Tag Archives: first grade

Possibilities and Pen Pals

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.

Poetry Play: NPM25 Day 9

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During the pandemic I accidentally discovered the power of poetry dice. Not the pre-made ones that you purchase. Those are great, but when my students weren’t in my classroom, I figured out a way they could make their own dice at home. At the time, I saw those homemade dice as a replacement for the ones I had used in the classroom. But I have learned after making our own dice in the classroom that they are so much more than that!

The prelude to making the dice is important. We began this week by reading Peter Reynold’s book The Word Collector. This book is rich with language and encourages a delight in words: short words, multi-syllabic words, words that sing…. The book is great on its own…and then as my students predicted–we would be making our own word collections!

To keep them from collecting only one kind of word, I gave them some categories…and a few restrictions. They collected nouns (but not people), verbs, describing words, and colors. They chatted as they wrote their words, sharing ideas with each other. Then we folded the collections, placed them in our notebooks, and left them for a while.

Today, we returned to our word collections. I suggested that they might want to trade out some of the words they had collected on Monday. I showed them on my list by crossing out a word that felt ordinary and adding another that I had thought about since then. Then I gave them some time to read over their words, trade them out, or just add to their list.

Then I pulled out the highlighters. (The magic of office supplies is real!). Since we were going to make poetry dice, students would need to narrow their collection down to 12 words (for a pair of dice). We talked about including words from different categories and again, I talked aloud about some of my decisions as I highlighted my list. Once the 12 words were highlighted, it was time to distribute the cube templates. I use colored card stock so that the dice will have some firmness.

Students wrote their words, one per face, onto their cube template. And at that point, it was time for the cutting. This can be a tricky step with first graders, but they persevered and were careful, even with the tight corners. We had time to fold before recess, but not time to tape, so we left our unfinished dice and headed out for a snack and some playtime.

When we returned I pulled out an old favorite of a poetry book, I am Writing a Poem About… edited by Myra Cohn Livingston. (This is one of those oldie but goodie books–and I think it might be out of print!) In the book, described as a poetry game, authors are challenged to write a poem using certain words. We read through quite a few poems that used 3 words: drum, blanket, and ring. Right away students tuned in to listening to hear those 3 words in each poem. They noticed that sometimes the poet used a different form of the word, like drumbeat instead of drum. After marinating in the poetry game, we headed back to our tables to tape our dice together.

Pulling the edges of the cube together and taping them was challenging for some of these young poets, but again, they were up for the challenge. And then it was time to start rolling the dice. They were directed to roll 3 or 4 words, write them in their notebook and then to write their own poem including the words, along with some action, metaphorical thinking, and maybe the use of some of their senses.

I’m convinced that the making of the dice creates fertile ground for poetry to grow. Time to think about words, to play around with words, to list words, to select words, to hear words, to consider the words of others, and then to roll dice and write…and then roll some more and write some more. In our last few minutes before going home, we took some time to read some of these pieces-in-progress out loud.

O, who doesn’t usually read, was ready to share today. Rolling robot, rainbow, and teal, O wrote:

A rainbow in the sunset

with a robot running through all the colors

with not a speck of teal

B seems to be using poetry to process feelings, rolled scared, blue, purple, and green. B wrote:

Making new friends

is scary

but blue, purple, and green

fill my heart

And J rolled three words, but ended up with just one of the words in the poem. J wrote:

A lizard’s brown crispy scales

match steaming cocoa

first smell

then blow

I rolled kaleidoscope, microscopic, collect, and singing and wrote alongside my students. Here’s my draft:

They collect words like gems

holding them up

to reflect the sun

A kaleidoscope of poems

emerge from this microscopic

piece of the universe

singing out a world

imagined by children

I’d love to hear your experiences making and playing around with poetry dice–either for yourself or with your students. Any variations to suggest?

Poetry Ecosystem: NPM25 Day 8

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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.

That Magical Buzz: SOL25 Day 4

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Some days in the first grade classroom chaos rules. It seems that everyone needs help at the same moment and a single word (think birthday, soccer, lunch…) makes every voice rise in frenzied simultaneous conversation.

But today was different. We had started a writing project on Friday, but ran out of time (and focus) before we got it completed. And since it is March and I had some time this morning after our class watched another first grade class perform a play, I gave my students a list of four things to do.

Reread the writing from Friday and finish, making sure all five senses are represented
Use voice to text (something we have done before) to type the writing into Pages
Meet with me for a quick review and a reminder of how to share the document with me
Go onto a particular app for independent math practice

When we started this, I wasn’t sure I would be able to meet with students with others working independently. But…my students proved their maturity today and that magical buzz settled over the room. Students focused on completing their writing. They helped each other navigate the iPad and reminded each other how to make the technology work. If I was working with a student, others waited patiently for their turn with me. And those on the app worked without needing reminders to stay focused. It wasn’t quiet, but the noise was productive. Most students were able to complete and share their writing and everyone had meaningful learning work to do.

I love when this breakthrough happens. Now I will stay alert for opportunities for students to exercise this independence and work as a team. That magical buzz is priceless!

#writeout for NDOW: Exploring Senses in the Garden

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I picked today…October 20ish…to celebrate the National Day on Writing (NDOW) with my students. And since we are also into #writeout, we combined the two.

We are lucky to have a school garden and while it is not exactly exploding with plant life (yet), it does have some plants growing, some rustic seating, shade (essential on a sunny fall day like today), and hosts bugs and worms and dirt and all the other things kids love.

So, after recess today when I walked my students back to the classroom, I read them the book Outside In by Deborah Underwood. This gorgeous book talks about the wonders of the natural world–and the ways we often do not pay attention to those wonders. It also includes all five senses in wonderfully descriptive and somewhat subtle ways.

I recently had the opportunity to interview author Kate Messner, who is serving as an author ambassador for the National Writing Project’s #writeout, as part of their Write Time series. In response to one of my questions, she talked about the power of the senses to help students (and writers) extend their writing. So before we headed out with our sketchpads to write, I asked my students to pay attention to not only to what they saw, but to all five senses. As we walked we noticed…and once we arrived at the garden, we began to write.

Students listened and sniffed. They rubbed leaves, touched pumpkins, and imagined the taste of fruits and vegetables. And they noticed bugs and birds and spider webs. When they needed inspiration, they moved around the garden and wrote some more.

I love watching my students develop stamina and confidence as writers. There is something freeing and motivating about writing outdoors, writing in a sketchbook, sitting on a stump, and even writing standing up. Writing still takes effort when you are six or seven. Putting all that wonderful thinking onto the page is an opportunity to put phonics into action, exercise those developing fine motor skills, and focus attention for a sustained period of time.

When we returned to the classroom, I asked student to pick their favorite sensory description to read in a classroom whip around. Student were all willing to pick and read their descriptions, creating a symphony of voices celebrating our garden and our community of writers.

Here is the collaborative poem that includes a line from each student in our first grade class.

Senses in the Garden

A National Day on Writing Celebration

I hear a car. It sounds like a dinosaur roaring. Rooaarr!

I see the leaves swirling in the wind going to land on the ground.

I smell the sea by the beach. The waves are blowing in the wind.

Taste is like tasting popcorn.

I hear a june bug buzzing in the sky.

I hear the tip tap of my shoes. I see the reflection of my sparkle skirt.

I hear the birds chirping in the sky.

I see the spiky squash on a stem.

I can hear a hummingbird humming. It was sucking pollen.

I see a passion fruit on the table.

I touched a pumpkin. It was soft and it had a hole in it.

I hear waves crashing on the shore that the surfers ride on.

I can smell oak sap flowing down the bark of the tree.

I can taste blackberries getting eaten by me.

I smell a passion fruit.

I spy with my little eye someone walking by. A game!

I feel a pencil in my hand.

I see a moth fly like a jet.

I hear birds chirping and flying.

I smell the acorns. They are like the seed and the trees.

I see a big pile of dirt.

I hear leaves getting smashed.

I see and feel and hear the garden.

By Room 3 First Graders

10/18/24

How will you and/or your students celebrate the National Day on Writing (and #writeout) on or around October 20th? My students and I would love to see what you do!

Exploring Acorns: A #writeout Adventure

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When life gives you acorns…make art and poetry!

Most weeks I work with my friend and colleague Carol over Zoom since we live in different parts of the state. So when we got to meet in person a few weeks ago, I was delighted to be gifted with a bag of acorns to explore with my students. The acorns where Carol lives are huge…and they have the caps that look like knitted beanies.

So, in honor of #writeout, a collaboration between the National Writing Project and the National Park Service, we got out the acorns and the hand lenses AND our sketchbooks to really study them carefully. We also read two wonderful picture books: Because of an Acorn by Lola Schaefer–a book about the interdependence of the ecosystem where acorns thrive–and Acorn Was a Little Wild by Jen Arena–a fanciful book about an adventurous acorn who after an encounter with a hungry squirrel preparing for winter, ended up as an adventurous oak tree.

And…we had to watch the wonderful video with Ranger McKenzie from Sequoia National Park about how oak trees drop tremendous numbers of acorns every few years…all at the same time in a process called masting, and that scientists have figured out that trees “talk” to each other through their root systems.

All this science and nature provided the perfect foundation for an art project inspired by Andy Warhol and the Pop Art movement. Today the first graders in my classroom used scissors, construction paper, oil pastels…and wait for it…white glue to create the most adorable acorn art. Scissor work can be challenging for young learners, and to add to the scissor demand I didn’t provide a template. Instead I showed them how to trim the square of paper into the shape of the acorn nut…and another square of paper into the shape of an acorn cap. A few students expressed frustration, but with some encouragement and insistence that they keep trying, all students were able to cut out acorns and their caps independently.

We added some whimsical texture with oil pastels…and then the most challenging part, they had to use white glue to attach their acorn pieces to the background we had assembled. Trust me, white glue can be downright scary in the hands of young artists! But with admonitions to use the glue sparingly, we were successful!

Of course we had to do some writing. Poetry seemed in order–after all this year’s #writeout theme is Poetry for the Planet and I was wanting to keep it short…so we attempted a first grade version of Haiku–a three line poem (without worrying about the syllable count). Here are a few first grade attempts.

J wrote:

Acorns are hard

cozy as fall nears

Spiny as a hedgehog

O wrote:

Don’t fall yet.

Squirrels will get you.

Crunch!

And R wrote:

Acorns look like a balloon that got blown by a man.

Acorns look like a man with a helmet riding a bike to the store.

Acorns look like a top that someone is spinning on the table.

#Writeout we’re off and running! We’d love to know how all of you are celebrating nature and the outdoors in your classrooms and in your lives!

How to Write a Poem: NPM24 Day 30

In Search of a Poem: NPM24 Day 29

Prose Poem-100 Word Rant: NPM24 Day 28

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Today as I walked the beach I was struck once again by the fragility of our planet. I noticed the crumbling cliffs pouring onto the sand below, those same cliffs where the amtrak and coaster trains run daily. The cliffs that support multimillion dollar homes in danger of sliding into the ocean. The cliffs that have been whittled away by wind and water, by weather, by building, by human life. Yes, erosion is a natural phenomenon, but there is more to it than that.

My mind wandered from the damage to poetry. The way poetry can offer healing by pushing words into the world, letting us examine our thinking, play with ideas, connect with the earth, the wind, the water, each other.

My students wrote their own 6 words for the environment a week ago and then created a poster to share their words and their thinking with others. The words of this first grader continue to resonate with me.

I think she’s right. It’s time to change ourselves so we can help each other and help the earth. Which led me to a 100-word rant for my poetry today.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that poetry and earth share the month of April as their time of attention. We need poetry to understand our planet, to appreciate our planet, to save the planet from our reckless disregard for its limits. As we spin on this planet we call home, let’s consider the harm that comes from the use and abuse philosophy that has become so prevalent. It’s time for solving. More leaning in than lashing out. Instead of global clashing and teeth gnashing it’s time for change. For ourselves, our community, our nation, our world. It’s our moment.

Haiku + Comic = Haikomic: NPM24 Day 17

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I’ve been inspired by Grant Snider’s comics for a while now and was super excited when I learned about his book Poetry Comics published at the end of March. (I wrote a mini review here). I knew I would be doing something inspired by his poetry comics with my first grade students this month. When I saw he had done a Haiku comic style, I knew this would be a perfect format for my students.

We’ve written Haiku this year–well, mostly 3-line poems without much attention to the syllable count. So when we took a look at Grant’s Haikomic this morning, students immediately understood (and recognized the metaphorical thinking in his last line).

I’ve learned when teaching first graders that sometimes a novel paper use can propel young writers forward, somehow tricking that treacherous writer’s block into disappearing. So instead of writing in their notebooks or on lined paper, I handed each student a 3″ square post-it note to draft their Haiku. It didn’t take long for students to have their Haiku ready to be transformed by the comic making process.

I distributed the comic paper–in this case, a page with three horizontal rectangular panels. Students wrote one line of their Haiku in each panel and added their comic drawing with colored pencil. As a final last step, they traced over the writing with a Sharpie marker.

Here are a few examples:

V can never help writing about violets!

M is obsessed with basketball!

In her piece, “I” decided to add speech bubbles.

And O celebrated flowers and springtime

While I wrote my Haiku about egrets with my students and drew along with them, later this afternoon with a group of Writing Project colleagues we crafted our Haikomics using photos instead of drawing (mostly due to severe time constraints). I then used Canva to write my Haiku directly onto my photo.

Maybe you’ll want to try your hand at a Haikomic too. I’d love to see what you come up with!