OIK: academic vocabulary

Outside, during our daily 5-minute run-around:

Me:  "Look up and notice the clouds.  First they were over there and now they're over on this side of the sky.  How do you think that happened?"

Julee:  "Maybe the clouds collaborated together to travel through the sky."

***********************
wind and
clouds
collaborate
circulate

wind and
clouds
accumulate
elaborate

nimbly swim
across the sky

clouds
somnambulate

the dishwasher of my mind

This is going to be one of those posts where I attempt to connect and convey quite a few overlapping ideas; luckily all teachers in Maryland have the day off in case they want to attend the state NEA convention, so I have some extra time today.  I'll be spending it with you all on Poetry Friday and in the Garage, but getting a late start, because sometimes a girl just has to sleep in.

Yesterday I heard this fascinating piece on NPR about new research regarding the role of sleep in animals, including humans.  Why we need to sleep is a question that has puzzled scientists, because in terms of the survival of any species, sleep is costly--way too many opportunities for an individual's entire genome to be snapped up off the face of the earth in the dark of night.

It's beginning to look like the function of sleep is to shut down other processes of the brain so that it can be flushed--literally flushed--by an influx of cerebral spinal fluid that washes away the toxic waste proteins accumulated during a day of learning, thinking, problem-solving, remembering.  In fact, brains that don't have an efficient sleeptime plumbing system to remove proteins like amyloid-beta are brains which have neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer's.

This question of sleep is on my mind too, because as in many school districts, we've been having a push to Start School Later, especially for adolescents, whose sleep cycles shift with the onset of puberty.  When a kid's melatonin (the sleepy hormone) doesn't kick in until 11pm or midnight, and then she has to get up at 5:50am to catch a bus to high school that starts at 7:25, a kid is routinely missing out on 3-4 hours of the sleep time that allows her brain to perform that essential cleansing process.  Here's some info on what other effects this ritual abuse of our young people can have on them and on the rest of us, courtesy of the national organization Start School Later.

Here in Montgomery County, MD, a surprising thing recently happened--the newish Superintendent of Schools read all the findings of our SSL Work Group and recommended that we actually move towards doing it!  Start time for high school would be pushed back to 8:15 and middle school would stay roughly the same at 7:45. Elementary schools would start at 8:45, as now, but have the school day extended by 30 minutes to allow the staggered triple school bus runs that we currently depend on.  I have high hopes that we can work this out over the next year--it's a win-win and a good step towards better aligning the  schedules and calendars of working families and schools.

But, you may ask, where is the poetry in all this?  Well, on Wednesday I spent 3.5 hours in chair reviewing and planning the entire kindergarten curriculum for Marking Period 2 at high speed.  By the end my head was spinning and I thought, "This is what our kiddos feel like every day!" We have a highly compressed kindergarten day in which we attempt teach a huge mass of concepts, skills and indicators without sufficient time to balance it all with a relaxed lunch, sufficient recess, or indoor creative play. At the end of our meeting, our Staff Development Teacher acknowledged that we had been "jambarded" by information, and a poem was seeded.  (Thanks for the great word, Joelle Thompson!)

The last thing you need to know is that this year our school serves universal breakfast in the classroom, which is a great thing with a lot of unintended consequences for instructional time and also tabletop cleanliness.

************************
The dishwasher of my mind


Happy happy Tuesday
I've been up since 6 o'clock
the password at the door is like
this is how we walk in line
(does my name contain a b?
what to choose for lunch?)
after breakfast and announcements
(read the job chart, pledge allegiance,
total rainfall and respect)

the plates
in my brain
are already
jambarded
with
"whole grain" cinnamon buns
sticky bombs of how-to-do-it
protein packs of need-to-know
jammy wraps of chant-it-fast
but

morning meeting, hello greeting
(say the rhyme sit down stand up)
plans and practice sounds and spelling
Quiet Reading all four steps and why
why do we quiet-read?
(shaky egg the Teacher Table
reading groups fly in and out)
she won't know unless I read it
date it draw it what's my center?
now clean up

the bowls
in my brain
are filled to
overflowing
with
maple syrup-flavored pancakes
fudgy sauce of mix-and-fix
fatty folder-fill-it worksheets
spicy soup of story time
and

now it's time for lunch.
It's loud.

I need a chance to wash my dishes,
rinse and scrub and scour my brain,
clean off all the dried-on layers,
greasy gunk of what I learned,
sizzled residue of thinking.

Can't I lay my head inside a
shiny box with glowing buttons,
start the cycle,
take a nap?


~Heidi Mordhorst
    draft 2013

*******************************
The Poetry Friday round-up today is with Cathy at Merely Day by Day.  I see her Teachers Writing badge, and I'm glad to have the chance to be one!

mortimer bounces back...

...to answer this question:

"What poem do you wish you had written?"

Oh--do you mean the one that came to me at a crucial moment in the development of a healthier, looser grip on, well, everything?  You mean the one that I printed out in turquoise and taped to the inside of the mug cupboard, so that I see it every morning whether it's a tea morning or a coffee morning?  You mean this one, by my friend Liz Steinglass?  This little miracle poem, packed with images both fresh and nostalgic? This one that reminds me that there is both celebration and shatter in every day, that flow takes practice and that laughter is the last word?

"Yes," says Mortimer, "this one."

*****************************************************

Pool | Liz Steinglass 

Cool me.
Soothe me. 
Paint me blue and lose me.
Hold me.
Enclose me.
Show me how to flow.
Celebrate
My crashing,
Shatter
Into splashing,
Collapse in waves
Of laughing.
When I’ve gone,
Sit still.

Thanks for letting me share this, Liz, and thanks for asking, Mortimer.
Go get splashed by more poetry with Dori today over at Dori Reads.

OIK Tuesday

 

Keeping it together in Room 166 is a big job these days.  Good work is getting done somehow, despite trials and tantrums, but there's not much left of me at the end of the day and what's Overheard in Kindergarten doesn't tend to be very poetic, especially out of my exasperated mouth.

However, there have been a couple of gems out of other mouths, including one from a Concepts of Print assessment that I conducted with a supersharp Level 1 ESOL student.  Please pardon my terrible Spanish, but I was trying to help him show everything he knew and that required me to be (as ma belle-mere once said of my French) "colorful and communicative."

************
Tell me, Elmer
from El Salvador,
Tell me:  What is this?

"Puntito!" Yes, it is!
It's a period in English,
but don't stop there--
Que dice el puntito?
Tu no sabes?  Never mind.

Y aqui, este marco,
what is this?  Conoces tu?
...A comma makes us pause,
ellipsis while you think...

Elmer, por favor,
what is this cutlass blade
atop a dot?

Eyes wide, sidelong glance,
leaning in, whispered breath--
                                             "Misterio!"
You earn yourself
an exclamation mark.

~Heidi Mordhorst 2013
   draft

*************************
I so wish I could show you a 3-second video of his face when he whispered, "Misterio!"  The drama was gripping.  Go get gripped by more poetry (no doubt including some punctuation) with Dori today over at Dori Reads.

And now, rather belatedly, I need to thank somebunny once again for tagging me last week to do the Children's Poetry Blog Hop with Mortimer...if you didn't get there, please visit Laura Shovan's post and Janet Fagal's, and look forward to seeing Joy Acey's Mortimer Minute this week! Here's how it works:

 

1) Make up three questions you've always wanted to be asked in an interview about children's poetry and then answer them on your own blog (suggestion: use one question posted by the person who invited you to the Hop).

2) Invite one, two, or three other poetry bloggers to join the Hop. Children's poetry is preferred, but all poetry lovers are welcome.

3) In your post, list the names of the bloggers you invited and give the dates when they'll be posting for the Poetry Blog Hop.

 

Mortimer says, "Time for bed," and he's right....

 

 

children's poetry blog hop

 

Yes, there is a Children's Poetry Blog Hop, and I was contacted by Laura Shovan and Janet Fagal about participating.  It began I'm not sure when and I'm not sure how, but these guidelines come from April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors:

To participate in the Poetry Blog Hop, simply:
1) Make up three questions you've always wanted to be asked in an interview about children's poetry and then answer them on your own blog;
2) Invite one, two or three other bloggers who write poetry (preferably children's poetry, but we're broad-minded) to answer any three questions that they make up on their own blogs (they can copy someone else's questions if they'd like)
3) In your post, let us know who your invitees are and when they're are going to be posting their own Poetry Blog Hop questions and answers...if you know the dates.
I'm ready to do part 1 today and I'm working on parts 2 and 3...there doesn't seem to be any need to rush the hopping, and I don't have time to rush anyway!  Here are my questions for myself:

1)  What's your favorite Children's Poet Laureate project?
2)  Which poems from it do you love?
3)  Which poem would you have contributed to it, if you had been asked?

******************************************************************************
1)   Before I answer this directly, I must release a short rant on the fact that when one searches for a LIST of children's poet laureates, selected by the Poetry Foundation rather than the Librarian of Congress, as the [adult] Poet Laureate is, one finds no such useful list, no Wikipedia page, no helpful overview.  I feel the Poetry Foundation oughta do something about this tout de suite.

Now then:  I adore The Tree That Time Built, an anthology selected by Mary Ann Hoberman and Linda Winston and published in 2009 to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and the 250th anniversary of the publication of  The Origin of Species.  I am always particularly tickled by connections and integrations, and I love it that the Children's Poet Laureate looked outward into the world of science (and, unavoidably, social science) to find a subject for her anthology, and then selected and arranged poems that light up that complex subject for young readers.

Another thing I like about The Tree That Time Built (and you can see my previous post on it here) is that it draws on the work of past and contemporary children's poets like David McCord and Marilyn Singer but also on the work of adults' poets like Sylvia Plath and Wendell Berry.  The more we children's poetry people can convince "adult" poets that their work can speak to young people, the more chances we have to show that our work is worthy of adults.  And when the topic is science--deep, knowledgeable, informative science--the "seriousness" of our work comes through especially loud and clear.

2)  Here's one from Mary Ann Hoberman herself, perfect for the CP Blog HOP and which showcases Hoberman's terse blend of rhyme, rhythm, imagination and information.

Frog | Mary Ann Hoberman

Pollywiggle
Pollywog
Tadpole
Bullfrog
Leaps on
Long legs
Jug-o-rum
Jelly eggs
Sticky tongue
Tricks flies
Spied by
Flicker eyes
Wet skin
Cold blood
Squats in
Mucky mud
Leaps on
Long legs
Jug-o-rum
Jelly eggs
Laid in
Wet bog …
Pollywiggle
Pollywog.

And here, from Felice Holman, a favorite of mine for pinning down that feeling that is at the core of middle childhood, that key to Growing Up, that moment when you see yourself suddenly from outside, as just one thread in the interdependent web of all existence.

Who Am I? | Felice Holman

The trees ask me,

And the sky,
And the sea asks me
                         Who am I?

The grass asks me,

And the sand,
And the rocks ask me
                         Who I am.
 
The wind tells me
At nightfall,
And the rain tells me
                Someone small.

Someone small
Someone small
                      But a piece
                                    of
                                    it
                                    all.


3)  Say Mary Ann had asked me for a poem for The Tree That Time Built...I'd have sent her this one, from Pumpkin Butterfly, also published in 2009.

 

GUEST LIST:

Charles Darwin’s Garden Party 

 

balsam fir

spotted dolphin

pink verbena

garter snake

 

fragrant white water lily

grizzly sow

Crater Lake 

gnarled pinyon

Painted Hills

tag alder

red bat pup 

beebalm and bluebonnets

mountain lion

fungus cup 

swallowtail

coneflower

Death Valley

prairie dog 

Virginia creeper

Keyhole Arch

black-browed albatross 

Moose Creek

paperbark

columbine

tiger shark

 

 *****************************************************************************
I just never get tired of all the wild diversity in the world!  Thanks to those who invited me to hop along.  I "hop" to invite some others to participate in the coming week.  Now let's all hop on over to The Poem Farm with Amy for today's roundup!

catch them unawares

I spent yesterday evening writing a social story for one of my new Minnows, so I didn't write a poem or a post.  But I can share the joy of of this OIK moment...

We're working with the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears this week and alongside it, enjoying reading and preparing for a Teddy Bears' Picnic this afternoon.  Watching the video above, Angelo said, "What are they talking underwears for?  You put that on your buttie-butt!" 

pfams weather

We had some exciting weather yesterday outside our kindergarten classroom: at 1:35 we went out for our five-minute scream-and-chase-fest and noticed, despite the sunny sky and sweltering heat (and the screaming), some pretty powerful rumbles of thunder.  By 1:45 it had grown darkly cloudy and the rain was peltering down.  Lightning had joined the thunder, which was then joined by gleeful and fearful shrieking of 5-year-olds. 

We stopped looking at yesterday's-best Writing Workshop work and spun around on our blue sitting lines to face the weather graph, where we recorded.....our first rainy day in September!  And wind!  And still red-hot out there! 

[As I struggled to maintain control amid the storm and get everybody settled into Think-Draw-Write-Read mode, my parent volunteer, in for the first time, spoke the words we teachers long to hear, because so many people believe otherwise:  "This is a very difficult job--I don't know how you do it."]

All of this weather sent me looking for a sudden storm poem.  I picked up The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School and found three mighty enjoyable Week 9: Weather poems.  7th grade has Leslea Newman's "After the Blizzard, Outside My Window," and 8th grade has the rather exquisite "Sunbeam Confesses Its Love of Geometry" by Mary Lee Hahn, but it was in 6th grade that I found a poem closest to my stormy afternoon.  In case it's not obvious--I identified with the general. 


Racing the Clouds | Jacqueline Jules

The sky
is the color of a battleship.
Raindrops
wait with heavy breath,
like tense soldier listening
for a general's barked command.
The battle
will begin tonight.
But now
the sidewalk summons,
and a warm breeze kisses my cheek.
I'll take a chance
and race the clouds.
Hear my heart pound
in rhythm with my feet.

©The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School 2013

The round-up today is with Jen at Teach Mentor Texts, a new place for me.  And really, don't miss my Tuesday post below, a poem I found in my Comments inbox.  It's just too good (better than my blog lately).  And oh my gosh!  I almost neglected to mention that I am now a member of the Poets' Garage!  This is a wonderful development for me and I'm grateful for the opportunity, plus I like the cool badge.  Thanks to all the poets and clever administerial types who make the Garage run like greased lightnin'.

OIK Tuesday: I will certainly be back

I was trying to write for my kindergarteners, from my kindergarteners, but then I found this comment in my inbox, too perfect to resist.

http://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2012/12/oik-thursday-profligate.html

Its like you learn my thoughts!

You appear to grasp
so much approximately this,
like you wrote
the e-book in it or something.
I believe that you can do
with a few p.c.
to pressure the message home
a little bit, however other than that,
this is excellent blog.
An excellent read.

I will certainly be back.

ish

With apologies to Peter Reynolds, here is a first week of school poem.

Monday
startish
English German
Spanish
beamish teamish
done

Tuesday
begin again
togetherish
hot and sticky meish
becomes a ragged weish

Wednesday
tiredish
tearish clingish screamish
ac busted steamish
oops a trigger:
nothing ish
about this fit!
this afternoon feels
endlish
I love you please go home

Thursday
freshish
ac fixed relaxish
cryish calmish
routine is a balmish
hey an anchor:
nothing ish
about this song!
listen to us sing

first day feast

This amazing and delicious school-supply buffet by Jamie from Setting the Mood.  Suddenly I'm starving...

It's that time again.  In large part because of a course I took which required me to log 100 hours of "Preparing Effective Curriculum,"  I've been thinking about school all summer, and I knew because of the pattern of our family activities that this summer would feel particularly short.  But here we are on the morning of my first day back (yes, one ahead of the general schedule for special staff development) and I could say:  my summer's over.

As Daisy reminded me, Summer itself is not over, not by a long shot, but it's hard to remember that in the perennially pleasurable flurry of newness.  I participated in the exit interview for that course yesterday and sat with three other teachers who appreciate, as I do, the chance to Begin Anew each year, to rethink and improve and correct and refresh and embark and attempt.  We also appreciate the break that allows us to do this each summer.  I don't have to tell most of you that teachers have summer breaks because they NEED them to recover and regroup--ours is one of the most continuously intense kinds of work there is. 

[I believe in this annual New Beginning even though I also believe that we here in the US need to rethink our whole school schedule and move to the European one of just-about year-round school.*  It's the only thing that makes sense in our modern culture, and it's better for children and working families as well as teachers.]

So here's a Begin Anew poem.

First Day Feast

"Fresh" is a word I hear about food,
like "crisp" and "juicy" and "ripe."
But things feel fresh on the first day of school:
my new clothes are crisp,
my markers are juicy,
my brain feels ready and ripe.
All the stuff I learned last year
has sunk in deep and wet,
like feet in the sand and me in the pool.
Now I'm hungry!  Now I'm set
for a feast of the first-day type!

HM 2013
draft

The round-up today is over at steps and staircases on tumblr, with our new host Lisa.  I hope I'm doing the right thing to post my link...

*In England, where I taught for 5 years, there are three terms of 12 weeks.  Each term is broken into two 6-week chunks by an entire week of half-term break, and there are 2-week breaks between terms.  School thus finishes around Wimbledon time each year, mid-July, and the summer break is "only" 6 weeks or so, but since teachers have not been driven sniveling into the ground by endless weeks of school punctuated only by the occasional Monday off, they don't need quite so much time to recover and regroup--that process is more ongoing.

[OIK] Tuesday: the best part of the day

I'm working on my vow to write for kids, little ones, for a while...I have no kindergarten voices to draw on right now, so I'll be the 5-year-old for now. (This chart is not from my classroom, but it's nice, right?)

 

A Reason to Rejoice

 

Some of my friends are scared to choose-

all they can think of is what they'll lose.

But being the boss makes me rejoice:

My favorite time of day is Choice.

 

HM 2013

draft

a roller coaster called kindergarten

As I return to "real" life after a long and fantastic trip to the France and Italy of our extended family, I'm grateful to Mary Lee for wisely reminding me that control is my favorite illusion:

A Teacher Turns the Calendar Page From July to August

It's the same feeling you get

just after you've nudged the sled

over the shoulder

of the hill.

Movement becomes momentum

and quickly shifts

to catapulting and careening.

You relinquish control

and hold on

for the ride.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2013

I'm also grateful to my father for sending me this poem that he found in the pages of the always stimulating Christian Century magazine.  It reminds me that it's not about the weight of the papers and planning and posters and pencils; the joy in this ride comes from the small mammals strapped in next to you on the roller coaster.

If I become like you, I will write about a roughed grouse | Brian Doyle

If I become like you I will write about a roughed grouse,
Says the boy, five years old, with a face like a chipmunk
Storing up winter browse. We are at his school, where he
And the other small mammals have written things for me
On bright scraps of paper. He hands me his paper and I’ll
Carry it in my wallet the rest of my life. Mister Brian, the
Sun is raining all around, another child says to me. It is up
And down sun, she says. I want to be a cookie when I’m
Your age, says another child. Once we were all monkeys
In skirts made from the skins of trees, says a boy with an
Icicle tattoo. It’s templorary, he says, explaining it to me.
I laugh and he laughs and every kid there starts laughing.
I think I am going to fly up gently into the air over a tree
From joy, as saints used to float when gripped by ecstasy.
That happened to Saint Joseph Cupertino, you remember,
Seventy times, it is said, and now I know why: no gravity.

----------------------------
I hope to make this the last poem written for adults for a good while and challenge myself to do that thing I like best, which is write for kids.  I thank Margaret over at the round-up at Reflections on the Teche for reminding me what a supportive community this is; I think I'm going to need it.

For now, I will lower my expectations a bit.  The title is for the grown-ups, but the poem works for little ones.


On Rearranging the Classroom, Again

It really matters where you sit,
whichever way you look at it.
Choose the middle of the middle;
that way you see it all a little.

Heidi Mordhorst 2013

                                  And here's a photo I came across that I just need to share...

http://s205.photobucket.com/user/elbowsandknuckles/media/monks_roller_coaster.jpg.html?