Poetry Bowls! Powerful thoughts in Tiny Packages

Poetry is no mystery to me.  I immerse myself in it.  As a matter of fact, I teach it to all ages, and use it as a back door therapy for some..  But with my first graders, it's just a beautiful chance to play, play, play.  Word play is like opening up a package at Christmas that you have no idea what's in it.  It's discovery.  It's delight.    If nothing else, I want my kids to find that words pack so much meaning that can open another world to you.  We explore free verse and rhyme and alliteration and onomotapoeia....metaphors and similes.  It may come as a surprise to you, but I believe first graders live in metaphor.  They notice details us grown ups have long forgotten.   One thing Lucy Calkins does is talk about "seeing things with fresh eyes."  This is the very definition of a first grader. 
The other day I was showing a first grader how he had made a hinge with geo boards, and the rubber bands shot out and across the rooms.  One of the kiddos said, "You launched it!"  I couldn't help but laugh with uncontrolable laughter; because yes, that's exactly what I did!

I have some great tools I have learned over the years about Poetry.   I would like to share bits and pieces here.  For reluctant writers, there's a tool called a Poetry Bowl.  In this bowl, you put vivid verbs and intersting adjectives and some common nouns students love like mom and dad and sun and grass and watch them come alive!  The purpose of the bowl is for the kids to "play" with words.  A Common place/time we have for playing with words is during Daily Five, in which one of our jobs is "Word Work."   You can start the bowl by color coding some interesting words you hear and think, that's amazing language or a favorite word?  What are verbs you use in cooking, working on a car, exercising?    There are vivid verbs all around.  I found that sometimes for these younger kiddos, it's nice to color code them.  Then they can visually see ways to arrange and try to get more variety.   Stir the words up in the bowl and just start mixing and matching with no care.  There's no right or wrong, just exploration....kind of like spelunking with words.

 This exercise really helped one of my "stuck" poets who happens to be more literal than poetic.  I know he likes race cars, so I had him write down every word he could about racing and then he just mixed the pile up.  It was a challenge at first to get him to play, until I reminded him that he could use time order of things to organize it.  We got a pretty great poem out of it!  Check this out by Mason:

Races

        By Mason

Helmets on

Start your

Engines!

Ready, set, go

Slow cars

Blown tires

Pitstops

Mechanics

Crashes

Catch on fire

Yellow flag

Curvy curves

Green flag

Nascar

Fast engines

Checkered flag

If you adults want to try this on for yourself, cut random words from magazine and put them in a bowl and sit at a coffee table and just arrange and rearrange.

I will have more tips later involving ways to use metaphors in centers and other fun poetry/word exercises.  Enjoy your play!

Authors as Mentors

I've been a fan of Lucy Calkins writing for about 7 or 8 years now.  I used to think kindergarten kids could only do fill in sentences and first graders maybe a couple of sentences.  Not only was I proven wrong that they can write a LOT more, I learned that I can have writerly conversations and help them grow as writers.  They can also edit and revise!  Due to time constraints and forced programs, though I wrote daily, there were some writing units I hadn't gotten a chance to try.  Authors as Mentors was one of them.

This year was my first year trying Authors as Mentors.  What I love about this unit is that students learn how to help themselves as writers using mentor texts, and that if done well, the students begin noticing what authors do all the time.  This is a life skill.  It's also transferrable.  I've noticed that they use this in other writing units and their reading as well.

Here is a link to the Table of Contents to get an idea of what this unit can teach youpr students as it relates to Small Moments or Personal Narratives.  One of my favorites  is Comeback Lines, which we notice a lot of in poetry and songs.  Another one is using ellipses, making our writing interesting and that see often in our reading.  This helps our fluency as well.

Here's an example of a student trying out ellipses and revising/editing his piece: 

Star  Tours
By Mason

When I went to Disneyland I went on Star Tours.  The first time I got in a seat…and then I blasted off without the driver!  When I was in space, there I saw a ship with a bad guy in it!  So we were trying to get away from the bad guy, but he kept finding us….Once when he found us he said, “You can run, but you can’t hide.”  Then we went back to the space station  It was amazing!

Try it out for yourself!  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Happy Writing Adventures!
Marie

Realistic fiction for First Graders

Lucy has once again challenged me to push myself further than I thought I could go.  I call her Lucy because I feel add much add I've mentored with get through texts,I feel I know her.
This year I feel that my writing program has become more balanced between fiction and non-fiction as we work to do Lucy Calkin's First grade yearlong curriculum.

This year we decided to try realistic fiction. I was so apprehensive! I wasn't sure how to go about it because this unit isn't as scripted as the others and because I wasn't sure how first graders could transition from small moment writing.  Honestly, it went smoother than expected.  Students were able to easily transition.

I started by reading several realistic fiction texts, including Freckle-faced Strawberry by Julianne Moore.  It is a very relatable story as it talks about a young girl who tries to rid he rself of her freckles through several means.  Eventually, she  learns to love herself for who she is.  The kids loved the story and used it as a springboard to write their success stories of overcoming bullies in their lives. 
 Coupled with the story of Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon kids begin to see how two authors handle the same bully kind of situation.

What I love about this unit the most is that it assists kids in working to create solutions to their own real life problems!  They learn so much from their peers.  I took awhile to post this because I wanted to leave you samples of what they've done, but alas there was some trouble with the camera.  I do hope you will join me later to see what first graders can do!

Two pieces of advice that would most assist you is to make sure you define what realistic ficiton in and remind students that the stories can come from their own lives.  Parents can easily assist in generating topics if you send a letter home prior to the unit.  And the second most important thing is the paper.  Students will write more if there's more paper.  We used four page booklets that had room to draw a picture on top.  We don't use handwriting paper as, that is a different skill, and we want the worry of getting letters perfect to get in the way of content.  That's what revising and editing are for!

I can't wait to try this again next year and share all that I've learned.  For now, I hope you decide to take a chance and see what happens.  I KNOW you will be pleasantly surprised!

Please share your tips and tricks and successes!

:)    

Writing for Readers

Lucy Calkins' writing program has  greatly supported teachers in the teaching of writing, even given them a vote of confidence with everything from a yearlong plan down to dialog you "could" use when working with these young writers.  She has carefully thought out the steps and questions everyday writers like you and I have.

Writing for Readers has been in our year long plan for a few years, but due to time constraints and the want of teaching other writing units, many parts of  it have been carefully put aside.  In the recent weeks, I got to delve into it deeply. Before, I had used the personal word walls and spacing lessons.  But what a hidden treasure I found that I had missed when I discovered the lesson on Writing for Partners.  I must admit, the last few days (almost a week) , I have been dragging my feet about this lesson, even skipped it for worry about the outcome.

Could a six year old actually give good advice and carefully think of the feelings of these writers? 

I know what happens to a crushed writer...they never write again.  And certainly, I didn't want this to happen to these wonderful writers.  But something kept nagging me to try it, at least once.

I decided to brave it and presented it to the class, allowing them to give me advice on what I could do as a writer to make MY writing more readable.  They were fabulous!   AND, they took such good care of my feelings. I cautioned them to use the same caring way they used on me for each other to help us all become better writers.

As you can see by the picture, kids were everywhere, on top of desks and on the floor, eagerly reading each other's writing.  They didn't even know I had a camera.  They were so engaged!  As I eavesdropped, I heard conversations like, "I really like this part..." "You have great details in your pictures..."  "I really want to read your story, but I'm having trouble reading it.  Could you put spaces in between your words?"

I had had that mini conferences several times with this one student, and it didn't click until his classmate said that.  I saw the lightbulb glowing out loud!!!

So, it is with great gratitude to not only Lucy for her passion, dedication and team of wonderful teacher researchers, but I am also thankful to my friend Chelsey, who helped me first see what it could look like in the classroom.   And lastly, I'm thankful for my dear friend Tammy, who jumped on board with me for her vision and our writerly conversations. 

What a blessing to know these little ones and their lives.

I urge you. Take the plunge!

~ Marie

 

It's an Epidemic!

If you haven't heard of Daily 5, then you should stop reading right now and research it and buy the book now!  On a serious note, it's one of the best investments I've ever made.  Students are engage in authentic reading and writing work.  There's a section of the Daily 5 wherein the kids get extra writing (outside of Writing Workshop), which we call "bonus writing."

The students can explore several different kinds of writing.  They can do postcards, stories, letters, lists (like grocery lists, etc.) and poetry.  I had not yet introduced poetry to my kiddos, thinking that it would best be served later in the year.  However, year after year, my kids usually take favorite poems and turn them into their own by changing a few words.

This year, thanks to a little girl in my class named Ivy and her burning desire to write, and to use her new found notebook, an EPIDEMIC started in my room.  She took one of her favorite poems, Color Cats, and started writing color cats, and color hats and kept going.  When Ivy shared, she got the kids so excited, that her friend, Alexys began writing about color bats...and the whole -at family had been investigated,  Then Ava introduced Color Horses.  And when that poem had been explored, Katie started in on our "I Love Colors" chant and turned it into I Love America.     They got hooked on the rhythms and the rhymes and began feverishly creating.

This is only the beginning, as Ivy exclaimed she is filling her entire notebook.  Good on her promise, it has been at every recess, including lunch recess.  I can't wait to see what she creates!

I love these kind of "epidemics" as my friend Tammy calls it.  Because the kids are loving words and language and, oh my goodness, are they learning?

I am enthralled....

Why We Write

When I first encountered the Lucy Calkins' writing, I was so afraid!
How does it look?  Can I do it?  Is it an effective program?  A million questions went through my mind.  You know; I'm sure you've gone through this on many of your curriculum adventures.

One brave teacher  allowed me to go to her room and observe, and my prinicipal covered me for 15 whole minutes.  That was a big deal to me because I know how busy principals are.   In those minutes, what I observed was students engaged and enthralled with writing, and I was hooked.   I KNEW this was the program for me, and even though I wasn't sure of myself,
I took the plunge!   I've been in love ever since.

Here's my favorite part:  I get to learn so much about my kiddos, their favorite things, what gets them excited, what moves them,  what matters - heart and soul things.   And talk about building community, the kids enjoy hearing each other's stories because they can relate to each other.  Talk about connections! 

So, last week, one of my kids who was having trouble getting started writing knew that he was supposed to get to share with the class that day....I hadn't gotten back around to him yet, so I was almost afraid of what he would share that day (usually I try to get around to previewing them all first)...to top it off, it was a day the literacy coach popped in..."well this ought to be good I thought to myself. "

Well,  the little boy wrote only 3 lines and repeated them.  

Here they are:  "No Bee Bee Stop or I'll spank you!  No Bee Bee Stop or I'll spank you!  No Bee Bee Stop or I'll spank you! "  (I tried to write it like he did...)

The kids were rolling over on the floor laughing, and they didn't even know key details!   So when 2 stars and a wish came around, the kids said they loved how he made them laugh, but they really wanted to know who Bee Bee was (his cat, which really made the kids laugh harder) and why did he want to spank her?   (because she kept meowing)...I asked him how that worked for him, and he said, not too well, because she kept doing it. 

This was validation for him.  It was an aha moment, and a teachable moment on how important it is to be clear...but also taught the kids how important it was for them to write and tell us about their lives.  

The coach, by the way, stated she wanted badly to introduce that she had a text to self connection with her dog and their family pizza eaten off the counter, but that she didn't want to distract the kids..

See what I would have missed had I never taken the chance?   It's such a flexible program, research based, and best of all, AUTHENTIC.

This is why we write; OUR WRITING CONNECTS US....