Snipping Snowflakes

Hope's Window
Photo by Amy LV

Students - Snipping paper snowflakes is one of the simple pleasures of life!  If you live in a snowy place, it is a way to bring snow inside.  If you live in a place with no snow, it is an easy way to create some.  Last week, when my daughter Hope was sick, she cut lots and lots of snowflakes out of red, green, and white paper.  You can see some of them above, in our living room windows.

If you're interested in knowing how I snipped this poem out, take a peek into my notebook below.  You'll see that I first started writing about fog and clouds and my notes turned to something I saw last night, raindrops on a twig.  Then, looking at the window, I began writing about Hope and her snipping...

Click to enlarge image.

...and then I began poem-ing!  One thing that helped me write today was something I did last night.  Before bed, I read aloud many many poems from J. Patrick Lewis's new IF YOU WERE A CHOCOLATE MUSTACHE.  Falling asleep with the rhythms of our Children's Poet Laureate in my head was a wonderful thing to do, and it is something I highly recommend.  Read ALOUD the work you admire, and those rhythms will sink into you.

Click to enlarge image.

If you have ever wondered about snowflakes all being different from each other, visit Wonderopolis to read all about the chances of that happening.

To learn about how to make paper snowflakes, visit Martha Stewart or High Hopes.

Over at Design Sponge, you can read a great tutorial about making doily snowflake garlands.

And at Spoonful, you can find a recipe for sweet tortilla snowflakes.  We will make these today!

There may be no snow in Holland, NY right now...but we can make our own!

Available through Amazon

I am so happy to have Mary Lee Hahn as a guest over at Sharing Our Notebooks this week.  If you have not yet visited her notebook, please don't miss it!

And for those of you who knew that I was away for a bit, I am now back to posting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  It is good to be home!

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What Does Your Cat Do At Night?

One Life

Photo by Georgia LV

Students - yes, another sleeping kitty picture!  After I showed today's poem to Mark, he said, "You're not telling that your cat beats up the neighborhood cats at night, are you?"  For the other day, one of our neighbors told us that our cat Mini has mixed it up in the evening with their cat a few times.  Now that we know, we can keep him in after dinner.

This is something I've often wondered: what do cats do at night?  Many times, Sarah or Mini will come home and meow at the door come morning.  Where have they been?  Who have they visited?  Cats have secret night lives, and this wondering and daily happening opened up a world into today's little verse.

Sometimes when you sit down to write, you will not know what you want to write.  That's good.  Let something float to the surface - it will.

If you are a cat lover...or a poem lover...or both...be sure to read Betsy Franco's A CURIOUS COLLECTION OF CATS, full of fun in word and picture!

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Andi is hosting today's Poetry Friday over at a wrung sponge.  Swing on by the sponge for more poetry celebrations!

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Poems Come from Wonders & Questions

Topaz, Rainbow, & Moonstone

Photo by Amy LV

Rainbow Nursing Moonstone & Topaz

Photo by Amy LV

Yesterday we had a surprise at our house.  Actually, we had two surprises.  Our Icelandic ewe, Rainbow, gave birth to twins!  We decided to name this year's lambs after gemstones, and so this ram (lighter colored badgerface) is named Topaz, and this ewe (black) is named Moonstone.

Thank you to my kind and patient colleagues at Elma Primary yesterday.  They were so sweet as I was quite excited to share the news of these new babies, born midday and announced with a call from Mark.

If you think that Icelandic Sheep are beautiful, check out Perri's honest and lovely family farm blog, Mud on the Tracks.  She also keeps a fun and thoughtful writing blog at  Lesser Apricots.

After a year of daily poems and strategy ideas, I continue to revisit one strategy/technique for each day of April.  Today's thought is: can come from your wondering place.  

Wonder and Question Poems

Students - our brains are always going.  Even when we sleep, our brains crunch through the day and all of the things that we have seen, done, learned, and thought.  In between all of those thoughts lie many questions, and these are fantabulous fertilizer for writing.

Some wonderings we have are serious.  Some are funny.  But they all say something about how our minds work, and they all begin little poem paths should we choose to take them.  Listen to the questions that come to you, the wonderings that niggle at you.  Let them set your thinking - and your writing - on fire!

from June 2010

from February 2011

Here are a couple of more poems full of question and wondering. 

Tulips

Questions

What little things do you wonder?  What big things do you wonder?  What do you want to ask a person or the world?  Reading and writing poems can help you find your voice.

This Month's Poetry Revisits and Lessons So Far

April 1 - Poems about Poems

April 2 - Imagery

April 3 - Poems about Animals We Know
April 4 - Line Breaks and White Space
April 5 - Poems from Everyday Life
April 6 - Free Verse
April 7 - Poems from Wonders & Questions

Teachers and Students - I welcome your poems inspired by any of these posts or any other poems you are reading and learning about in class.  With your permission, I would be honored to share some of your work here at The Poem Farm throughout this month and into May.

Next Thursday is Poem in Your Pocket Day.  Have you decided what poem to keep in your pocket?  Teachers and Administrators - have you planned something for this day?  If not, check out last year's Poetry Peek into Country Parkway Elementary on Poem in Your Pocket Day.

Tomorrow, I look forward to welcoming Intermediate Literacy Coordinator Kristie Miner and teacher Ken Hand along with their fourth grade class from Tioughnioga Academy in the Whitney Point Central School District in Whitney Point, NY. They will be sharing their classroom publishing center!

(Please click on POST A COMMENT below to share a thought.)