The Sunrise Story

Each week on Saturday  bloggers celebrate at  Ruth Ayres Writes .  Won't you join us?  I love Saturday celebrations!  This week I celebrate my students and their creativity and enthusiasm. On the one hand, we are in the middle of testing season...but we counter that with our poetry. We are writing poetry and sharing it with each other.  This week we began rehearsing for our PoetPalooza in June! I love watching them work in groups and find ways to entertain each other. The enthusiasm is infectious! Speaking of poetry, I celebrate the final day of TeacherPoets with Chris Lehman. I revised my poem and I'm happy with the final poem. Please check it out here .   Wishing you a great week filled with celebrations!

The opportunity to write and share poetry with amazing teachers and poets has truly inspired me. I wrote a poem and we workshopped it the second week of the workshop. I revised it and the revised poem is below. I'd love feedback. If you'd like to read the first draft of the poem, click here...   I spent some time with the notes and suggestions from other teacher poets and here's my revised poem...what do you think? At ten years old, I begged Please! Mom PLEASE! I want a pair of Dr. Scholl’s… just like everyone else! Gripping my red Dr. Scholl’s I carefully put them on all day….. blister my feet and cause me to trip. I return to my flip-flops, I’m not like everyone else… My brown-bagged lunch sits in front of me in the teacher’s room, reaching in I grab a vitamin water and my peanut butter sandwich. As I peel back the silvery foil I hear An innocent voice in a room, crowded with familiar Did your husband make your lunch? The fo...

I wrote this poem yesterday after lunch... Oh how I wish I were a juicy green grape One of a bunch always accompanied with branch buddies and companions along the journey never alone Lounging in the cool, refreshing spray surrounded by love. No one judges the juicy green grape No one teases the juicy green grape No one bullies the juicy green grape No one yells at the juicy green grape No one ignores the juicy green grape The juicy green grape lives in harmony with the gaggle until… it doesn’t Mmmmm I'm so grateful for my fellow bloggers who share in my passion for poetry. Check out their blogs and their creative and amazing poems. They inspire me everyday... Julieanne ,  Margaret ,  Leigh Anne ,  Mary Lee ,  Kevin  and  Cathy . 

Slice of Life Challenge Please join the challenge over at  Two Writing Teachers ! Teacher Poets Community Joining the Teacher Poets Community has inspired me during a time when inspiration is hard to find. Chris Lehman  invited teachers to write and share their poetry under his leadership. So many of us said, YES ...and here we are a full fledged community writing and sharing poetry on Saturday mornings.  Using Google Communities and Google Hangouts and Twitter to connect us is new for me. I love the technology! In real time we are sharing and writing and workshopping poetry together. There are only a handful of us on screen, but so many more watching and participating using twitter. The video is archived on Youtube and people can return to the video and the community to participate at a later date.  It's there for our reference at a later time and we can share it with others. This makes me wonder how it can be used for professional ...

As I await the beginning of our poetry workshop this morning, I will celebrate my week. Please join us at 11AM EST...at TeacherPoets . Spring Break this week...and I'd decided for a quiet week at home. I had lots planned and I just wanted to be... I took a break from blogging this week, and I missed it more than I thought I would. I missed writing here everyday and seeing my blogging friends. It was a needed break, but I'm so glad to be back. Taking a break gives perspective and I needed some perspective.  This week I painted...I found my inner artistic self...and I love her! I set up my painting studio. I also finished one canvas.  I am addicted. It's a new kind of creativity. I've always loved writing, but with painting, I'm free! Free to explore and take chances and mess up and discover something more beautiful or more ugly than before.  It's a new kind of journey for me and I'm LOVING it.  I'm won...

Please visit  Chris Lehman's blog   or our  TeacherPoets Community Page   to get the second assignment.  We meet and discuss on  Saturday morning at 11AM EST.  Hope to see you there!

Each week on Saturday  bloggers celebrate at  Ruth Ayres Writes .  Won't you join us?  So much to celebrate this week!!! My celebration comes in the form of an acrostic poem. I hope you enjoy... C hris Lehman's Poetry workshop ! I am an on screen participant! Our first session is this morning at 11AM EST. Please stop by and check it out. #TeacherPoets E ating cheerios. Oh, it's so simple...but cheerios make me happy. They remind me of childhood. What a great way to start each day! L eo...it's my first week without my doggie . My students took his passing well. We talked about it and wrote poetry inspired by Mary Oliver's Dog Songs . Their compassion moved me!  E lated to be published on Kirby Larson's blog this week! So exciting to share my experience building a classroom library for my students! B eautiful Words...for the past two weeks, the students have been reading, analyzing and writing poetry. I'm inspired and awed by their...