I have been thinking about sewing lately – mending specifically. A couple of weeks ago, I came across a book that caught my eye, Mending Life A Handbook for Repairing Clothes and Hearts by Nina and Sonya Montenegro. It’s cover is patterned and embossed. I have always been attracted to that type of patchwork – collage style. Something about the tactile diversity calls to me.
Category: Art
Sketchnoting II: Big Words
I thought that by teaching our 4th graders this strategy they might be able to focus, remember and understand better and more deeply. I hope it will become an integral part of their reading toolbox.Â
Sketchnoting: Making Thinking Visible
Sketchnoting - I love to doodle. Whenever I am sitting and people are talking, I am drawing. It is the only way I can still myself and really listen to what was being said. Instead of tuning out, I tuned in. Making pictures helps me to remember.
Resolution: Free the Hand
The best way to describe my educational approach is – Hunter-Gatherer. I get an idea from reading, listening, or just being in the world, and something sparks my curiosity. That little something leads to something else, and something else, and something else until I’m not quite sure how I got onto the path I’m currently going. I love the journeys I’ve taken. I hadn’t thought of them as a learning process. I didn’t really think about them at all; I just naturally follow my thinking.
Simple Gifts: Balloons, Fox Traps, and Marvelous Medicine
At this time of Thanksgiving, I want to pause and reflect upon the simple gifts for which I am grateful. When I think back, I realize that my grateful moments revolve around books and children. For the last forty-two years, I have been so fortunate to build my life around serving children and celebrating stories.
Magic & Imagination in a Box
Magic & Imagination in a Box - A few weeks ago, one of my colleagues showed me the great gallery of objects her 4th grade students had created. I decided the 4th graders each needed a box of objects with which to create - fidgetneering boxes.
Signs of Fall – Listen, Look
I turn to nature for solace, observing the season’s steady change: her flamboyant turn from green to scarlet to amber to tangerine, and the final turn to gray and rusted brown. I seek beauty in the decay.
Add. Change. Remove.
Add. Change. Remove. This is a strategy we use in our 2nd grade writing workshop to explain the revision process. In the lesson, which I think originally was an idea from a Six Traits lesson, the students create with Play-Doh and then at various intervals are asked to add something to their creation.
Song of the Sky: Some Thoughts on Clouds
Songs of the Sky: Looking out towards the horizon, the sky and sea seemed infinite. Maybe that’s what intrigued Alfred Stieglitz about clouds: their ever-changing shape above Lake George and reflected on its surface. For over a decade Stieglitz photographed clouds. He first called his cloud work, Songs of the Sky, after the music he could surely hear as they drifted.
Some Thoughts on Geese
When I was young, Canada geese were a rare occurrence, but now they are common and are usually viewed and an annoyance. A whole industry has been created to get rid of them: Birds Beware, Bird B Gone, Goosinator, and GooseBuster - to name a few. But I think geese are beautiful, graceful, and devoted friends.
Word Dancer: Literature, the Arts, & Education 