in January it's so nice

We now resume our regularly scheduled programming...Happy New Year, everyone!

Update from Room 166: 
On January 2 I repeated a most successful lightbulb idea from last year.  Having read a number of books by Leo Lionni, we enjoyed Tillie and the Wall, in which Tillie, the youngest and most curious mouse living near a seemingly boundless wall, wonders what's on the other side.  After several tries, she hits on the idea of digging under it.  She tunnels along and emerges on the other side to find not the fantastical plants and animals she imagined, but regular mice just like herself.  All the same they're delighted to meet her and there is celebration with flags and confetti and a party. 

We talked about the old year and the new year, and how the new year is new but very much the same as the old--and then we "tunneled" under all the tables from 2013 to 2014,  cheering and greeting each other as we emerged on the not-so-different other side.  It's always delightful to celebrate.

On January 6 I opened up my raggedy, yellowed, dogeared big book of Chicken Soup with Rice for the 25th time and took yet another class of children on a foolish and fanciful trip around the year.  Of course we have to sing it, and just in case there is anyone who does not know Carole King's Really Rosie (a scripted, animated and most importantly scored conglomeration of Maurice Sendak's Nutshell Library), here is the video we've been watching and moving to on all these days of indoor recess.  Most satisfactory kindergarten poetry, don't you agree?

 

 

I tell you once, I tell you twice,

all seasons of the year are nice

for eating chicken soup

eating chicken soup

eating chicken soup with rice!

(chicken soup, chicken soup with ri-ice)

 

Update from my own personal Writer's Workshop:

With critical help from members of the Poets' Garage (especially Liz Steinglass) and the generous Laura Shovan, I have finally completed a WIP that has been underway for more than five years!  It's a good feeling to have that done, and it was a great luxury to spend hours and hours pulling it together, especially those spent in Seaford, England at The Well Cottage.

 

No, this is not a gorgeous, charming and comfortable B&B offering writers' retreats--but it could be.  It's the new home of my mother-in-law and her partner, and they hosted us for Christmas AND provided poet support services that you couldn't pay enough for elsewhere.  I'm very grateful.

 

Please slip and slide on over to Mainely Write with Donna for this week's Poetry Friday round-up.



OIK Tuesday: a little hot soup for you

I've been away on vacation WITHOUT my computer (gasp!) but have returned to continue my series featuring the poems--and songs--that became part of my kindergarten class's Poetry Anthology last year.  We began 2012 with an introduction to the months of the year, and what better way to do that than with Chicken Soup with Rice?  Authored and illustrated by Maurice Sendak (RIP) and part of his Nutshell Library, this and other poems were later set to music by Carole King, and were in their turn animated as part of the Really Rosie movie.  Here's another of our favorites in this group of whimsies, "Alligators All Around":

For the class, I made copies of all twelve verses of Chicken Soup with Rice and each child selected their favorite one to illustrate for their anthology.  Here's August:

In August it will be so hot
I will become a cooking pot,
Cooking soup, of course--why not?
Cooking once,
Cooking twice,
Cooking chicken soup with rice!

Long ago in a first-grade class in East Harlem, we turned this song into a performance, with kids acting out each little scene and everybody chanting the names of the months in order in between verses.  Those kids left first grade knowing the months of the year for sure!  If you're a teacher and would like a copy of the sheets I made--nothing fancy--for Chicken Soup with Rice, let me know in the comments and I'll send it to you.

Poems from Montreal on Friday!