Tag Archives: nature

Writing Out of Write Out

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Today marks the end of Write Out 2026.

But what does it mean to end an invitation to get outside and write under the influence of nature? Is there a line in the sky that divides Write Out from the rest of the days of the year?

For me, there isn’t.

Writing under the influence of nature is a practice for the entire year…something we practice in community during October and continue in our own places in our own ways during the rest of the year.

I love my growing tool kit of practices:

  • the Hawaiian Kilo
  • Grant Snider’s poetry comics
  • a growing list of mentor texts
  • my favorite wonder walks (in all their varieties)
  • wishes and hopes and dreams
  • data dives
  • questions
  • and so much more

I know that my students benefit from expanding the classroom beyond the walls that hold our tables. Notebooks and sketchbooks and pencils are portable. We use them in the garden, on the playground, while examining the bug crawling up the wall, when smelling the passion fruit that is so abundant that it threatens the fence it grows on…

So we’ll keep writing out, doing Write Out as October folds into November and as winter shifts to spring. And I will also keep up my practice of spending time daily outdoors and letting my place inspire my thinking and my writing.

Thanks NWP for Write Out. It’s a gift that continues to give.

Nature’s Art: NPM26 #3

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When the day dawns cloudy and you have a sunset event planned, dreams of color fade to black and gray. Rain teased, moments of downpour mixed with fizzled drizzle. Nothing to keep you inside or suggest storm. Jacket nor umbrella made their way to into the day’s supplies. Time nears and the sun makes a path through the maze of clouds, an unexpected guest appearance.

After clouds and rain

shave ice spilled, pouring

colors you can taste

Garden Dreams

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Time in the school garden with my students today turned into my wish for the future.

I watch it dive

into the waterless pool

swimming in the vibrance

of orange

of squash blossom

of too soon summer

In this place tended by children

where vegetables thrive

where small hands pull weeds and pet insects

where blossoms invite the pollinators in

I dream of a world

inhabited by honesty and gardens

inhabited by bees and babies

inhabited by kindness and care

And I worry that it will be destroyed

by war

be inattention and neglect

by the power hungry

before these children get a chance to make their mark

draft by @kd0602

Hoppers

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I went to an animated movie yesterday, with no children in tow. On purpose. And I enjoyed it.

I’d seen the trailer. Gotten good reviews from one son and grandson. Read a review from an environmental blogger about it. It was enough to push me to get up early on a Saturday and make my way to movie theater. With popcorn in hand (is it ever too early for popcorn?), we sat with 2 other movie goers and watched.

I was drawn to the movie because of its environmental plot. I love that the opening scene was a young student rescuing class pets from captivity, because she clearly and completely loved animals. And I love that the solution to the trouble she kept getting into at school was spending time in nature with her grandmother.

For some years now I’ve worked to make attention to the environment and cultivating students’ love and understanding of it “ordinary” in the classroom. I want students to make lifestyle choices with the environment in mind. Luckily I teach at a school with a wonderful garden (that includes 40 minutes of time with a garden teacher each week), a pretty strong recycling ethic, and a system for children to compost their food waste. My students also go to school across the street from the ocean, so access to the wonders of our planet is right in front of them.

Back to Hoppers. The story includes a short-sighted politician who uses some underhanded, certainly unethical, practices to convince the public to go along with his plans. And the local university has a teacher/scientist using “cutting edge” technology to better understand local wildlife.

If you’re interested in a positive environmental message in a cute movie, you’ll enjoy Hoppers. There’s a couple of scary parts if your children are very young…and honestly, you don’t need kids to enjoy the movie. I can feel a bit of influence from Wild Robot in this story–and love when animals and humans are able to communicate effectively.

If you get a chance to check it out, let me know what you think.

By the Bird

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I’m gulping in the beach walks this week, taking advantage of the warm weather and the low tides and attempting to counter balance the intensity of parent-conference week.

Shore birds are regular beach goers too. From the most common seagulls, those pesky scavengers who make a practice of poking their beaks into any beach bags left unattended and then chasing one another around, squawking to high volume, trying to abscond with the treasure, to infrequent sightings of great blue herons, tall and stately cousins to the snowy egrets that I delight in photographing.

In the last few days it has been cormorants that I keep seeing on the beach. I don’t think they are technically shore birds, I more commonly see them flying over the beach or sunning themselves on piers or in lagoons. They are described as strong swimmers and they have these big, awkward webbed feet that are definitely not ideal for walks on the beach!

I even spied one flying in the fog on Monday. They have a distinctive flying style, flapping their wings much more quickly than other birds. It makes them seem like they are in a big hurry and trying to catch up.

I find myself wondering if these cormorant sighting are related to the weird weather, the high heat, the lack of winter… Are they confused, lost, having trouble finding their usual food?

Clearly I have some research to do! But for now, I will enjoy watching these distinctive birds and appreciating their unique characteristics. And I can never take enough photos!

What is piquing your interest these days?

Unexpected

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Yesterday I wrote about my moist and cool foggy walk on the beach, today was like whiplash. Clear and twenty degrees warmer meant the beach felt like summer. At almost 7pm it is still in the low 80s! (Thinking of all my friends not on the west coast who are dealing with storms and cold temperatures!). None of this is normal or expected. While spring breakers are loving it, I’m not convinced this is a good thing.

As we meandered along the shore I noticed a grasshopper perched on an abandoned piece of surfboard leash. What? Grasshoppers are not usual beach inhabitants. I leaned in close, trying to get a grasshopper portrait without making it leap away. I wanted to get close enough to see details and not capture that blur that happens when the focus and distance don’t line up. After a few tries, I got this unexpected shot.

I was feeling a bit uncertain about how this St. Patrick’s Day would go, especially when my students greeted me this morning with tales of leprechaun escapades that happened in their homes overnight. Glitter in the toilet, messes in the kitchen–and kids so excited they could barely contain themselves. But somehow, all that excitement channeled into a pretty calm classroom–that was unexpected (and felt like a St. Patrick’s Day gift).

We did some folding and cutting to create some lucky 4-leaf clovers–after we talked about their magical qualities (many of the first graders said they had experienced finding these rare and magical items). Most students were successful right away, and those who weren’t got theirs to come out whole on their second attempt. Then we turned them into some fun math. They wrote the number 17 in the middle (after all, it is March 17th) and then wrote math problems that equaled 17. Another unexpectedly fun and successful activity.

I like when the unexpected makes my day easier and more interesting. I also like paying attention to what is unexpected and why I identify it that way. Is it too much to wish for the rest of the week to be as pleasingly unexpected?

In a Tunnel

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I should have known–my student meteorologist this morning posted foggy and cool (while the sun was shining) in spite of the protests of his classmates. With a heat advisory posted on the weather app, everyone was expecting hot and sunny with record March temperatures, not a thick marine layer. But sure enough, by about 11:30 this morning, that pesky blanket of gray was wafting onto the playground. By the time I left school after 3, the coast was pretty much socked in the fog.

But the tides are low this week during my walking time, and walking on the beach is always better than walking around the neighborhood, so I pulled on my sweatshirt and headed into those very low clouds.

Dense fog is a lot like walking into a tunnel. Peripheral vision is limited, you can only see what is immediately before you. I found myself trusting the muscle memory of my feet and legs rather than depending on landmarks to find my way. In some ways it made distance fade away as I was forced to stay in the present rather than anticipate what lay ahead. Before I knew it miles passed.

Along the way back I noticed pelicans. Often they fly overhead, dipping and diving, surfing the waves. But today they were hanging out near the shore…just floating in the shallows. Sometimes lifting into flight just as I pulled my phone from my pocket to take a photo. Were they also experiencing the tunnel effect? Seeing the ocean differently through the thick gray damp of fog?

I enjoyed my tunnel view this afternoon, staying present and available to the shrouded beauty right in front of me. I soaked in the cool damp air, breathing in the sea and exhaling the worries about the world as my feet were treated to nature’s spa treatment–a cool salt water rinse. A perfect way to end my work day.

When Life Gives you Sunshine…

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When life gives you sunshine

get outside, breathe deep, soak it all in

walk and look and listen

When life gives you sunshine

check out the native plants

revel in the fragrance of the brilliant purple of the black sage

When life gives you sunshine

follow the bzzzz of the bees

leading to blossoms of the nearby plants

When life gives you sunshine

stop and look, snap a few photos

watch the bees somersault in the pollen

When life gives you sunshine

be sure to take a break from the desk

from the demands of work

And get outside!

Time Change and Trees

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Yesterday the time change didn’t seem to have any impact on me. Today, however, it is playing havoc with my internal clock. A meeting went late, I had emails to write before I left school, and I arrived home still needing my walk. Luckily, the time change meant the walk was lovely, still bright and sunny out rather than in the shadowy dusk.

All that pushed dinner late, along with a fun phone call with my son and grandsons. It feels like it’s 6pm, but the clock is telling me something different. Will I get all my “stuff” done and still get to bed at a reasonable hour so that tomorrow will allow me to be well-rested and at my best?

I don’t know if that will work out. But back to that walk…it is wonderful taking a sunlit walk in the evening. I was drawn to the trees (probably related to some tree study I did with students today–more about that later). And they were showing off their new spring finery…and we’re still over a week away from the official start of spring.

So, while my body tries to adjust to clocks, I will enjoy the trees. I hope you do too.

One Day This Tree Will Fall: A mini #writeout book review

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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.