Make a How-To Poem and a New Craft Too

Tree Eraser Stamps

Photo by Amy LV

Students - The older I get, the more I realize what makes me happiest.  I am happiest when I am making something new.  And this craft, described step-by-step in today's poem, is a neat one that you might like to try. It's easy and so rewarding to make stamps from erasers. You can use your stamps to make your own cards or even wrapping paper.

Here's a picture of my stamp-making supplies.  You don't need much to make your own stamp.

Stamp Making Supplies

Photo by Amy LV

Today's poem is a poem that teaches how to do something.  It's a procedural, or how-to poem.  If you wish to write  a poem like this one, you might think about something that makes you happiest, or something you would like to teach someone else to do.  Then, line-by-line...show your reader how to do this new thing.

Christina is the winner of last week's giveaway for five copies (thank you, Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell!) of HERE WE GO.  Christina, please send me an e-mail to amy@amylv.com with your snail mail address, and I will share it with Janet.

Karen is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Karen Edmisten.  Please stop by and visit. We share poems each week, and everyone is invited.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

If you are under 13 years old, please comment only with a parent 

Puppets and a Poetry Peek

Friends

Puppets by Children and Photo by Amy LV

Students - I wrote today's puppet poem for a purpose.  (Now there's some alliteration...)  I was visiting a kindergarten class, and I wanted a puppet poem. So...I wrote one!  

Sometimes there are occasions or moments in life where we are looking for words and are might not be able to find the exact words we seek.  Then it's time to pull out our pencils and write something new.

And now for a Poetry Peek!

Yesterday I was fortunate to visit Nancy Johnstone's and Marilyn Delucia's kindergarten classes as part of the extended day program with Mercier Literacy for Children at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School #9, the school where I student taught in 1992.  We had a few adults working together with children in poetry centers, and I am still smiling to think about it.

In Center One, children made the paper bag puppets you see above and recited the silly poem.

In Center Two, children read poetry books together from a suitcase full of books.

In Center Three, children made up poems and shared them orally in the voices of fuzzy puppets.  

And in Center Four, children wrote poems together with teacher Nancy Johnstone. Today they will be reading these group  poems (I typed them) and painting their own individual color poem books.

Enjoy reading these delightful images and playful color poems illustrated in watercolors.

Thank you very much to Nancy for inviting me to join her for an afternoon of poetry and time with these beautiful children.  It was a delight!

There is still a giveaway going on at last Friday's post.  If you're interested in winning a copy of Barry Lane's great CD, FORCE FIELD FOR GOOD, head on over to Friday's post and leave comment to be entered into Friday's drawing.

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Day 13 - National Poetry Month 2015 - Sing That Poem!

Happy National Poetry Month!

Welcome to Day 13 of this Year's Poem Farm Project!

Find the Complete April 2015 Poem and Song List Here

First, I would like to welcome all old and new friends to The Poem Farm this April. Spring is a busy time on all farms, and this one is no exception.  Each April, many poets and bloggers take on special poetry projects, and I'm doing so too.  You can learn all about Sing That Poem! and how to play on my April 1st post, where you will also find the list of the whole month's poems and tunes as I write and share them.  If you'd like to print out a matching game page for yourself, you can find one here, and during April 2015, you'll be able to see the song list right over there in the left hand sidebar.

Yesterday's poems were Ocean Writer and The Best Dog.  Here is the tune that goes along with them, below. Did you figure it out?

And here, below, is today's poem.  Look at the song list in the sidebar or on your matching form to see if you can puzzle out which tune matches this one.

Vase of Flowers - 2011

by Georgia LV

This poem has been removed as it hopes to appear

in my forthcoming book, WITH MY HANDS: POEMS ABOUT MAKING THINGS.  

I am sorry, and I will try to write a new one with the same meter for this spot.

xo, a.

Students - Painting and writing are very similar to each other. Both require facing a blank page and making something new. Both ask us to look outside and inside ourselves, to find what it is we have to say.  Both welcome us as explorers!

Today's song was a little bit of a challenge for me because it has a very different rhythm and pattern.  It was a fun puzzle, and what is interesting for me is that writing these as songs makes me think of them as songs.  I want to try to step back and see if I can see them as poems - do they still work as poems...or do they need the tunes to work?

This week begins NYS Common Core testing.  It is very important to be sure to play outside, draw, paint, do all kinds of things to express your gifts.  Humans are multifaced, and by exploring many ways of making, we discover who we are.  I wish you some good messy play!

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Whittle a Little - Pick Up an Object & Write

Hope's Spoon

Photo by Amy LV

(I will include audio for this poem as soon as my voice returns in full!)

Students - One of my New Year's resolutions is to do more exploratory writing in my notebook.  This means that I plan to write more pages, even when I don't have any idea what I will write.  The purpose of the writing has been and will be to discover what is rattling around my skeleton and head.  What exactly am I thinking and wondering and hoping?  So often we don't know this until we write it down. Donald Murray called such writing, "writing for surprise."  For me, this feels like magic!

The best part of writing for surprise is when my mind makes a small leap into playfulness.  This happened the other day as I looked around my desk for something to write about and found the small handmade spoon you see atop this post.  Our daughter Hope whittled this spoon a couple of years ago at summer camp (see Ricardo demonstrate this at Hawk Circle Camp here), and she made the bowl part of the spoon (see how it is dark?) by placing a coal on the wood and letting it burn out that perfect curve.

I picked up the spoon, turned it around in my hands, and wrote.  You will notice repetition of one of my favorite-sounds-in-the-alphabet - short i.

You might wish to try this technique for idea-finding.  Just look around, pick something up, and go.

(Another one of my New Year's resolutions?....Learn to whittle!)

Tabatha is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at The Opposite of Indifference. Visit there, and you will find links to many other blogs hosting poetry and poemlove today.  For those of you who are new to Poetry Friday, all are always welcome and invited to travel around from blog to blog, making new poetry friends, commenting and adding your blog into the week's menu if you like.  We are a happy band of poetry-celebrators, and we are glad that you are here!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Wizard at the Fair - Writing Observations as Memories

Artist Jerry Ward at the Erie County Fair

August 7, 2014

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Yesterday, as I watched Jerry Ward carve this bust of Don Quixote, I was transported to a new place inside of myself.  A man appeared from inside of a tree trunk, and it was magical!  Sawdust smells tickled my nose, and I sat mesmerized by this chainsaw artist.  I knew that I would write a poem about my feeling because some moments in our lives just call out to us, "I am a poem!  I am a poem!" and this was one of them.

After Jerry finished carving the bust, he turned to the audience - sitting on big logs - and told us that he releases figures from wood.  When I began to write, this Don Quixote came to life in my poem, happy to be free after many so many years.

My first draft of today's free verse poem was in the present tense: "I sit/watching/the Wizard of Wood..." But as I wrote, I realized that poem would work better in the past tense.  Sometimes when people think about their memories, they think about years and long ago.  But memories are falling around us like twinkling raindrops...every single minute.  You can take something that happened to you today - and write about it in the past tense voice, as if it happened long before.  

What has happened to you today already?  What might happen in the next few hours?  If you live your life paying attention to everything, you will see how a now-happening might just be a poem in the making.  Open your eyes!  Open your ears!  What do you find?

Jerry Ward's Don Quixote at the Erie County Fair

August 7, 2014

Photo by Amy LV

To see more of Jerry Ward's artwork, visit his website here and read about how "Wood is mystical."

Mary Lee is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at A Year of Reading.  Do not miss the poem she shares with us today.  You, too, might "snort your morning tea!"

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Quilt Map & Spark 18!

Untitled

acrylic, some pencil, and collage on board. 8" x 8"

by Amy Souza

 

Click the arrow to hear me read this poem to you.

Students - Once again, I have had the fun of participating in SPARK, brainchild of Amy Souza.  In this round, Spark 18, I happened to be paired up (again, yay!) with artist Amy Souza herself.  Ten days ago, she sent me a digital file with the above painting, and it was my job to write a poem (it could have been anything) inspired by her piece.  Now, on day 10, I am allowed to share it!   Many other Spark participants (82 this round) are also sharing their collaborations and will be posting the to the Spark website throughout the week.

Spark is a refreshing and invigorating community event here on the Internet, because it presses a writer or an artist to go in a new direction than he or she might have otherwise.  When I first looked at this painting, I fell in love with the colors...then I found a chameleon.  Later, I saw a quilt.  Then, one morning the rhyme patches/matches took hold in my head and Amy's image combined with my wordplay brought "Quilt Map" to life.

Here are the words I chose very carefully for this poem:  stitches, swatches, matching, patches, snuggle, batches, stacks, watch, sew, grow, map, flannel, patterns, lap, wore, tore, seas, snatches, quilted, land.  Do you notice anything special about any of them?  

Oh, how I adore shopping at the word store...where everything is free!

This poem is written in quatrains, except for the last stanza which I wanted to stretch out a little bit.  If you listen to me reading it, you will hear how the last two lines have a bit more of a pause in there...because those lines are the most important part.

This time of year always makes me think of making things: cookies, decorations, dinners for many, gifts! What do you like to make?  Have you ever written about something you made?  Have you ever made a poem as a gift?  Trust me - people like it.

You can see that her very vibrant work made me think of a quilt!

You can see all of my past SPARK collaborations here, and on Monday in this space, look for Amy Souza's artwork inspired by my poem, "Wherever You Are -."

If you have not yet visited Sharing Our Notebooks to read about Mary Lee Hahn's notebooks, she's still there with a a wonderful post and a giveaway too.

Robyn is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Read, Write, Howl!  Stop on by her place to learn the poetry news in the Kidlitosphere today.  You can also visit Robyn at her very cool etsy shop, artsyletters.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

To find a poem by topic, click here. To find a poem by technique, click here.

Like The Poem Farm on Facebook for more poems, articles, and poemquotes!

My Bunny - Cinder Blocks & Quatrains

Aerial View of Thistle's Obstacle Course

Photo by Amy LV

Click the arrow to hear me read this poem to you.

Hope and Thistle
Photo by Amy LV

Students - Meet Thistle!  S/he (we're not sure yet which) is the newest member of our family here at Heart Rock Farm.  3/4 Mini Lop and 1/4 Angora, s/he is one inquisitive and huggable bunny who became part of our family this summer.  Many thanks to Ally (6th grade) and Emily (4th grade) Gordon for raising this little one and selling her/him to us.  They even gave us baby pictures!

Ally & Emily with Baby Thistle (far left) and Her/His Litter Mates!

Photo by Tammy Gordon

Yesterday morning, Hope and I decided to make Thistle's old milk house digs a bit more exciting by building a cinder block and wooden ramp obstacle course.  I love to just sit and watch as s/he sniffs, explores, and hides in every little hiding spot possible! I often think about little pets and wonder what they think.  Yesterday it was fun to watch Thistle's curious mind at work.

In terms of rhyme, I'd like you to take a look at the copy of this poem below.  "My Bunny" is in quatrains, and the rhymes show up every second and fourth line.  What was funny about writing this particular verse, however, is that ALL of the 2nd and 4th lines rhyme with each other.  As you can imagine, I made a big list of all of the -ee rhymes I could think of so that the poem would make sense.

Below you can see a picture of our bunny house.  Thistle lives here now, but for seven years, this was home to Irwin, our first bunny.  And next to this milk house still stands a hutch where Mr. Fluffles (another bunny) used to live.

The Old Milk House (Current Bunny House) & Me

Photo by Elizabeth Pellette

Today is Labor Day.  And Labor Day is 130 years old today!  To read the Labor Day poem I posted 2 years ago, visit here.

This week over at Sharing Our Notebooks, I welcome author Peter Salomon and congratulate him on his forthcoming book, HENRY FRANKS. Please stop by and read about his first notebooks, and enter yourself in the giveaway of his new book - coming out this week!

If you are interested in entering to win a copy of THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY (in which I am happy to have 5 poems!), please stop by Friday's post and leave a comment there.  Thistle will draw a winning name on Thursday night, and I will announce the winner on Poetry Friday!

This week also marks a change in The Poem Farm schedule - I am now back and posting poems and poem greetings each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back and visit for lessons, poem ideas, book recommendations, and classroom Poetry Peeks.  If you are a classroom teacher or homeschooling parent, I invite you to share your students' poetry or your poem teaching ideas here.  If you are interested, please send me an e-mail to amy at amylv dot com, and I will get right back to you.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

To find a poem by topic, click here. To find a poem by technique, click here.

Like The Poem Farm on Facebook for more poems, articles, and poemquotes!

Our Sugar House - Places & Making Things

 

Oh Boy!

by Amy LV

Students - it's that time of year again. If you live in the Northeastern US or Canada, and if you live in the country, and if you have sugar maples in your yard, and if you like to sit around and watch things boil...then it's your time. Sugaring time! For the past few years, our family has boiled maple syrup. We started by boiling on our grill burner. Then we moved to a little fire pit made from cinder blocks and a canning pot...and this year we have our own evaporating pan! Thanks to our good friend John Hitchings, who has taught us about syruping, we are getting better and better organized. We don't make lots of syrup, just a bit for us to enjoy. So far we have three quarts this year. All from one tree!

This poem is about a place, a small place called a sugar house. That's where many people boil their syrup, in tiny shed-like houses or big buildings that hold an evaporating pan, a couple of chairs, and some supplies. Commercial operations are quite large, but many people just boil a bit of backyard syrup. We still boil outside, but maybe someday we'll have a sugar house, or sugar shack, of our own.

You will notice that this is a poem with a pattern. Each stanza has four lines, and lines two and four of each stanza always rhyme with each other. When I write rhyming poems, the most important thing for me is that the rhymes make sense. Yes, I could have rhymed "sap" with "map." But why would I do that? Meaning is most important when writing a poem or anything else.

The idea for today's poem came from two thoughts. First, I got thinking about special places, and our friend John's cozy sugar shack came to mind since we just visited it. Next, we have been making maple syrup, and I like writing poems about making things.

Where is a special small place where you like to spend time?

What have you made lately?

If you want to write about a lot of different things, one way to do this is to try making a lot of different things. Look around your house and make up some crafts. Or ask if you can help cooking or gardening or fixing things. The more we do, the more we know, the more we know...the more writing ideas we have!

For another poem about maple sugaring, go back to last year and read Tap Sap Lap.

To read more about syruping, I again recommend this article, How to Tap Maple Trees and Make Maple Syrup, from the University of Maine Extension.

To watch a video of maple sugaring, watch this video, "Maple Syrup in the Making at Yardley's Sugarhouse."

May your day be sweet!

2 Quarts of 2012 Syrup

Photo by Amy LV

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Poetry Friday & It's Maple Sugaring Time!

Our Sap Buckets

Photo by Amy LV

We are tapping a few sugar maples here in the yard!  It certainly would not have happened if our son Henry had not gotten things going this afternoon.  Our eight-year-old Henry found the sap buckets, cleaned the sap buckets, and tapped the trees.  He was "the little red hen of syruping!"  (But we hope he shares with us.) 

It takes 40 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup, so we won't have a lot of syrup, but we will boil a few jars full on a cinder block chimney fire in the yard, and oh will we enjoy those pancakes.  Thank you, Henry!

This is not #9 in my series of poems about reading.  Because Wednesday was Read Aloud Day, I wrote and posted Reading Aloud right on that day.

Students - It is healthy and good to make things.  At the end of February. over at A Year of Reading, Franki posted a fantastic post about the power of making things as well as many things her school has done to "make things to make a difference."  Any children, teachers, or parents who wish to instill a love of making and helping others should read this post.  Teachers - if you teach a "how to" unit in writing, this would be a wonderful direction to take.

Franki also links to Amy Krouse Rosenthal's video 17 Things I Made.  Don't miss it.  This weekend I cannot wait to learn more about stitching together handmade books at the Western New York Book Arts Center.  And in two weeks, this same center hosts International Edible Book Festival.  This is the time to see if there your city or town celebrates edible books on April 1.

If you would like to learn about maple sugaring, head over to "How to Tap Maple Trees and Make Maple Syrup" posted by the University of Maine.  And for a warm and funny post about the comparison between sugaring and parenting, do not miss Bill's Saturday post over at Daddled.

Liz is hosting Poetry Friday over at Liz in Ink today.  Enjoy tapping everyone's posts for richness, wonder, humor, and beauty.

Countdown to National Poetry Month...20 days!

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Drawing - MyPoWriYe #119

Oak Leaf

by Amy LV

The more I write and teach writing, the more I come to believe in the power of all arts to help us see and become.  Yesterday, working with kindergarten teachers in the Iroquois Central School District, teachers shared ways they have taught children about drawing and expressing themselves through pictures.  If you teach primary grades, these two books will help you with this tremendously.

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 Katie Wood Ray's newest book, IN PICTURES AND IN WORDS, teaches us and our students how to explore illustrations to better understand writing craft.  Through a study of picture books, we learn how artists and writers use different points of view, pull in closely, create scenes, and much more.  Katie walks us through several possible picture-lessons and includes much student work and many literature recommendations.

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This book, TALKING, DRAWING, WRITING, by Martha Horn and Mary Ellen Giacobbe teaches us how we can work with our students to create a community around storytelling, drawing, and writing.  Based on a study of kindergarteners and how they learn to write through talking, drawing, and then writing, Martha and Mary Ellen share stories, lessons, and specific suggestions for working with young writers.

Students - Drawing is so much like writing.  When you sit with a pad and pencil and study your cat...just trying to get that fur on the page, as fluffy as it is in real life, you are observing like a writer.  When you cock your head to get a good angle on the plant you are sketching, you are watching like a writer.  When you write a poem about your cat, you are an artist.  Artists are writers of images, and writers are artists in words.

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Teachers and other grown ups - Hannah Hinchman's LIFE IN HAND: CREATING THE ILLUMINATED JOURNAL, is one for you adults who wish to see more, slow down, and perhaps begin drawing in your own notebook.  When I read this book many years ago, I drew the Oak leaf above in its accompanying journal.  It's true what they say, sometimes to really see something...
we need to draw it.

Today I posted a quote on The Poem Farm's facebook page:

"You are kind to painters...
and I tell you the more I think,
the more I feel that there is nothing
more truly artistic than to love people."

- Vincent VanGogh to his brother

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