100 Reasons to be Thankful

Celebrating with Gratitude

by Amy LV

Students - This week, my friend, second grade teacher Sheila Cocilova, and I have been talking about writing occasion poems.  She has been writing poems about Dr. Seuss, and I have been thinking about the fullness of February. The other week, a wise friend (Who were you?  I forgot!) told me that someone should write a poem for February, a month stuffed with special days, or August, a month with almost none. Writing back and forth with Sheila reminded me that the 100th day of school is near now, and her work on those Dr. Seuss poems inspired me to try writing an occasion poem too.

It can be wonderful to get an idea from a friend!  On a day when you're not sure what to write, why not just walk around and look at what everyone else has been writing?  Perhaps all friends could just put out their folders or notebooks and folks could walk around quietly, reading what each writer has placed on top to share. Allow each of these offerings to invite you into a new writing idea you might not have planned on your own.  Today I have Sheila to thank for mine.  Thank you, Sheila!

And thank you as well to Tarak McLain.  Several years ago, I heard Tarak's voice sharing thirty of one hundred of his important beliefs on a This I Believe npr program.  His voice and thoughtfulness have helped me and have helped many students of all ages find ideas for their own opinion writing.

Today's small verse, as you have likely figured out, is a simple list poem.  And a thankful list is something you can keep yourself.  Science shows that people who write down and think about what they are thankful for are happier people?  This makes sense, don't you think?  You can keep a poster of things and moments to be thankful for with your classmates or you can keep your own gratitude journal like my friend Catie does.  I once knew a teacher and class of students who kept gratitude journals as part of their writers notebooks.  There are many ways to be thankful on this beautiful planet.

Here's an invitation!  I hereby invite any class that begins a 100 Reasons Celebration List to share it here.  Teachers - Please just send me an e-mail to amy@amylv.com with your photograph, and I will add your picture (the year doesn't matter...these posts come back each year in varioius ways) to the bottom of today's post. 

Here is a thankful list written by Librarian Gretchen Seibert's students at Edison Elementary in Tonawanda, NY.

Edison Students' Gratitude List 2015

Photo by Amy LV

Gratitude List by Edison Students 2015 - Close Up

Photo by Amy LV

I am thankful to have made so many friends here at The Poem Farm.  Thank YOU!

Speaking of gratitude, if you haven't yet seen Olga McLaren's Grandmother Journals over at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, don't miss them.  They're something else.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Groundhog Day Poem - The Day After

Phil Alone

by Amy LV

 

Yesterday morning, I was toodling around the Internet, and I visited The Writer's Armchair with Toby Speed.  I read her adorable and quirky post about Groundhog Day and mused, "How could I forget that it's Groundhog Day?"  Wrapped in our storm excitement, Phil and his shadow had slipped right by me.

Lamenting the fact that I had not written a poem in honor of the occasion, I searched for a way to still write a meaningful poem for all of the groundhogs of the world.  Aha!  "What about the REST of the days, the days that are NOT February 2?" I asked myself, wondering if ol' Phil feels lonely in August.  Hence, poem #309.

Students -has anyone ever told you that if you are drawing and make an error, you can fix the error to look like something else?  Often, we can change our mistakes and find something salvageable in them.  So you might start a poem, not love it all, but just use one word or one image to build a fresh poem.  Yesterday, I did this.  I wished I had written a Groundhog Day poem for the day itself, but I found a way to still write one from this new perspective.  Had I written a groundhog poem in the first place, today's idea may have never come forth.

Today I am thankful for mistakes and working with them.

Teachers - the Amber Brown grant application deadline has been extended to March 1, 2011.  This grant "brings a guest author or illustrator to a school that cannot normally afford to do so."  If your school, or the school of someone you know might qualify, visit here for the application.

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Captive in a Book? Read Poem #236

A Reading Birthday

Photo by Amy LV

Students - this poem is written in rhyming couplets, meaning that each pair of lines rhymes.  Each line in this poem has eight beats, except for line three which has seven.  How do I know this?  I know this because I am constantly tapping out beats with my fingers, listening for the rhythms in my lines.  Sometimes I change a whole line or set of lines because the beats do not sound right.  The seven-beat line in this poem still sounded good to me, so I kept it even though it was the only one.

If you want to try writing a poem with a specific meter, go for it.  Count out the beats as you go, and after you are finished, count them out again.  See if any lines are way off.  Sometimes I notice that one line is super-long, and I break it into two.  It is a wonderful thing to be in charge of your own poem.  You can make and break the lines however you wish!

Teachers and parents - as we work to help children love reading and increase their agency over learning,  Alfie Kohn's article from ENGLISH JOURNAL provides us some thoughtful insights.  Read "How to Create Nonreaders" for inspiration and good thought.

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Let a Poem Rise...Break & Enjoy Poem #225

Dough in Morning

Photo by Amy LV

 Bread at Night

Photo by Amy LV

 

Yesterday we didn't have many groceries in the house, and I did not want to go shopping.  So...I made one of my favorite breads, the Easy, No-Knead Crusty Bread that I happily discovered in MOTHER EARTH NEWS two years ago, the bread that changed our lives.  With a cast iron dutch oven, three cups of flour, water, a package of yeast, and a pinch of salt, you have everything you need.  It rises all day long, so if you mix it in the morning, it bakes at night.  Delightful!  This bread is so perfect that we once gave the recipe to a friend as a wedding gift along with a Martha Stewart dutch oven.

Students - this is a how-to poem.  It teaches the reader a little bit about bread baking, and so it's really a nonfiction poem.  The idea came from something I do, something I know about.  What did you just do?  What do you know?  What might you teach someone else?  Our own knowledge bases can be joyful jumping-off points for writing.

I did have to do a wee bit of research into yeast in order to write this poem.  I didn't know that yeast are really fungi or how they die, so I went snooping around online to find all kinds of facts at KnowsWhy, Wikipedia,  and WiseGEEK.  Not until I began writing did I realize that this poem would follow the actual time line of dough to bread.

Here is a great book about baking bread, one I've had for a while.  This book has a wonderful website dedicated to all kinds of information about bread: games, recipes, activities, a DVD clip, you name it.

Shop Indie Bookstores

Now I am off to eat some bread with butter.  And maybe honey. 

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First Autumnwinter Snow - Poem #223

First Dusting - November 6, 2010

Photo by Amy LV

Poem Drafts for "Overnight"

by Amy LV

It snowed here yesterday!  Our family woke to fristyfrost on the grass and powdered sugar on the rooftops.  Henry and Georgia went out and danced, and Henry threw the first snowball of this season.  A tiny one, right at our front door!  All was melted and gone within a few hours, but we know it will be back soon...for good.

Students - If you look above, you can see the handwritten drafts for today's poem.  We were on a long car trip yesterday, and I scribbled as Mark drove (much safer than scribbling as I drove!)  "Overnight" began as a one stanza poem, but as I read it over and over again, I realized that it needed something more.  You might have noticed that the last two lines of the first stanza are the same as the first two lines of the second stanza.  Why?  I just liked them and wanted to say them over again.  Reading and rereading, I still liked hearing them next to each other.  I feel like they give the poem a kind of marveling feeling, just like we had when we awoke one day ago.

After writing this poem, I dug back in to play with the sounds, to see if I could play with alliteration, or repeating of initial sounds.  For example, the third line originally read, "snuggled in the pines", but it now reads "snuggled in spruces".  "In darkness as I dreamed" (line 5) was originally "in the dark as I slept". 

Teachers - if your students have written a whole lot of poems, you might challenge them to dip in again and play with the words of one or two lines, examining each word closely and asking, "Might I choose a different word, a word with sounds to match the beginning sounds I have already used?"

You might also notice all kinds of little jottings on the side of this poem.  That's a habit - jottings and alphabets and numbers and word lists.  Everywhere.

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Puff by Puff #219 - Goodbye Milkseeds!

Milkweed Pod

Photo by Amy LV

 Hands of Wishes

Photo by Amy LV

On Tuesday, Hope, Henry, and I took a walk down our road, hoping to find just-opened milkweed pods.  Many had already burst, sending their seeds on their way.  But we did find a few, still curled like small fish in their skins, waiting...just waiting...for us to blow and wish.  Those few waited for Henry to hold them in his palm, pedal his bike down the road, and release them into the wake of his bike, trailing like visible wind.

Students - the feel of milkweed has always enchanted me.  I could stand in a field for hours, just opening milkweed pods and pulling their soft whiteness out of each shell.  The sense of touch is an interesting place to begin a poem.  Our daughter Hope, for example, hates the feel of plastic-y sleeping bags.  I don't like the feel of water chestnuts (or jello) in my mouth.  But I love the feel of heavy blankets and the feel of honey pouring from a honey bear onto toast.  What does your sense of touch like best?  Least?  Be aware of your own sensitivity to touch today, this whole week, and see if there are any poems lurking in your fingertips.

Another thing about "Milkweed":  I just loved finding so many short u words.  Sometimes it feels like I'm simply throwing a fistful of jewels out on a table of paper.

Primary teachers - here is a lovely verse about milkweed, with hand motions.

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Triple Feature! - Moon & Moon & Moon

"Everynight Everywhere" was Poem #203 in my year-long series to write and post a poem each day.  It was an inspiration piece for SPARK 10, and artist Amy Souza had nine days to respond to it with a work of art.  Well, she did, and I could not be happier!  Here is her whimsical response:

SPARK 10 Painting 

by Amy Souza

Yesterday, wondering what to write for Halloween, I suddenly thought..."Hmmm...maybe I could do another SPARK from Amy's painting!"  After all, it had been flashing across my mind continuously since I'd first seen it...why not?  So with Amy's joyful colors, a moon, Sallye's students' mask poems, and Halloween on my mind, Poem #215 jumped forth.

There's still one more SPARK to share from my second pairing...look for it sometime this week.

Students - I can't say enough what a good time this was.  The anticipation of working with a partner, feeling so curious about what she would create, hoping dearly that she would like my poems...it felt very exciting.  Even if you don't do this as a school project, you might want to try it with a friend.  Wouldn't this be a fabulous pen pal project?  Let's think about that.

Teachers - if you are a WNY teacher who attended the NFRC conference and are visiting The Poem Farm for the first time, welcome!  Many teachers share these poems via their SMART Boards, hung as classroom posters, or in centers.  I do my best to include a little writing tip or story each day, and on frequent Poetry Fridays, teachers share their best poetry ideas.

Happy Halloween to all!  Don't forget to say "Hello" to the moon!

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Poetry Friday & #206 - Face Poem

Grandpa VanDerwater & Baby

Photo by ?

This is Poem #21 in a series of poems about poems.

Students -  I have always found great beauty in the faces of the old.  So many stories.  Every time I see an old person, particularly a happy old person, I smile inside, thinking how beautiful that person is.  Well, once in a while, something I have always believed just shows up in a bit of writing, and I find myself silently saying, "Hello, friend."  This happened yesterday, pencil in hand, as lined faces rose in my mind.

One interesting fact about the process of writing this poem:  it was initially in the past tense.  After reading it several times over and listening to each of my children read it aloud, I decided that present tense would make it more...present.

For a truly beautiful poem about old people, visit The Writer's Almanac to read Ted Kooser's "The Very Old".

Andromeda Jazmon is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at her blog, a wrung sponge.  Mosey on over there to join the fun!  This evening I cannot wait to meet Mary Ann in person, along with all of my new poetry blogging friends in Minneapolis at Kidlit Con.

Please visit next week for another Classroom Poetry Peek with Mrs. Sallye Norris and her first graders from Puster Elementary School in Fairview, Texas.

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