Poetry Friday: Dogku

Have you seen Dogku by Andrew Clements? The cover illustration got me. Tim Bowers has created a lovable homeless dog to go along with Clements story told via haiku.  I think it is clear how much I love haiku. 

It begins:

There on the back steps,
the eyes of a hungry dog.
Will she shut the dog?

And continues with a story of a homeless dog and a family. Will they adopt or send to the pound?

My favorite page is the one of the dog, ears flapping out the window and the verse:

Nose out the window,
ears flapping, hair pushed straight back.
Adventures in smell.

Finally, Clements writes about the form of haiku at the end in the author’s note.  I will use this book with my after-school poetry club. It is delightful and fun.

Others are sharing their poetry picks for the week at AmoXcalli.  WE have in-service today. Enjoy the weekend and read.

Happy Reading.

MsMac

Thoughtful Thursday: Random Thoughts

I stayed up late reading Evolution, Me, and Other Freaks of Nature by Robin Brande. I just could not put it down.

I want to finish reading the books on my summer list.  I have not gotten to these titles and they are on the readers’ award lists this year for the northwest area.  I just haven’t been grabbed by them.
Shakespeare’s Secret by Elise Broach
Owen Foote: Mighty Scientist by Stephanie Greene
Airball: My Life in Briefs by L.D. Harkrader
Stumptown Kid by Carol Gorman
The Day Joanie Frankenhauser Became a Boyby Francess Lin Lantz

I find that I want to be reading other titles, and now with the “First Annual Kidlit Bloggers’ Conference” just a week away, I want to read the books of all the authors who will be there.

Then there is getting into the rhythm of blogging about the library and other books. I can hardly believe that school is wrapping up the first month. Busy, busy, busy.  My poor Friday classes have started poorly.  I was absent last week, no school tomorrow, gone to Chicago next Friday, not school the following week.  Can you see the pattern here?

We lost a kindergarten class due to low numbers.  It is so crazy.  Our four “K” classes were at about 18 a piece.  Other schools were higher at “K”, therefore we lost a class (and a .5 teacher).  Now our classes have 23 students and the class at the other school is starting with 17 students.  It does not just make sense.

Gotta run. First grade is coming in.

Happy Reading.

MsMAc

Bloggin’ for a Cure

This is an amazing on-line auction that has raised over $200,000 since the first one in 2004.  It began with a book, Robert’s Snow about a mouse who was not allowed in the snow. Author, Grace Lin’s husband was fighting Ewing Sarcoma and was the inspiration behind the book.

Grace Lin took it a step further.  She artists to create a small special snowflake for auction to raise money for sarcoma research at Dana-Farber.  The tradition has grown.

This year is bittersweet.  You see, Lin’s husband Robert lost his battle with cancer in August.  The kidlit blogging community has banded together (thanks to Jules at
7-IMP) to get the word out.  Starting in October, over fifty bloggers will be featuring the snowflake artists on their blogs. Our goal is to make this a gianormous event.

This blog will feature five illustrators.  I am happy to spread the word.  We just never know when our world will be turned upside down from losing a loved one.  Check back to see who I am featuring.

Happy reading.

MsMac

Poetry Friday: After School Haiku

 See the garden in the front of our school? Called the “Johnny Starlight Garden”, it is in memory of a student who died tragically when he was in second grade. I walk through the garden almost every afternoon when I leave school.  Grasshoppers were hopping around my feet this week. This came to mind as I drove home.

summer’s last dance

hop hop - grasshopper hop

zig zag garden dance floor

 Sara Lewis Holmes is hosting Poetry Friday at Read Write Believe.  Hop over there to find more good poetry.

Happy Reading.

MsMac

Questions from Could You, Would You?

The illustrations from Trudy White’s  new book, Could You, Would You? A Book to Tickle Your Imagination were featured over at 7 IMP as part of the Sunday Feature “7 Kicks”.  Here are my answers: 

• How would someone find you in a crowd? I am the one whose hair is now red with golden streaks.  I am probably humming or laughing and have a camera in my hand.
• If your house had a secret room, what would be in there?  My secret room would have a bay window seat to read and nap, a wall full of books, a place to write and create.  The window would look out onto a wooded area so I could observe the weather and the birds.
• Where do you like to walk from your house? I walk in the neighborhood with my husband and two wiener dogs.  We sometimes walk over to my friend’s house, down the street and around the corner.  We student taught together and are like sisters.  Sometimes we walk to Burgerville, especially when fresh strawberries are in for milkshakes.
• How will you change as you grow up? I hope I can spend more time crating and writing. I hope I can volunteer more.
• What sort of animal would you like to be? Tough question.  I would like to be a hummingbird for a day, a spider for a day (it would be cool to spin webs), and I would like to be a dragonfly for a day. I would not want to be a silverfish, yuck!

How would you answer those questions?  I can’t wait to get this book. Too much fun!!

Happy Reading.

MasMac

Poetry Friday: Gary Soto

One of my favorite poems is by Gary Soto, “Ode to My Library”.  It is very long so I am only posting the first two verses.  You can really sense his love for the library while getting a mental picture of the library. 

Ode to My Library

It’s small
With two rooms
of books, a globe
That I once
Dropped, some maps
Of the United States and Mexico,
And a fish tank with
A blue fish making jeta.
There are tables and chairs,
And a pencil sharpener
On the wall: a crayon stuck
In it, but I didn’t do it.

It’s funny, but the
Water fountain
Is cooled bu a motor,
And the librarian reads
Books with her
Glasses hanging
From her neck. If she
Put them on
She would see me
Studying the Incas
Who live two steps
From heaven,
Way in the mountains.

I think it is a little sad that the librarian doesn’t see him.  But there is a sense that the library is important to him. Later in the poem, he talks about wanting to bring mis abuelitos to the library. 

The poem is in a collection called Neighborhood Odes.  I like using this book because the poems are around everyday things that students can write about.

Hip Writer Mama is hosting poetry round-up.  Have a wonderful day.

Happy Reading.

MsMac

Thoughtful Thursday: Odds and Ends

I have had trouble getting back into a regular writing groove for this blog.  We are finishing the second week of school. 

In my head there have been several blog postings written.  Unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately), my head is not connected to the Internet.  So today I want to tie up some loose ends, snippets of the postings I intended to write:

Madeleine L’Engle

I was saddened to hear the news of her passing last Friday.  I loved A Wrinkle in Time, remember reading it for children’s literature in college.   But what I really loved was her memoirs that I became acquainted with when she came to our district in the late 1980’s.  Two Part Invention is a book that anyone in a relationship should read. I have created a page with excerpts on love from the book.  This is one of my favorites:

“Our love has been anything but perfect and anything but static.Inevitably there have been times when one of us has outrun the other and has had to wait patiently for the other to catch up.  There have been times when we misunderstood each other, been insensitive to the other’s needs.  I do not believe there is any marriage where this does not happen.  The growth of love is not a straight line, but a series of hills and valleys.  I suspect that in every good marriage there are times when love seemed to be over.  Sometimes these desert lines are simply the only way to the next oasis, which is far more lush and beautiful after the desert crossing that it possibly could be without it”.

I will be re-reading her soon.

National Boards Update

For the National Boards in teaching, candidates must create a portfolio of our entries. One entry is on collaboration and student work, two entries require videotaping and written commentary, and one entry is on your accomplishments of the past five years.

I am working on Entry 4, Accomplishments.  This requires technical writing about what the accomplishment is, why it is significant, and how it impacts student learning. It must also demonstrate that you are a learner, a leader and work to build community-family partnerships.

While I can write about many things such as creating this blog to hopefully reach families, and community, the after school writers club and drama club, family library nights, etc. It is very difficult to toot your own horn.  My inner perfectionism is  coming out in spades.  It is amazing what can get done instead of writing.

But the biweekly meetings, a peer support group of candidates, is amazing.  We meet for two hours, facilitated by a teacher who has become nationally certified.  She provides strategies and ideas and we are a writing group of sorts as we listen to our written pieces for feedback.

I am glad to be doing this.  It has really made me think about more intentionally about my teaching practice.  I am looking at the library with a set of new eyes and thinking about how to get more kids reading.  I am learning to tame that inner perfectionist as well.

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Meet After-school

For the eighteen years I have been a librarian in my district, we have had monthly meetings.  There were times that going to these meetings seemed a big waste of time.  The nature of the meetings changed about ten years ago.  Our library group seemed to move from discussing things that could be put into a memo to a more collaborative approach.

Our group looked at the state standards for literacy in serch of what we could dovetail with the classroom teacher.  It seemed that the classroom teacher had a dessert sized plate with dinner sized portions on it to teach.  Our group looked at ways to collaborate with our teachers.  It was a great model.

Then last year, we were told that the meeting had to stop, we could only be out of the building for trainings.  So we were able to squeak in a few meetings when we either had early release or non-student days.

The message this year is to stay in our buildings to collaborate with our staff.  Which most of us do already.  Here is the rub, we provide planning time in which grade levels can meet to collaborate.  Our  collaboration would have to be on our own time, on the run, or through email or at lunch.

So our elementary library group is meeting after-school, once a month.  So we can collaborate with our peers.  So we can continue review our standards and help one another.  So we can share books and workshops we have attended (or are going to attend like the Kidlit Blogging Conference in three weeks).  It is going to be an exciting year.

Happy Reading.

MsMac

Poetry Friday: Post Card Exchange

Front: Poem by e.e. cummings

love is a                                         yes is  word
& through this place of               & in this world of
love move                                     yes live                                                          
(with brightness of peace)           (skilfully curled)                                 
all places                                       all worlds

 Back: Original Poem by Poet Mom

Poem for My Since Born Son The heart knows who’s in charge
That over worked muscle
Shifting side to side
A beat inside a beat
A belly inside a belly
This is your water song
The song of yourself
Welcome to the world, sweet boy
You are not what but what is
and bigger than the imagination
can hold.

 Another poetry blogger extended an invite a few weeks ago.  Send a postcard with an original poem and she would send one in return.  So I sent one and just last Saturday, my poetry postcard arrived.    Thanks, Poet Mom.

I really like this idea. I am thinking that I may have my poetry after school group do this as a project.

Happy Friday. Happy Reading.

MsMac