Tag Archives: joy

Playtime: SOL22 Day 7

This abandoned beach ball emblazoned with “surf’s up” and wedged against the fence caught my eye this afternoon.

And my mind wandered to a slice I read yesterday written by Charlene Doland over at Reflections, Ruminations, and Renderings where Charlene talked about the value of pruning in the garden…and the need for it in her life.

I’ve also been watching my students play at recess time. There is an urgency and energy that is palpable. They verbally plan their play from the moment they realize it’s recess time, anticipating the interactions to come. And they are flexible. If some other play looks better, the plan is changed and they run headlong into the new activity.

I think we adults need to pay attention and learn from children at play. Full immersion in pure joy should be a daily priority. When was the last time you reveled in activity just for the fun of it?

I had one of those moments when I was in Yosemite a couple of weeks ago. I had a snow moment. (Anyone who regularly reads my blog knows I am SoCal through and through and can count the times I’ve spent in the snow in my lifetime on my fingers and toes.) It was snowing. Not flurries and not a blizzard–just a steady fall of soft, fluffy snowflakes that piled up on my shoulders, on my hat, in the hood that hung down from my collar. It transformed an already gorgeous scene into a magical winter wonderland. I caught flakes on my tongue, crunched them under my boots, held them on my gloved palm, and viewed them as precious jewels bestowed by nature.

Clearly I need to find more of these moments–moments of play and pure joy. How do we make space and create conditions for play? How do we “prune” back all the “ought tos” and “shoulds” to make room for unstructured exploration–without a goal attached? Maybe awareness is the first step…

Dot Day Doings

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Yesterday was International Dot Day, a day inspired by the creativity of Peter Reynolds and the power of each of us having the courage and confidence to “make our mark.” To celebrate dots and creativity and confidence, we began our week with the poem What is a Dot? by Laura Purdie Salas. The first graders in my class had an endless list of ideas of what a dot could be and eagerly illustrated the poem with their own “dotty” ideas. Of course, we also read and discussed The Dot by Peter Reynolds.

The week got dottier on Tuesday. We broke out the liquid watercolors and painted a page full of dots. These mostly 6-year-old artists knew that making the dots was just the start of this project. They would be transforming their dots into something else using a black sharpie marker the following day. They joyfully and freely painted dot after dot, experimenting with size and placement. They dripped one color onto another, while carrying on a constant narrative of alternative worlds, descriptive details about color, and oohs and aahs of their own discovery. We ended the day by reading Ish, yet another Peter Reynold’s book and talking about encouraging others and not judging our first attempts too harshly when we draw (or try other things too).

Wednesday was the day…International Dot Day! Students came to school dressed in dots and so did I. I l love their creativity in finding dots in their wardrobe. One child found a solar system shirt, each planet a dot. Another noticed the cat faces on her sweater were dots with more dots showing the natural coloring of the cat. There were polka-dotted masks (COVID makes us creative too), socks painted with dot markers, dotted bows in the hair, and I even found a pair of polka dotted earrings! With wardrobe dots in place, students were eager to get started transforming their watercolor dots from the previous day into beautiful pieces of art.

After a bit of modeling by showing what I might do with my own watercolor dots, I handed out the sharpie markers–a thicker one and a thinner one, and reminded students to start thinking about what story they might tell about the dot creation. I love the artistic freedom and courage of first graders. They uncap a permanent marker and confidently draw whatever is on their minds. Dots turned into chickens with space helmets, planets from unnamed galaxies, insects galore (bees, spiders, June bugs, ladybugs…), jellyfish, dragons, and of course, lots and lots of flowers. Along with the drawing was the buzz of conversation, telling the story of the things they were drawing. Clearly kids need to talk their ideas through as they draw.

Once the pens were capped and the drawings done, we took out our writer’s notebooks and set out to put down words to go along with the the art. We started with the simple frame, a dot can be… I showed how as a writer, instead of a sentence like A dot can be a bee, I could expand that sentence saying, A dot can be a pink bee buzzing from flower to flower leaving a trail of heart shaped pollen behind. (And they could see how that sentence also matched my drawing.) And with that short mini lesson, my students were off and writing.

Here’s a few examples:

A dot can be a bee. And a monkey that is blue and yellow. And a purple dragon and the purple dragon is swooping through the clouds. R

A dot can be a flower garden with a hot air balloon with a chicken and a bee and a sleeping cat. The chicken is looking for food. C

The best part of the writing time was that every student, even those who are less confident writers, were engaged with their writing. I heard lots of sounding out to get the words on the page. And students began to stretch their ideas, adding details that bring writing to life. I hope as the year progresses that they become as fearless with their writing as they are with their artwork, knowing that small mistakes might just become a “beautiful oops” or the stepping stone to something magnificent. Risk taking is essential to learning, as is joy. We had a wonderful International Dot Day filled with playfulness, creativity, and lots and lots of learning.

What might you do with a dot? It’s never too late to make your mark!

Seeking Joy: SOLC #1

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These days, I often find myself in search of joy. Sameness is numbing, isolation is suffocating, and uncertainty is paralyzing. And yet, we go on. My students show up in the classroom (on a limited, hybrid schedule), ready and eager to learn.

I realize, sometimes over and over again, that my restricted time with my students pushes me to rush things in the classroom. Instead of giving time and space to breathe, to engage, to explore…I find myself watching the clock, urging students on, never letting them get fully immersed, locked into that indescribable flow that I can’t explain, but I always recognize.

Joy, instead of being a constant classroom companion, has become a shadow that I catch sight of at the edge of my visual field. It flickers, momentarily in focus before it dissolves into the corners–just out of reach. If I can’t reach out and grab onto the joy, how can my students?

Somewhere along the way during this pandemic school year I lost sight of daily writing. The whimsy and playfulness of messing around with words and ideas in the low-stakes sandbox of the writer’s notebook had vanished. Students mistakenly believed that writing should be one and done rather than the messy, living, complex process that it is. I had to make a change.

So, at the end of January, I reworked students’ independent work–the stuff they do during the half the school day when they are not in the classroom with me–to include time for daily writing. I set up a routine–predictable but with lots of novelty and variety. One day students are invited to write to a photo prompt–often silly and far-fetched. Another day they write under the influence of our weekly poem study: they can use it as a mentor text, they can be inspired by the topic, they can grab a word and follow it–the choice is the writer’s. And on the third day, I offer an active sort of prompt. Last week, on our weekly Wednesday Zoom call, students participated in a short scavenger hunt. They were sent in search of 5 items, one at a time. Once found, they showed the item on the screen and wrote it in their notebook. That list then became the fodder for the daily writing. They could come up with a story connecting the items, use one and go in any direction, again…choice is key.

While the daily writing is not amazing, students are finding a rhythm. They are developing fluency. And they are having some fun with it–joy is beginning to creep in. We are paying more attention to language, examining what we like when we read. Just last week, students picked one of these daily writing pieces. They picked not the best one; the one they love so much they don’t want to make any changes. Not the worst one; the one that feels flat and uninspiring. They picked one they were willing to work on, to improve, to make better. They used a Praise Question Wish protocol to respond to the writing in pairs. We studied a couple of mentor text excerpts from familiar pieces we had read in class. And armed with these tools, students went off to revise.

Most of these revised pieces are still not where I want them to be, but they are moving in the right direction. And better yet, they are moving toward discovering the joy of writing and language, expression and choice.

I am actively seeking joy in the classroom. Joy that fills me with wonder and energy. Joy that brings a smile to my students’ masked lips–that is visible in their eyes and felt in the air. Joy that takes me back to what I know is important in teaching and learning, despite pandemic restrictions and schedules that squeeze time into unrecognizable shapes. And I want writing to be a part of that joy, for me and for them.

Looking Closely to Look Back: December’s Photo-a-Day Challenge

The Joy of the Unexpected

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As a photographer I am attracted to things I find beautiful…interesting shapes, saturated colors, cute furry animals, sweet children. But today was different.

Using my macro lens, I was taking photos of a paperwhite bulb that is beginning to emerge, capturing the brilliant green shoots emerging from the jar.

But I wasn’t done exploring with my lens. I noticed the orchid in the kitchen window still hanging onto the dried blossoms. I should probably pull off these dead remnants, but instead I aimed my macro lens and captured a beautiful image of the dried and withered petals.

I headed outside into the unusually warm December morning, still looking for opportunities to get close. I noticed this dried blossom on the hedge and leaned in.

Then I noticed the old wires on the part of the sprinkler system that has been disabled. There’s a certain elegant beauty to the turquoise plastic revealing the coppery wire within.

I headed around the corner toward the hibiscus plant. It has tiny shoots of green emerging along with dried remains of previous flowers.

And I have a love/hate relationship with spider webs. They can be elegantly beautiful like delicate lace, especially when they capture drops of dew or rain. And they can be a messy nuisance. But when you look closely, you can see past the mess and notice the intricacies of design and the way the sunlight plays with the thin strands.

I found myself looking for things I would otherwise think of as ugly as I photographed with my macro lens this morning…and I found unexpected beauty and experienced the joy of discovery in my re-seeing.

All of these unedited photos are yet another reminder that there is plenty of beauty to find in our world if we take the time to look past the obvious and consider perspectives beyond what is conventionally accepted.

Where do you find beauty? Do you find joy in the unexpected?