The Sunrise Story

Today is my 31st (and final) slice for the  March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers . It's over?!?! The End?!?! Another year of slicing daily is finished. Sigh... I spent some time looking back and comparing the past couple of years of posts. This year there were posts about socks and time, organization and teamwork. Last year I wrote about reading and painting, being single and the neti pot. Both years I wrote about my journals, my pens, Sundays and writing. Writing everyday is such a gift! The community here makes it happen. I sit down and write...but it's the accountability that pushes me to write and to participate on days when there's not enough time and I don't feel like it. I always miss it!! Happy to be diving into April with a plan for posting poetry this month! There's a group of us who aren't ready to let go of living like a writer and we talked about posting a poem everyday for the month of April. No rules. We are...

Today is my 30th slice for the  March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers . During this month, I've been introduced to lots of new apps! Today I'm going to round up all of the new apps I've learned from all of you! For me it all began with Nutshell. I learned about it at #EdCampNOVA. Playing around with it became such fun!! Nutshell (free): You take three pictures. As you are taking pictures, the phone is actual taking video once you begin. Each of the three pics become still shots in a very short video. You can add on animation and text. The drawback, I'd love to be able to embed into my blog or upload onto youtube. Sharing is limited to facebook, twitter, instagram and email. Here's a link to a fun nutshell I made about my favorite pens... Pen Nutshell Vanillapen (free, $4.99 to unlock everything): I love seeing the beautiful quotes online. I never knew how to make them, until one day I noticed one of the quotes had the word vanillape...

Today is my 27th slice for the  March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers . I first heard of these poem forms here on this blog, Windows to My Life . A pensee poem is a poem that uses syllabic form. There's no specific meter or rhyme.  syllabic count 2-4-7-8-6; line 1 is the subject; line 2 gives description; line 3, action; line 4, the setting; line 5, final thought. My brand new fitbit arrived yesterday. I was inspired to write about it, so here is my poem about my new Fitbit...  FitBit always with me protector of my body wrapped around my wrist like a hug Thank you for being there! I am looking forward to wearing my fitbit. I'm hopeful that it will help me to move more! Try out the pensee poem for yourself! Have a great Sunday!

Today is my 28th  slice for the March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers . Thank you Ruth for this opportunity (and reminder) to celebrate this blessing called life!   This week I started reading Austin Kleon's book Show Your Work . Reading it was one of  those experiences where I felt like he could have begun every sentence with, "Michelle..." It seemed like it was written for ME! I decided to take a leap and FLY after reading some of this book. He strongly suggests that you "build a good name" and part of that is claiming your name online. I did it. Here's Michelle Haseltine dot com: michellehaseltine.com ! This makes me SO nervous to share this!! I worry that people will think, "Why do YOU need a website?!?!" but I'm doing this despite the fear. I also know that the community that reads this blog is so wonderfully supportive... and that is helping me walk to the edge and spread my wings. I don...

Today is my 27th slice for the  March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers . Earlier this week I clicked on  Lee Ann's blog  to make a comment. I noticed she had created a beautiful word cloud! It was made with a site that I hadn't heard of before, Tagul . This site is amazing. I LOVE it! You can sign in with your google account and SAVE your word clouds. The choice of shapes is broad and you can upload a photo and use that for the shape. I decided to use Tagul in school with my sixth graders. We had been working in book club books for a couple of weeks. Our reading work consisted of following a character and paying attention to his or her traits. In class, I had the groups gather together, review their notes and the books to help them make a word cloud about their book. The results amazed me! Here are a few of them...   If you want to see more, stop by our blogs at Crayons and Pencils . The students worked hard on their w...

Today this blog post is serving two purposes...my 26th slice for the March Slice of Life Challenge on the  Two Writing Teachers blog ...it's also my contribution for Spiritual Journey Thursday on  Holly Mueller's blog !   EXERCISE . Sigh... Taking that word literally...I fail. I fail to physically exercise my body. I do it for awhile and then revert to bad habits. This word makes me uncomfortable because I have so much improvement to make in this area. EXERCISE  in my spiritual life. Hmmm...I'm wondering if I should take this literally or search for a figurative meaning. I need to write about this literally! Literally, I'd like to work on Prayer Walking . I have a book on it. It's exactly what it sounds like. Why? Why do I struggle? Why do I avoid this? I did prayer walking for awhile and I loved it. Found myself sleeping better and feeling calmer and healthier. It's a commitment...but this commitment is to myself. Why does it seem that those are the ...

Today is my 25th slice for the  March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers . I have long believed that writing is therapy. It works for me. I've seen it work for students. Today I got tagged in a Facebook post by my friend, Heather... Our local shelter for women and children is collecting journals for kids and teens. They use the journals as part of their therapy. I am so excited to collect unused journals of mine to donate. I put out a call on social media hoping to collect more. Students and teachers are responding! I can't wait to collect these precious journals and donate them to this worthy cause. Writing as therapy...YES. Holly asked how others can donate. The organization is called  Loudoun Abused Women's Shelter . The address is 105 East Main Street, Leesburg, VA 20176.  Thank you!

Today is my 24th slice for the  March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers . I love reading aloud to my sixth graders! My friend Julieanne blogged last week about picture book read alouds in her classroom...and those posts inspired this one... I read aloud novels. I read picture books...short stories...poems...articles...even excerpts of novels to my classes. Read alouds have always been an integral & necessary part of reading workshop. I wanted to read aloud more for my writers during writing workshop. Now, I often read books and stories and poems in writing workshop as mentor texts, but I was looking for a different kind of read aloud...one that spoke to my students as authors. Author to author.  We began independent writing projects in class. The students are creating all different pieces of writing...some are writing fantasy novels or realistic fiction novels, some are writing poetry, some are creating a picture book. As we began these projects,...

Today is my 23rd slice for the  March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers . As I was innocently scrolling through Twitter, I found this tweet by Kelly Gallagher. He is an educator and author whom I respect greatly! His tweet: I am often a bit wary of people who overuse exclamation points. Just sayin... — Kelly Gallagher (@KellyGToGo) March 12, 2015 All said in good fun...in jest...but for some reason it stuck with me. It stuck with me as I commented on others blogs. It stuck with me as I composed emails. It stuck. It stuck because...I am an overuser or exclamation points! I use them ALL the time! Sometimes, when I really get excited about something...I use multiple exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!! As I was writing, I found myself resisting the call of the EP (exclamation point). I tried to use a period...BORING...or only one EP. I stopped and thought to myself, "Why? Why are you doing this?" We all have writing styles and we all make choices. I hav...

Today is my 22nd  slice for the March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers . This post is also for DigiLit Sunday. You can find more posts at Margaret Simon's blog .      Yesterday was a beautiful Saturday. I woke early and set off on an adventure. Got into the car and drove to Arlington to attend my second #EdCamp. What is #EdCamp ? It's an unconference. The teachers that attend decide the sessions and participate. It's FREE. No charge. It's powerful! It's teachers sharing experiences and questions with teachers. It's networking. Once again, the power of twitter...I met people who I follow and interact with online. Let me take you through the day. You arrive and get (or make) a name tag.  I have to say, making a name tag was so much fun! It was a simple task, but I enjoyed myself! There are snacks...every unconference needs good snacks. These are made or donated by the planning team. Love these twitter cookies... ...

Today is my 21st  slice for the March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers . Thank you Ruth for this opportunity (and reminder) to celebrate this blessing called life!    Celebrating in a list poem today... I celebrate collaboration I celebrate laughing I celebrate strawberry lemonade smoothies I celebrate knowing I celebrate hesitation I celebrate friendship I celebrate movie matinees I celebrate marshmallows I celebrate family I celebrate instagram I celebrate taking a leap I celebrate notebooks I celebrate being included in the group I celebrate standing on my own I celebrate read alouds I celebrate student writing I celebrate staying I celebrate teacher writing I celebrate twenty-one days of writing!

Today is my 20th slice for the  March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers . I just got this notebook last week because of the quote on the bottom (and the cute elephant picture)! It says, "Your day will go the way the corners of your mouth turn." I think it's more than that. I believe you make lots of choices throughout the day that decide how your day goes. After a tough day today (Thursday) a friend and I decided to share our highs and lows...but we skipped the lows. I'll do that here too... Today was mostly a good day. I had to work very hard to be able to say that and have it be true. That's the thing about good days...a lot of them don't just happen. It started out with lots of rude drivers. I turned up the music...LOUD...and sang! At a light, I turned and noticed this...a HIGH! I don't think you can see it in this picture, but there was a tiny rainbow peeking through the clouds. I watched it for a long time at the ...