The Sunrise Story

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, & Anna for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at  Two Writing Teachers .  Yesterday I gave my students the test that will be used for my teacher evaluation. I walked around the room as they tested and sent them my best wishes! Watching their faces focus and work so hard to do their best makes me so proud. I don't care what the numbers are! They are more than numbers. We talked about that a couple of weeks ago...one of my students declared, "Testing is like that quote by Albert Einstein. A fish is smart, but not if it's riding a bicycle, then it can't and everyone thinks it's dumb...or something like that!" She made me smile when she said that. She was grasping for this quote, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it ...

April is poetry month. This month I will be crafting and sharing original poems. Often, these poems will be messy and early drafts. Many of us are sharing our poems on twitter using the hashtag, #digipoetry. We hope you join us! I discovered a cool new kind of poetry called Zip Odes. This form uses a zip code. Each line has that many words. The poem is usually about that place. If a zip code has a zero…no words for that line. Here’s my zip code from my hometown Springfield, MA….01118 and my Zip Ode: Childhood home where I grew up and learned who I was! I learned about Zip Odes from my friend, TaramSmith on her blog . Today I am going to ask my students to write zip odes...about themselves, for characters in their books, the possibilities are endless. What will your zip ode say?!?!

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, & Anna for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at  Two Writing Teachers .    April is poetry month. This month I will be crafting and sharing original poems. Often, these poems will be messy and early drafts. Many of us are sharing our poems on twitter using the hashtag, #digipoetry. We hope you join us! Yesterday was a long day. I was supposed to give a test to the students, but for many, many reasons I needed to reschedule at the last minute. Stuck without a prepared lesson, I decided that we'd LEAP into poetry. Instead of a day of silence where the students would be testing, this is what my classroom looked like... Students engaged in discussion...reading and writing poetry. It did my heart good to see their work and to hear their words. Here are some list poems that came out of yesterday. They were in...

Join us on  Holly's blog  as we delve into our own  Spiritual Journeys every Thursday!   April is poetry month. This month I will be crafting and sharing original poems. Often, these poems will be messy and early drafts. Many of us are sharing our poems on twitter using the hashtag, #digipoetry. We hope you join us! This post was supposed to be for Thursday. I even had all my ideas planned out and then life got in the way. I've been resisting blogging for the week, but I have been writing like crazy in my notebook! Funny, isn't it? This week we are writing about LOVE. The first thing I have to say about this is my life is blessed with much LOVE and for that I am grateful. My faith is based on the idea of LOVE. Jesus taught us to LOVE and showed us how to LOVE. I just finished a book that will be released in August titled, For the Love . It's written by the amazing and funny and wise Jen Hatmaker . The words in that book ooze love! (Does ooze have the wro...

Thank you to Ruth for this amazing community to share our celebrations!   April is poetry month. This month I will be crafting and sharing original poems. Often, these poems will be messy and early drafts. Many of us are sharing our poems on twitter using the hashtag, #digipoetry. We hope you join us! I celebrate today right now a quiet start to the day slowly sipping coffee while relaxing I celebrate blessings cozy home loving family thoughtful & kind friends I celebrate people community, real & virtual doing their best to live authentic and meaningful lives I celebrate writing the vehicle that gives me the  opportunity to reflect-  to live my life  authentically Thank you to Ruth Ayres! Her post this morning inspired this poem of gratitude. I was feeling the nudges of sadness that come around when I feel like my life is empty...without a family of my own. Instead, I decided to celebrate what m...

Thank you to Ruth for this amazing community to share our celebrations! April is poetry month. This month I will be crafting and sharing original poems. Often, these poems will be messy and early drafts. Many of us are sharing our poems on twitter using the hashtag, #digipoetry. We hope you join us! Today I celebrate  the little things that bring me joy the little things that exist everywhere if we take the time to  stop and notice them My week was  filled with  tiny miracles flying around Unexpected invitations and surprises! Friendships that remind me how blessed I am Words filled with love and support Books that carry me to a dream world Ducks with a sense of humor Ducks on a car while I was walking Bella! Toilet paper that makes me feel special Everyday our custodian folds the ends of the toilet paper rolls. It makes me SMILE! Cookies & milk for dessert All of these litt...

April is poetry month. This month I will be crafting and sharing original poems. Often, these poems will be messy and early drafts. Many of us are sharing our poems on twitter using the hashtag, #digipoetry. We hope you join us! Before spring break, we finished The Crossover as our read aloud. First of all, I love, love, love this book. The students did too! Back to school, we are analyzing some of the poems in the book. The vocabulary, or definition, poems were some of our favorites! We now use the word pulchritudinous as part of our daily vocabulary. We reread those poems as a reader and figured out the parts. Today we will finish writing our own poems. Here is my first attempt at a vocabulary poem... Introvert in-tro-vert noun a person who lives inside their head, someone who thinks A LOT before speaking; a person who gains energy from being alone As in: After a long day at school, the introvert needs time alone in her room to quiet he...

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, & Anna for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at  Two Writing Teachers .  April is poetry month. This month I will be crafting and sharing original poems. Often, these poems will be messy and early drafts. Many of us are sharing our poems on twitter using the hashtag, #digipoetry. We hope you join us! Looking at the planning calendar yesterday, I discovered that there are only FIFTY days left in my school year. Sigh...this year has slipped away so quickly! That's what inspired this poem made of three haikus. Enjoy!  Fifty days are left to read, to write, to connect only fifty days. Fifty days to learn except the days we don't learn and must test instead. Our time together is short, so we must make the  most of it and FLY!

April is poetry month. This month I will be crafting and sharing original poems. Often, these poems will be messy and early drafts. Many of us are sharing our poems on twitter using the hashtag, #digipoetry. We hope you join us! 20 years teaching 6505 steps walked yesterday Drank 10 glasses of water Alarm wakes me at 5:16am Picture taken everyday at 5:22 pm 11 comments on that blog post 12 likes on my instagram photo 50 days left in the school year Our lives are  measured  by  numbers. I resist numbers. Turn away. Ignore them. Discredit numbers  by  declaring,  "Numbers are stupid." But... I am wrong.  Numbers are  NOT stupid. They don't  tell the whole story. We need  the  whole story not just the  numbers... This is my  300th  blog post! Days and days of  writing and risking to tell my  story... Time and ti...

Thank you to Ruth for this amazing community to share our celebrations! April is poetry month. This month I will be crafting and sharing original poems. Often, these poems will be messy and early drafts. Many of us are sharing our poems on twitter using the hashtag, #digipoetry. We hope you join us! I love spring break. I loved this spring break. Staying home was the perfect choice for me. Lots got accomplished. There was lots of reflection. Reflecting on where I am, where I've been and where I'd like to go. Here are some revelations...in no particular order... I like discovering new places on my own. Moving more feels better every day I do it.  FitBit report for the week.  Forgive myself. Always be kind (forgive myself when I fail here). I'm an introvert in that I need time to myself to think and process and reflect. Spending time with people I love makes me joy-filled and grateful. Helping others feels good.  When fear threatens to settle in, I...