Chalk-A-Bration October 2013

Are you new to Chalk-A-Bration? 

Here is some background:
Chalk-A-Bration began back in March of 2012 when my husband and I were chalking on our driveway with our children. He began writing song lyrics and I began to think that a poem in chalk would be neat. I decided to do a Slice of Life in chalk for my SOLSC and the response got me thinking further. What if others wanted to chalk a poem? My husband pushed me to start the celebration and Chalk-A-Bration was born.

I chalk with my students now and the excitement they have at the end of the month is always a delight. They love to illustrate and write poetry in chalk. I hope you will join and bring your students along for the ride as well.

Here is my chalk poem for the month:

With a tinge of green

an atomic clock

ticks, as colors stalk

they spread

like red fire

emblazoned

embellished

encapsulated color. 

My daughter joined me in the driveway this week too. She was inspired by trees we drove past when going on a "color drive" this past weekend. It seems they inspired both of us.

 I hope you will come back to see all the celebrations students and grown-ups create. In the meantime you need to go out and chalk, take a photo and link up! Remember, we aren't picky here at Teaching Young Writers, link up today, tomorrow any time in the near future and be sure to check out the other chalkers! Come back at the end of each month to share in the celebration of poetry and chalk.

AND THE CHALKERS ARE...

Margaret Simon from Reflections on the Teche shares her students spooky collection of chalk poetry.

Linda Baie from Teacherdance has a goulishly frightful poem using a chalk app! 

Robin from Teaching Tomorrow's Leaders is in with her students chalk illustrations. Even though it was raining they broke out the chalk.

Miss Scott and her students from First Grade Learners and Wonderers are in with a poem about What Halloween Is.

An All Week Celebration

I was lucky this week. I got to celebrate triumphs and struggles all week long with parents during conferences. Struggles are a celebration as well. We get to see where the child is going. What will they do next? What is their next hurdle to jump and triumph to share?

I won't gloss it over too much. Students have struggles. Struggles that have as much to do with school as they do with their whole life. We all focus on these at times. However, I don't always see this focus as a bad thing as long as we have an ending goal in sight. My mom always says, "What we focus on expands." She is right. If we only focus on what is wrong and despair in this weakness it will grow like a weed in a rosebush.

It was my challenge this week to focus on all that was going well but to also share honestly.

I shared. Parents and I walked through all the content areas and learned where their child excels. Some are really good at Social Studies. Some are showing strength in science. Others are reading well above grade level. Students are growing and learning everyday.

During the conferences, if the students were present, I had them share their writing with their parents. It didn't matter what level the writer was, I did not see a single parent sit quietly or disgusted when their child shared their words. They were proud. They had every right to be proud. The evidence of growth from their once four or five year old, now five or six year old was there; right on the page. Everyone was smiling.
This is what I love about being a teacher of writers. The growth and evidence are always right in front of me. Sometimes with math or science it is harder to show a change over time with evidence. A unit test? It just doesn't have the same effect as a piece of writing from a once four year old to a year later.

Another celebration: Apparently there are rumors going around about me among students and their parents.
I had one parent ask, "So this looping thing, when does that end?"

I was a little taken aback. Uh oh, not sure I like the sound of this. I responded, "Well, after this year they will go to second grade and have a new teacher."

I had thought based on their tone maybe they were unhappy with the looping process. Wrong assumption.

"What? Why? I thought you were going to have them until fourth grade!?"

Upon further questions and discussions with parents, some thought I would continue with their child next year or through third grade, the misconceptions were plenty and I was a little bit touched by their responses. These parents are so invested in me and their child's education. We have a bond. One that will be hard to say goodbye to at the end of the year. I feel a tear already.

And finally, I think I shared a bit of this is a previous celebration. Here is a video of my school's middle school boys football team showing the world what it means to be a champion. I had several of these boys in kindergarten. Talk about needing a kleenex, go get one before you click the link.

REALLY?

Sometimes it still shocks me what my students do and say at writing workshop. Today we had a schedule that deviated from the norm. There were fire trucks for fire safety, a tornado drill....you get the picture. Among all the chaos we had to fit in writing workshop. I knew I would have to cut it a little short, mind you we are up to sometimes more than an hour when all is said and done. When I say cut it short, there is still lots of time. Anyway, one of my little boys had been planning away, had been working on his story diligently and I had to give a "five minute sign" warning. It was just about time for lunch. His response was priceless. You would have thought he lost his dog. Shoulders slumped, sad eyes, a pout, and to top it off a moan...picture it AaaaAAaaAAah!
I looked at him, kind of unsure why he was upset. I mean really, this was a bit over the top.
"Dylan, what is it?" I asked him.
"I wanted to keep writing," in the whiniest voice he could muster.
Then I think my face mirrored his a bit because I felt so sad that I had to tell him to stop soon. He kind of tossed his pencil in frustration and began to clean up. I wasn't going to mention he still had five minutes, he was at the point of no return. But I stood back a moment and felt proud. My kids really love this time of day. It is probably their favorite. They love it so much they would rather write than go to lunch. I call that a big WIN!

Chalk-A-Bration September 2013

I just recently experienced some of the most amazing chalking a girl could ever dream of. Ruth Ayres was celebrating writers in Dublin, OH on Saturday. She suggested, with a little help from Franki Sibberson, that we should chalk some poetry as part of the celebratory conference. I cannot even express how I felt when I returned from lunch and saw a saturation of people among dust and pastels chalking away. Of course I joined in after the shock. Mary Lee Hahn, Cathy Mere, Franki and Ruth all got busy and we chalked up the sidewalk like champions. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE was smiling. What could be better?

Here are some photos and a video that doesn't do the experience justice but you can imagine the excitement. I wish you could have been there (if you weren't already)!

 Ruth Ayres chalk, and I believe Franki Sibberson did the "L." At least that's what I heard. :)

 I wish I could give credit to all the chalkers. There were too many to count!

One group of chalkers.

 Mary Lee Hahn and her beautiful chalk art. 

 My offering this month.

 Some of my favorites.

A perfect day indeed. 

The video shows all the chalk drawings, words and poems. It was such a beautiful day apparently my shadow wanted to be a part of the video too. Enjoy the chalk and the perfect accompanying song, I Chalk by Justin Roberts.

Now it's your turn. Chalk some words (your own or borrowed with the author's name), take a photo, post it to your blog and share the link in the comments. I will happily round-up all the chalketry later today. If you do not have a blog please email me your photo and I will add it to this post, bets577@gmail.com

A side note: If you would like to be a guest blogger on Teaching Young Writers please email me your idea. I consider K-12 students all young writers so I welcome you to contact me.


And the roundup begins!

At Hubbard's Headlines my students share their abration of chalk!

Amy Ludwig VanDerwater from The Poem Farm joins us with a poem in a pear tree!

Cathy Mere from Merely Day By Day came along for the ride this weekend at the Literacy Connection conference in Dublin, OH.

Cathy also had her students join in with a treat filled poem at Merely Learning. See there tasty post too!

See Ruth Ayres celebrate at Ruth Ayres Writes. She also shares her favorite bits of the week.

Katie DiCesare's students chalk inspiration came from a question: What is First Grade? See there chalk at Growing and Learning in First Grade.

Miss Scott's first graders also answer the question: What is First Grade? Check out First Grade Learners and Wonderers post!

Margaret Simon from Reflections on the Teche came prepared for chalking today with chalkboard contact paper! Her students wrote poems for two voices. Go listen now!

Join Robin at Teaching Tomorrow's Leaders for her iPad chalk poem. Thank you my dear friend. 

Sensory Details

Today we began talking about how to add details to our writing. We are starting with sensory detail, something with which they are familiar. This video was a great tool to get a conversation going. It suggested writing in your notebook about what you were noticing in the video clips. We did shared writing instead and ended up noticing that our phrases looked like a poem. Then began the challenge to write a poem about each sense. EXCITEMENT was brewing! We had such a great time. The kids sat for forty minutes as we watched a minute of video, talked and then wrote a poem together. "FORTY MINUTES" you say? Yes, it normally would be way too long, but we were on a roll.

I love my class. Their stamina for learning is fantastic. What a fun lesson and a fun time together. 

Students then went to their writing from yesterday to see if they could add sensory details to make their writing more interesting. Many of them did just that! I use the word amazed a lot as a teacher but I find myself in this position often. I am AMAZED to see them take on learning and utilize it so quickly. I can't wait for tomorrow when we chart what we learned and share our details peer to peer. FUN!

Chalk-A-Bration is coming up soon, September 30th.

I hope you will join in and share your chalk poetry. 

Click here for more information. 

Internal Debate

Thinking

I am finding myself questioning a few things this year because I am in a new grade level. As some of you know, I looped with my kindergarten students this year and am teaching first grade. For the first time! I feel a little bit like a first year teacher.

So, the debate begins. In kindergarten writing workshop we focus a lot on drawing and talking at the beginning of the year. I am finding my students have easily gotten back into the swing of this routine. It has been a great process to observe. I am also finding that they are spending a great deal of time drawing their picture instead of getting their words on the page.

I am such an advocate of planning and taking time to do this with drawing and talking. However, I am feeling this need to put a bit of a limit on the planning if it goes much past fifteen minutes. If I thought it was successful for everyone I might feel differently, but their results are not necessarily their best work.

Before Workshop Today

I am planning on setting a timer today for students to pause in the planning process after fifteen minutes to try and write their thoughts. I want to see if they are able to do this, therefore not necessarily needing all the drawing as plan time. The illustrations could be enhanced after the writing. I hope to update as the workshop begins and ends today!

After Workshop Today

Well, I am happier with the results of pushing the writing over the planning. I set the timer for fifteen minutes explaining this was their plan time. Several students used the entire fifteen minutes. I only required five minutes of writing, but most wrote for longer than five minutes. Many students were able to transition easily.  They just needed the push and the structure.  A sizeable handful chose to write  a small moment as well. This was exciting to me as we have been talking about small moments in writing and stories for a over a week now.
We continued our writing workshop for forty minutes and the students seemed to more easily pace themselves. I hope to only need the timer for a short time until they more independently regulate their planning vs. writing time. Overall, a successful day in workshop.

Chalk-A-Bration August 2013

Are you ready to chalk?

I bet you are or you already have so let's just get right to it! If you are new to Chalk-A-Bration all you need to do is chalk a poem or art illustration of a poem, take a photo and share your link in the comments. I will round up all the links and add them to the end of this post.  If you don't have a blog but would still like to participate, just email the photo to me and I can add it to the post that way. Just be sure to send the photo and the text in case I can't read the picture. bets577@gmail.com

Be sure to visit as many of the chalkers as you can to see what they created with their bare hands and some chalk. So simple and so fun!

My chalketry of the day!

Chalk lands tell

a secret kept

of pastel words

on which we step.

Mists of dust

the secret safe

swept up with breeze

the words awake.



And this is my mother-in-law's contribution:

And now as
the summer dies
what happens to
the fireflies
are they the
glisten on the
snow

Yay for chalk. Here are the chalk-a-brators so far:

Liz Steinglass comes in with her children to share their chalketry and you will love her son's comment about her poem. Go see it now! 

Margaret Simon from Reflections on the Teche had her students do some chalking yesterday. She got the attention of her principal who was so delighted she asked if they could do it again! Go see their beautiful work. It will make your heart happy. 

Linda Baie from Teacherdance shares her chalk about the season changing. She includes a tree pic as well showing the changing colors of fall. 

Robin joins in from Teaching Tomorrow's Leaders with a chalk poem about summer slipping away! Go check her out.

Ramona from Pleasures From the Page joins us with some friends today for Chalk-A-Bration. Go see her poem about turning the page on the calendar as the classroom calls us back to school!

Franki Sibberson from A Year of Reading shared the Chalk-A-Bration idea with her students and they've joined in with a variety of chalking ideas. Be sure to stop by and take a peek!