Is There Poetry In the Air?

I noticed it this morning
When I first got out of bed,
That there was something buzzing
In the air around my head

It was hard to see them clearly
But they focused over time
And I saw the buzzing shadows
Were words joining up in rhyme

They were diving, they were swooping
They flew all around my home
And when they finally landed
I could see they made a poem.

The poem stayed put a minute
Then words scrambled here and there
Taking off and out the window
There was poetry in the air.

–E. Phillips 2007

April is just around the corner, and along with April showers, it brings National Poetry Month.

Take a look at some of the fun poetry websites I’ve collected for you below, where you can read, listen to and learn to write poetry. Which poem is your favorite and why? Try your hand at creating your own original poem to share.

Check out these sites today!
Scholastic.com

Giggle Poetry

Shel Silverstein.com

Garden of Song at Kidzpage

Poetry Foundation

Tech4Learning, the company that makes Twist, Pixie and Frames (as well as Imageblender, Mediablender and Weblender) is having a contest for students just like you! Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be to design an invention that will make the world a better place.

Here are the details (Pay close attention, winners get an iPod Shuffle and a class pizza party!):

As I write this post, I’m sitting in a classroom at the New York Hilton Hotel in Manhattan waiting for my class on podcasting to begin. Some of you might ask “Why are you taking a class in podcasting, when you’ve been doing podcasts with us already?” The answer is that I love learning how to do things better. I could probably figure out how to do some new and interesting podcasts with you on my own, but it’s so much more fun to be in a class with other people who want to learn and who are excited about learning. I’ll report back to you after I get home from this conference, which is sponsored by PBS/Channel Thirteen and is called a “Teaching and Learning Celebration.”Oh, if I forget, remind me to show you the picture I took with The Cat in the Hat.

My favorite (okay, my second favorite, #1 is “Green Eggs and Ham”) Dr. Seuss book is “Fox In Socks.” When my children were small I loved to read this to them…very fast. The challenge in reading “Fox In Socks” fast is that the entire book is one big tongue twister!

Since my boys are all grown up, I haven’t had the opportunity to practice my tongue twisting skills for a few years, so I thought it would be fun to read “Fox In Socks” to you, in honor of Read Across America . To hear my reading, click on “Fox In Socks” in the Audio Files menu to the right.

Get yourself a copy of “Fox In Socks” and see if you can match my reading time of 4 minutes and 19 seconds (that includes a short musical introduction, so the actual reading time was a little bit less). Remember, it only counts if you can do it without making any mistakes!

Post your best reading time in the comment box and I’ll see if we can have the student with the best time create a recording to add to our blog.

For some extra fun with Dr. Seuss, check out Seussville!
Here’s a tribute to Dr. Seuss I wrote last year. Hope you enjoy it this year!

A little tribute in honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday, March 2!
Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!
You’re much more fun than Mother Goose!
Your words just dance across the page
And bring a smile to every age.

I always pick the tricky Fox
Who talks in twisters wearing socks.
Fox in Socks just cannot lose,
But which Seuss story would you choose?

Now that it’s coming to an end, I started to think about the February vacation and where it came from.  Did you know that we didn’t always have a February break? Way back when , we just got a day off for Lincoln’s birthday and a day off for Washington’s birthday. During the energy crisis, I think in the 1970s, it was decided that closing schools for a week in February, traditionally the coldest and snowiest month of the year, would save a tremendous amount of heating fuel and money for schools.  Wrapping the vacation around the Presidential birthdays was convenient, and I’m sure gave the stores a good reason to run sales.  A win-win situation.

You might be interested to know that there are schools in the last few years that have decided to do away with the February vacation break, because they believed breaking up the school year so soon after the December vacation was not helpful to students, who they felt would forget too much of what they learned by this interruption.

What do you think about this? Do you feel that we should get rid of the February vacation to help you learn more (and maybe end school a little bit earlier) or do you think we should keep things just as they are?  Remember to explain WHY you feel the way you do.

Students in class 5-407 worked on a Black History Month tribute in the form of first-person speeches by notable African Americans. They browsed through a group of websites I posted on the fifth grade wiki to select an individual to research, and then were able to get additional information by using the Google custom search engine linked to the wiki. After completing their research, each student wrote a speech in the first person, to introduce their subject in our PS 233 Tribute to Black History podcast. Several students also wrote brief introductions to head up each of our eight podcast episodes.  We also created a CD with all of the episodes, which we hope will be broadcast over the school PA system throughout the month.

I’m really proud of your accomplishment! Way to go kids!

Chris Van Allsburg has always been one of my favorite children’s authors, His surreal art work and off-kilter stories piqued the imaginations of my own children as they grew up. I think he captures the dark side of a child’s imagination with his wonderful illustrations and fanciful narratives. A particularly outstanding book is The Mystery of Harris Burdick. Unusual in its lack of narrative, Harris Burdick compels the reader to create their own stories to accompany the mysterious illustrations and captions that make up the book. My own children enjoyed writing on the blank pages and creating their own publication. The fourth and fifth graders I work with seem to find it immensely enjoyable as well. The difference is that now my students can hone their craft on our class wikispace, allowing for peer review and back channel dialogue about their writing.

Once their stories are completed, students have the option of recording their creation, which is then set to music and presented for everyone to enjoy in a podcast. I hope to upload a new episode of our Harris Burdick podcasts every couple of weeks throughout the year.

Our first two episodes are ready for your listening pleasure. Enjoy! And please let us know what you think about them.

The Mystery of Harris Burdick Unraveled

In watching the news on the wildfire in California, I was struck by the power of Nature to humble us. One of the landmarks that was destroyed in the blaze was the Malibu Castle, which I was lucky enough to have seen on my vacation in California this past summer. When we drove down the Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu (with me hanging out the car window taking pictures as my brother drove) I saw this castle and wondered what it was. Now I know. And now it’s gone. Very sad.

When I was a little girl at PS 233, we had assemblies every Friday morning. We all had to wear a white blouse or a white shirt, a red scarf or tie and navy blue skirts or slacks. We vied for the coveted job of flag bearer, where you got to wear a really uncomfortable harness that helped you carry and steady the large American Flag on a heavy wooden pole as you marched down the center aisle of the auditorium, the envy of all the students. When I started working here seven years ago, I was sad to learn that there were no longer weekly assemblies, and in fact, very few assemblies throughout the year. Students no longer had a regular opportunity to practice their listening skills as an atttentive audience, or to share their talents on stage with their classmates.

Happily, assemblies have made a comeback at PS 233. Every other week, two classes get to “strut their stuff” in talent shows–one assembly is for the “littles” in grades Pre-K to 2 and the other is for the big kids in grades 3-5. I think it’s a great way for the students to feel some ownership and sense of community in the school, and it’s a wonderful way for teachers to see their students in a different light.

Here’s a short video of Room 415’s presentation. There’ll be more to follow, so stay tuned to the blog.

Room 415 Talent Show, October 2007

In my travels through the blogsphere, I came across this terrific video that explains, in plain English, exactly how a wiki works. We are using wikis in the computer lab, and I hope that some of our teachers will want to set up wikis for their classrooms as well. Students in Room 419 have been using a wiki to peer edit their autobiographical sketches. We have a fourth grade “New York New York” wiki in the works, and a fifth grade writers wiki. Third graders are going to put together a wikispace with pages full of information they gather about endangered animals. I’m very excited about using this web technology with my students. I’d like to know how you feel about using the wikis, so start writing your comments to let me know!

I know the school network is blocking the video (it’s a YouTube thing) so you can access this terrific and educational short video directly from it’s source:

Commoncraft.Com