For SOLSC 16 and for Poetry Friday - I'm going to the Poem Farm

    The March Slice of Life Challenge is with Ruth and Stacey at the Two Writing Teachers blog 

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Greg at Gotta Book.

Amy Ludwig Vanderwater, a poet who creates the wonderful blog The Poem Farm, read one of my blog posts about teaching memoir a few weeks ago, and invited me to write about the process a bit more if some of the students wrote memoir poems.  Three of the students did do that, so you will find a post about me and my class at Amy’s blog today.  Enjoy the poems; they are special.
If you would like a beautiful poem by Amy to inspire your writing, here is a link to one of her poems.  

photo credit: Olivander via photopin cc

A Memory of Stars - Slice Fifteen

         The March Slice of Life Challenge is with Ruth and Stacey at the Two Writing Teachers blog 

       My mother, grandmother and aunts all created quilts.  My mother was also an artist and loved originating the designs while my aunt created the tried and true quilts that many made, like Sunbonnet Sue and the Log Cabin designs.  Both were crafts people in unique ways, and showed me by modeling that if I chose to, I could do anything.  I did do quite a lot of sewing and crafting during the years I stayed home with my children, but when I returned to teaching, it became harder to find the time.  I admire anyone who takes the time to persist in such a large project as a quilt, like my mom.

One birthday, after my family had moved a few states away, and visited only a few times a year, I received a large box from my mom.  I figured she had packed a gift for me, along with some other 'add-ins' for the kids.  When I opened it, there was this quilt.  I hadn't known it was a project because the last time I'd visited, she had been working on one of the quilts where you embroider squares, then put them all together.  The added surprise is that this quilt displays so many stars.  I have collections of several kinds of stars in my life, in jewelry, cookie cutters, and so on.  This special affinity for stars started with a tease from a grandfather who constantly told me I was so special because I was born with a star on my birth certificate!  Of course, as a young child, I believed him.  It was only in my adult years that I actually saw my birth certificate and realized that what he said was just a loving phrase.  However, my mother remembered this from so long ago, and made the quilt for me-full of stars.  She was a special mom!

The first round words in Ed DeCaria's Madness! 2012 (Kids' Poetry. Under Pressure.)  have been sent out and 64 Poets are busily writing poems.  My poem is in that first round.  Second round words are up today.  It's very exciting!

Mardie's Post Brings The Bread Man - Slice 14

Thanks to Ruth and Stacey, The SOLSC Challenge is at theTwo Writing Teachers blog 

          Mardie, in her blog, Mardie’s Notebook, wrote about her passion for all kinds of bread.  As I also am a lover of bread, I loved every grainy word!  How strange our minds work, because also while reading the words, I immediately remembered a part of my life growing up that connected to bread.  No, it isn’t the homemade rolls made by one grandmother or the biscuits created by the other; it is a memory of the Manor Bread Man. 

The Manor Company had a fleet of trucks that did home deliveries in little towns, saving trips to the grocery store.  Just as the milkman comes to our house today, he came twice a week to deliver fresh loaves of bread, breakfast pastries, and an extra treat of conversation.  Remember this was the time in the 1950’s after World War II that held the difficult shortages and food rationing.  We do not look upon white sliced bread as anything good nutritionally today, but then it was a time that women began to want to do things more easily.  Some were beginning to give up rising early (no pun intended) to bake bread, plus other time savers were appearing like wringer washers and electric ranges.      

When our bread man appeared, he brought the regular order, and stepped into the house with a giant tray of goodies:  brown ‘n serve rolls, Danish pastries, tiny powdered donuts and more.  He and my grandmother had a friendly chat, and I was given permission to choose something special.  I suspect we gained absolutely no value for our bodies from these gluten-filled baked goods, but a visit from a deliveryman on a sunny morning surely sustained the lonely housewives’ souls.

 This decade after the war was a transitional era for women with new time on their hands when husbands went off to work.  The fifties hold more important ideas to ponder when thinking about housewives, but this time, I’m just remembering the bread man as an exciting visitor at my grandparents’ home when I was a little girl.

photo credit: Big Grey Mare ~ Back--But Barely via photopin cc


Postscript:  The first round words in Ed DeCaria's Madness! 2012 (Kids' Poetry. Under Pressure.)  have been sent out and 64 Poets are busily writing poems.  It's very exciting!

Slice Thirteen - A Good Number For This Craziness

 The SOLSC Challenge is at the Two Writing Teachers blog hosted by Ruth and Stacey - Lots of Great Words To Read!










        During the next three weeks, a crazy guy named Ed DeCaria at ThinkKidThink is hosting a bracket of 64 poets to stand up to the test of writing a children's poem with a word given at random, and competing in a bracket (a la the March madness basketball tournament).  He may be a basketball fan, but is possibly even more of a poetry fan.  Crazy me, I joined the group, and if there really is safety in numbers, there are sixty-three others whose names are also on that bracket.  Want to know more?  Click on the blog's link.  Those in the first round received their word last night, but I won't receive my word until tonight.  Thanks to everyone who is slicing for through your words I'm learning to be a better writer every day.  I need all the help I can get!

Here is my reflection of this in poetic terms:

I have anxiety attacks
when contemplating
competition.
(What if they are so much better?)
I want my performance
to be
the
very
best.
(But when the phrases bend left,
and the rhymes feel stretched)
I wonder how others
will perceive words
I have written?
(Will there really be a gold star?)

Then,
I tell myself:
Settle down,
relax,
(Take deep breaths, or is it deep kneebends?)
Write only for
improvement.
The formal slip states:
It is permitted
to be less
than perfect.

I earn
a large pat
on the back.
(Better than disquiet,
better than worry.)

I have grown a little more.

Reading Monday - Slice of Life 12

Reading Wrap-Up is my twelth slice with Stacey and Ruth at the Two Writing Teachers March SOLC  

You can hook up with this kitlit meme: It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA at teach mentor texts, thanks to Jen and Kellee!  Please visit to find out what others are reading!

  It's Monday! What are you Reading? is another meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys, a variety of reviews to find even more books for your TBR list. 

-----------------------------

I had the pleasure of filling in for the librarians last week while they taught a class in the tech lab.  While I say pleasure, it’s also a challenge for me to be in our school library.  Once I start browsing, it’s all over; the books pile up to read!  At least it didn’t cost me any money.

In between helping students I managed to read some terrific picture books:

A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka – This year’s Caldecott winner. – A wordless picture book that would be good with students to help them find the details that help ‘tell’ the story.  It’s a cute story.

A Day’s Work – by Eve Bunting – illustrated by Ronald Himler – Any Eve Bunting is good.  This is a sweet story about a boy who helps his grandfather to find day labor work.  He makes a mistake that would be a good discussion by readers about honesty and consequences.

The Greatest Skating Race – by Louise Borden – illustrated by Niki Daly – Based on an adventure with two children having to help a friend escape the Nazis by skating the canals of The Netherlands to another country.   The illustrations are beautiful; the story is inspiring.          

        I recently bought Hans The Hedgehog – by Kate Coombs – illustrated by  John Nickle because I read her wonderful blog, The Book Aunt –   I can imagine reading this aloud to enjoy with young children as well as to use as an example for students writing their own fairy tales.  It has all the lovely parts:  love and faith, honesty and integrity, and the happiest of endings.   Kate talks about her newest book that is on my TBR list, Water Sings Blue, on the link above.

        Wonder by R.J. Palacio – I think I slowed down my reading of this book because I read it, and sometimes re-read pages, thought much about it, and savored it.  So many have written about it that I won’t say more than it is a wonder-filled read that touched my heart for so many children (and adults) that face physical challenges.  I thought of those I know personally and the soldiers coming home from our long fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.  If you want to read a longer and beautiful review, read Tara's post yesterday at A Teaching Life.   I believe the book can make a difference in how one looks at others, making a beautiful conversation with a group.

       I finished The Boy In The Striped Pajamas by John Boyne for the book group I’m teaching.  We’ll have our final book group meeting next week.

Next:  I’m sticking to one book:  Same Sun Here, by Silas House and Neela Vaswani.  It’s starting well and so far is interesting to read a book written in letters.  I haven't read many pages yet because I'm reading so many blog posts in the Slice of Life Challenge.

Finally, I am stealing a quote from a book reviewed on a Nerdy Book Club post I read recently.  The quote is from a paranormal book titled Shatter Me, by Tahereh Mafi: “I spent my life folded between the pages of books."  I haven’t read the book yet, but isn’t that quote terrific? 

Happy Reading!