I hear them call from a distance, a ripple swish invitation to come and play.
We dance on the shoreline, chasing one another, pulling me closer then pushing me back while all the time singing a song of water and moon in my ear.
Some moments are a whisper, secrets of the sea lapping on the shore. Sun drenched stretches shattering the light into a million sparking diamonds.
And then there is the soaring chorus, pounding percussion in the background. Walloping drum rolls with cymbal crashes as the white foam curves and curls, unfurling toward the shoreline.
I notice the standing ovation in the background and the chants of encore as I prepare to leave.
Even as I walk away, the echoes continue to sound in my ears. The wave song beckons me in, sends me off, and calls me back with a melody that constantly changes with a rhythm I never forget.
Back on Monday I wrote about my students and their foray into the garden to explore some photography techniques. We’ve been continuing our project, first by carefully examining each photo, noticing the technique used to take the photo, and then selecting their 3 favorites…one from each technique. Those three photos were then edited. I showed them two main function of the native iPad editing tool: how to crop and/or turn a photo and then had them use a filter to change their photo from color to black and white. (After all, we are studying Ansel Adams!)
Today, the choices got more difficult. They had to select their one favorite of the three edited photos to use as their inspiration for writing some captions–in the form of equations. One of my fellow slicers did a lovely photo essay (I wish I did a better job of keeping track of the blogs I read and leave comments for) where she used Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s This Plus That: Life’s Little Equations as her caption format. I knew this would be an excellent format for my young writers–and after reading and discussing what we noticed in Amy’s book, these 6 and 7 year olds set off to write their own–inspired by their black and white photos.
Here’s a few to share with you (along with the photo inspiration)…please keep in mind that these are first draft efforts!
I absolutely love B’s buckets–there is something perfect about the light and dark of them. Here’s one of his captions (he was quite pleased by this effort!):
Bucket + bucket = Buckets
Our warm weather obviously had an impact on A:
Fun + spring + warm = amazing
Only a few students risked subtraction, I love R’s sentiment!:
Trees – deforestation = Life
You’ve got to love the first grade angles! Here’s H’s view:
Love + joy + garden leaves = plants
This unusual view of sweet peas inspired C’s caption:
Plants + pollination = Flowers
In addition to the photography lesson, the actual photos, and the captions, students used technology to edit and also learned to upload photos to Google Drive, share them with me, and absolutely loved getting to choose from three different black and white filters.
And here is my own–I had to join in the fun!
Smooth stumps + tiny black ants = squirmy kids
Maybe you’ll want to head outside and give this a try! Be sure to share if you do!
Last week we learned about Jane Goodall and her passion for animals. Today we began learning about Ansel Adams and his passion for nature and photography. I want students to see that there are lots of ways to take action to make the world better–and following your passions is a great place to begin.
It’s surprising to me that I haven’t had students use their iPads to take photos before this point in the year. I’ve used iPads sparingly this year–I think partly in response of the intensive use of devices during COVID times. So today was the day I decided that we simply HAD to do some photography.
I started by showing my students a slide show with three photography techniques: bug’s eye view (a view from a low perspective), bird’s eye view (a view from above), and using the rule of thirds (framing the subject using grid lines to help with positioning). We did a quick practice in the classroom where I could give some immediate feedback by walking around the room.
After lunch, we came back to the classroom where I gave a few pointers about taking our iPads outside, and then we headed out into the garden to take photos using the three techniques. I limited them to 10 photos, but encouraged them to explore and experiment, deleting any that weren’t good.
There’s nothing like watching first graders take photos. They have no hesitation about laying on the ground, crawling under a plant, or taking an angle that I would never have imagined. As we walked back from the garden, we made a few stops to snap a couple of extra photos of some California golden poppies growing along the fenceline, some other wildflowers, and a lizard doing some sunbathing. And of course, I couldn’t resist a bird’s eye view shot of the class on our way back.
Back in the classroom we took a few minutes to look through the photos, identifying which technique (or combination of techniques) we had used. Tomorrow we will explore some editing…and select our best three for some caption writing.
On this “spring ahead” day, I found myself watching a shorebird, a willet, and thinking about those “advice from” posters and bookmark you see around. Maybe after watching and taking plenty of photos of these guys over the years, I can write from a willet’s perspective…giving some advice.
I love writing project work and the ways that teachers are the driving force behind proactive change. A conversation with a colleague a few years ago–about the need for climate/environmental education to become “ordinary,” something that students experience regularly, in all their classes, throughout their education career–has stuck with me. And as a result, this year in our local writing project, we convened a group of SDAWP educators to explore that very idea with an added twist: how can we make environmental literacy and justice both ordinary and also have writing at its center?
Today was our celebration and the opportunity to hear details about the work that teachers in this group accomplished. Each put together a 5 minute overview of the work, highlighting student engagement and involvement through writing.
Wow! I felt like I could see these young people growing into advocates and activists right before my eyes. They wrote and spoke with passion about our world, recognizing its beauty AND our need to take better care of it for their future. There were letters, informational pieces, persuasive essays, narratives, poems, artwork, speeches and more. I felt my heart grow three sizes just witnessing this incredible work facilitated by my writing project colleagues.
Our next step is to figure out ways to take this work beyond our group, to and beyond our larger writing project community, and to establish this as something students can expect throughout their schooling. The beauty is that these teachers did not take away anything they were required to teach, instead they worked this content into the learning the students were expected to experience anyway.
Reading Margaret Simon’s post yesterday where she borrowed an idea about Three Things I’m Thankful for Thursday from another slicer, inspired my idea of an alliterative approach to today’s post. I knew it should be Four something or other. Margaret suggested “funny finds.” But funny wasn’t working…so I have changed the focus to four funky finds.
The life of a teacher is one of schedules and very little flexibility about when you start and stop working. That’s one of the things I love about my mixed work schedule that includes a buy-out of 40% of my teaching schedule to do local and national writing project work. Since I work from home of Fridays, I can arrange my schedule around calls…and even take a walk on the beach in the middle of the day just because the tide is low!
My favorite beach is just a few miles from home and you can find me there several days a week walking and exploring the shore with my camera. Today I noticed that the pipes that bring run off to the ocean are looking pretty raggedy and that the usual free flowing river mouth is pooled up, blocked by lots of small rocks. I’m wondering if nature will clear the blockage or if the city will need to intervene and bring in some large equipment to keep the healthy flow moving in and out with the tides.
Further down the beach I noticed how white the stairs look against the brilliant blue of the sky. I always think of these stairs as a stairway to nowhere. But actually they lead to the Self-Realization Fellowship gardens. They are not accessible from the beach and there are signs warning people to stay off. But they are also maintained, regularly repaired and painted–a necessity with daily exposure to the elements near the ocean. So I guess they do go somewhere–I wonder if anyone from above uses them to access the beach.
Near these stairs is a favorite local surfing spots called Swamis (named for the Self-Realization Fellowship). No matter the weather or the surf conditions, surfers can be found in these waters. Today the waves were small…and it seemed to be a longboard day. This surfer makes surfing look effortless…just hanging out on the board.
Heading back to my car, I took a picture I take often. There is an iconic palm tree in the walkway down to the beach. It’s big and bold…and is beautiful against the blues of the waves and the sky. I frequently frame the image with the lifeguard tower in view. And yes, the day was warmer today. I think it even got to 70, which means that people were in swim suits, sunbathing, playing on the shore and in the waves. It’s not warm enough for me yet–but some go with the theory that sun=warm, so off go the jackets and lots of skin is visible.
So there they are…my four funky finds for Friday! What four funky finds did you come across today?
I try to take a picture everyday…and most days I successfully take and post a photo on Instagram. But some days, getting out of my own way and out into the world to find something interesting to snap seems impossible, or the photo I do take doesn’t feel worthy of posting. On those days, I take a wander through my camera roll in search of a photo taken recently that hadn’t yet made it’s way into public view.
And, to be honest, photos help me write when I get stuck. And stuck I am today…I already wrote a post that I won’t post. It is simply too dull to impose on anyone! So instead I took a stroll through my camera roll and came across this pelican I photographed a week or so ago.
One of my favorite things to photograph on the beach are seabirds. Egrets are my favorite…and I post and write about them frequently. Seagulls are pretty common and royal terns are such characters they make me laugh. The occasional osprey fascinates, especially if I am lucky enough to watch the powerful dive and snatching of a fish from the sea. And pelicans…more often than not I see them from afar, often in formation above me or surfing along the waves. But lately, I’ve come across some pelicans hanging out on the reef along the shore.
On those days, I creep close, trying to pay enough attention to my feet not to drench my tennies in the cool, briny water. I creep and snap, afraid to wait to take my photo until I am where I want to be–knowing that anything may cause the bird to flee into the sky.
This guy let me get pretty close–even looking me right in the camera lens at one point, seemingly unconcerned. These birds are huge and so prehistoric looking. It’s hard to believe that a bird that is so incredibly graceful in the sky is so awkward-looking when you get up close.
Finally, unrelated to me, this pelican decided to leave as I watched it raise its wings and lift that enormous body into the sky. Luckily, I’ve learned to watch and snap photos at the same time, determined to capture some of the wonder I am feeling as I watch these incredible birds.
Writing this takes me back to the deep blue of that afternoon some days ago. I can almost feel the sun on my shoulders and the cool breeze on my cheeks. And I’m glad I can take a few moments of bird-spiration to share some of my wonder and appreciation of nature’s beauty with you.
Thinking Through My Lens 