos to take. I reminded them of the photography techniques we had learned and set them loose to explore. There was the insect on the screen that first caught students’ attention. The lizard almost created a need for crowd control as these little paparazzi swarmed the cold-blooded sunbathers against the brick wall. They photographed strawberries, broccoli, fruit tree flowers, aloe, and who knows what else.

Yesterday, we studied the poem, Things to do if you are Rain by Elaine Magliaro. We noticed her action words (polka-dot sidewalks, freckle windowpanes…) and did not miss the metaphor of the rain tap dancing on the rooftop. After choosing one of their photos as the subject, they set off to write their own Things to do… poems. And since it’s mid March, I asked them to include three things in their poems: action, a comparison, and some metaphorical thinking.

We ran out of time…which I should say was intentional planning on my part. It wasn’t, but I am reminded of the value of time away from a draft if you want the young writer to really take another look and make the piece better. Using my poem as an example, we read it carefully, looking for the action, the comparison, and the metaphorical thinking. Then they went back to their drafts to finish them and to make them better. And they did.

O took one of those infamous lizard photos and wrote a short but sweet piece.

Things to do if you are a Lizard

Climb up walls like a snake.

Climb up on a sun on a bright green stem.

Run fast, fast, fast, fast!

Grow back your tail.

G found a flower in one of the garden beds, stretching a bit further with her words.

Things to do if you are a Flower

Reach for the sun

get picked into a bouquet

Blossom in spring

Be in a wedding and shine like the sun

Enjoy your life

Share life and health and happiness

Shine like the bright yellow sun

Tap dance in the breeze like a bird’s chirp is music

Send invitations to animals far and wide

to pollinate and see you bloom into

the prettiest flower

F is one of those quick-to-get-done students and thought he had finished yesterday. Today’s mini lesson was the perfect nudge to get him to push himself a bit further–although there’s still some room for growth.

Things to do if you are a Strawberry

Be red and shiny.

Let yourself grow!

Don’t let bugs eat you!

Have a big family that lives on a big bush.

Your petals help you grow and get washed by the rain.

The strawberries are like red poinsettia flowers.

Red strawberries shine like rubies.

Red roses are like ripe strawberries.

And of course, I had to get in on the fun!

Things to do if you are a Yellow Broccoli Flower

Shoot towards the bright blue sky

Soak up the sun in your bright yellow flowers

Sway in the breeze like you’re dancing the tango

Send invitations to the pollinators: Party at Broccoli’s house–all are welcome

Shed your petals and become part of a child’s healthy dinner

As I finish this post, the spring equinox announces that spring has sprung. Welcome Spring! (Although the first graders have been feeling your presence all month!)

What’s Your Object? SOL24 Day 18

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Writing everyday means looking for an idea for writing every day. I get a number of email newsletters about assorted topics that pique my interest. Today, it was the Art of Noticing newsletter that I was drawn to as I read the subject line, Objects Quarterly. To be honest I haven’t really read through it yet, just skimmed over the topics such as A History of Women in 101 Objects (which is book that I have not read). But as I skimmed that I started thinking about the role of objects in a teacher’s life.

I’m one of those teachers who still uses a traditional paper plan book. You know, the ones with plain brown or blue covers that has each week laid out with the spiral binding in the middle. For many years my plan books were just that, plain, unassuming…sometimes I wrote the year across the front (often once the year was over). Then at some point, my teaching partner and I started to put a sticker on each year that included the year, our names, and an image that indicated the overarching theme of our year. But recently, I started putting stickers on my plan book. Not just one here or there, but wall to wall stickers both front and back.

Where do I get these stickers, you might ask? And what significance do they have? Those are great questions. Some of the stickers are USvsHate stickers, student messaging about equity and inclusion. I’ve received them as a teacher who has submitted student messaging to the USvsHate contest. I’ve even had students whose messaging was selected as winning. And my son–the one who is an artist–designs and produces stickers as “swag” that he sends out with products he ships (he also sends his mom some stickers–and those are featured prominently). Now, I collect stickers from wherever I can. Sometimes the stickers are promotional, like the ones I got from the Rainbow sandals store. Some are from environmental organizations… The list goes on.

I love these stickers on my plan book. When I open it each morning my eyes skim over the images and it makes me smile. When my student gave me (and all her classmates) stickers last week, I carefully found a place for them on my plan book. One of my students noticed the plan book cover and said–hey, where did you get that sticker book? And so I had to show off the covers. (They never see the cover since I keep it opened to the week on a table most days.)

There was a time when my plan book mostly stayed at school, but since the pandemic I find myself taking it back and forth with me from school to home each day. Honestly, it is more of a security blanket since there are many days when I change almost everything that is written in it. But maybe that is what objects are all about–symbols of thinking and planning and preparation with my stickers reminding me of the value of creativity, social justice, nature, and whimsy.

If you were to write about an object in your professional life, what would it be? What is its significance? How do you personalize it?

Slow Start Saturday: SOL24 Day 16

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After a week of parent-teacher conferences and too many meetings (you can get a feel for it here), I was ready for a low-key weekend. I started my morning by sleeping in. There is simply nothing like waking up, realizing I don’t need to get up, and then turning over, snuggling back under the covers and sleeping for another hour.

Staying in my PJs, I headed downstairs where my husband made a delicious french toast breakfast that we enjoyed together while we chatted over coffee and made a plan for the day. After reading a few chapters of my I-don’t-have-to-think-too-hard escapist crime novel, I made my way back up the stairs to shower and dress.

First on our list of things to do today was a low-tide walk on the beach. Even with our somewhat slow motion pace, we made it to the beach with plenty of beach for walking. It was sunny, not too chilly (moving into the low 60’s), with just a slight sea breeze. The blues were hypnotic. The combination of sea and sky are the perfect antidote to work overload.

We decided after our walk to head over to another local beach to check on the status of the sand restoration project there. (More about our local sand restoration projects here.) We had seen the giant boat heading to the river mouth to load up on sand when we were walking.

Moonlight beach (my favorite walking beach when it is not covered in mounds of rocks–hence the sand restoration project) is a popular spot–both for locals and tourists. It sports a good sized parking lot with free parking, somewhat nice bathrooms (as beaches go), a playground, beach volleyball courts, and more. I had heard that things were a mess in the area–and sure enough, our usual access route was redirected to a detour as a section of the road was closed. We made our way through the detour and found a parking place in a nearby neighborhood and headed to the beach.

We chuckled as we watched a gaggle of teenaged girls tucked in a corner between a closed lifeguard tower and a construction fence laying shoulder to shoulder sunbathing to the “music” of heavy construction equipment. A family had established an area for a birthday party tucked up next to green construction fencing blocking all view of the beach. Apparently, construction or not, the beach is a desirable destination!

We watched large equipment crawl over mounds of sand, push piles of rocks, reestablishing a sandy beach. I’m looking forward to the beach that will be in a few weeks time.

After running a few errands, we headed home. To be honest, my motivation has not yet returned. All I really want to do is to pick up that escapist crime novel and lose myself in a story… Which is my plan once I post today’s slice. I’m hopeful that tomorrow will bring a bit more energy and inspiration.

Dandelion Facts: SOL24 Day 15

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Dandelion Facts

My husband and I disagree about dandelions and their value in the world. I am forever photographing them in all their beautiful phases while he is determined to chase them from the lawn using whatever means possible.

I collect picture books about dandelions. Carmela Full of Wishes by Matt de la Pena is one of my favorites. And when I see dandelions in full fluff, I think of them as wishes waiting to come true.

So yesterday while scrolling my Instagram I came across this post on an account I follow. I promptly took a screenshot and texted it my husband who was sitting right next to me in our living room.

Screenshot

His reply: I want to know more about out how they fertilize grass.

But I’m thinking that the lawn that is looking so good right now is not just the result of his dedicated attention and the rain that is providing ample water to grass that has in the past lived a thirsty life. Those dandelions that I love and he chases must be playing some role in this lawn improvement! And he did say just today that if he mows them over, so be it. But if the lawn mower misses them, then they can just add a bit of sunshine to the lawn!

And in a pinch, they might just provide lunch!

Something, Someday: SOL24 Day 13

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I got a text from a colleague last night with a photo of Amanda Gorman’s new book, Something, Someday. In the text she said it reminded her of the project I had done with my students creating iMovie PSAs about something that needed attention at our school. (You can read more about it here and here.)

So this morning as I headed back to the classroom with my students like ducklings behind me, she saw me, darted into her classroom and came out with the book in her hand.

After taking attendance, I did a quick read of the book while my students were doing some math practice. Yes! This is definitely a perfect book for the project we had done. It is all about making change, finding solutions, working together, and the power of small actions to add up to big change. And in the moment, I rearranged my teaching day in a way that allowed me to read it to my students.

Earlier in the week we read The Watcher: Jane Goodall’s Life with the Chimps by Jeanette Winter, learning about her lifelong work to protect wildlife and our planet. We talked about how both Jane Goodall and Amanda Gorman are living activists working to care for our planet.

Today we also studied the poem, Things to do if you are RAIN by Elaine Magliaro, noticing all the ways she described what rain does…”Polka dot sidewalks. Freckle Windowpanes. … Tap dance on the roof. …” Little did my students know that this would soon become a mentor text for a collaborative poem inspired by the books we’ve read and this poem!

As we got ready to write I asked students for a topic for a Things to do poem. (I had an idea in my back pocket, but hands shot up right away.). O suggested, Things to do if the World is Filled with Problems. Okay–a much heavier topic than I had in mind, but not surprising given our recent project and the books we’ve been reading.

So we did some brainstorming, focusing on the list like qualities of Magliaro’s poem. It took some work getting to some ideas to start and end the poem. And who doesn’t love the student who says, I have some metaphorical thinking to add, and says, “Treat the world like a rainbow.” Okay. So here’s what we came up with:

Things to do if the World is filled with Problems

by Room 3 First Graders

Don’t Give up!

Solve it! Fix it!

We can do this together.

Clean up trash. Don’t pollute.

Put the balls away. Sit up straight.

Water plants. Don’t waste water.

Be kind to your old grandfather

AND everyone else.

Eat your snack. Share with others. Include everyone.

Only take what you need.

Have fun. Smile at a stranger.

Treat the world like a rainbow.

Together we can brighten and color the world.

Significance of the Seemingly Ordinary: SOL24 Day 12

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In a couple of spare moments between parent-teacher conferences today this email heading caught my eye: Significance of the Seemingly Ordinary. It was a Daily Good article, which always begin with a quote. Here was the one from today:

As I read through the teaser paragraph I became even more intrigued. It describes a movie where the character takes a photograph of the store across the street every morning at 8 o”clock. He has 4000 photos meticulously labeled and mounted in albums. Photos that are the same…and not the same. When he shows them to a blocked writer, the writer flips through the photos quickly, not knowing what to say, says, “They’re all the same.” The photographer replies to him, “You’ll never get it if you don’t slow down, my friend.” You can read more of the story here.

I found myself connecting on two different levels. The photographer in me is intrigued. Why take the same photo every day? But then again, I do find myself taking the same photos over and over again. Maybe the light is different, or the angles…or even my mood. I frequently take photos of this iconic palm tree–here’s a small sampling of my many photos of this one tree.

“One has to be in the same place every day, watch the dawn from the same house, hear the same birds awake each morning, to realize how inexhaustibly rich and different is sameness.” 

The experience of taking the same photo over and over echoes what it means to be a teacher. Each day is filled with sameness. I greet the same faces, the same small humans for nearly a year. And yet, no two days are the same. At my best, I take hundreds of mental photos of my students every day as I strive to pay attention to the nuances of their individual learning processes. I need to know them–when the sun is shining, when the fog hides their features, in a tight close up, as the sun sets.

To be a teacher is to learn to appreciate the richness and difference of sameness. And as I navigate the sometimes groundhog’s day-ness of parent-teacher conferences I find myself thinking about sameness in a different way. During each conference I am taking stock of those thousands of mental images, knowing that supporting learners (and their parents) is in the small moments. It’s in the slowing down even when the world keeps urging us to speed up. When I got behind in my conference schedule today I was tempted to cut things short, to “catch up.” But the conversations were meaningful, adding new images to my store of mental photos of my students, their families, and their learning and I know I’ll be perusing them in the weeks to come.

And now I think I’ll be looking back over my photographs to see what else I can learn–from them and about myself.