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I've been blogging here at my juicy little universe for 7 YEARS this month.  I thought of doing A Thing to celebrate back in September, but by the time October 15 rolled around these plans and even the momentous event itself escaped me.  (We have officially reached the stage where the kids have more obligations and events than their moms.)



not quite my costume, but you get the idea

So today I'll just remark that for at least 5 of those 8 Halloweens, I've gone to school dressed as Mother Nature, or more specifically Lady Autumn.  I wondered whether I should make a change now that I'm in 2nd grade, but I just love the deep green velour dress with its texture and sweep, and I adore how the colorful paper leaves look pinned or taped against its background, just like the changed trees stand in contrast, both mellow and sharp, with those still staunchly chlorophylled.

I went looking for a poem to match my wonder every October at this color scheme and was dismayed by the length and complexity of every suggested poem I found at the Poetry Foundation (but it was very late).  And then I remembered this:

"Autumn time:
days get cool, it's back to school.
It's Autumn time:
the world turns golden brown...
Mother Earth's about to change her gown.

She loves to change her season;
It's Mother Earth's routine.
Green to brown, brown to white
white back into green--
she changes clothes
and puts on something clean.

And she has reasons
for changing seasons--
You have to change to grow;
You have to change to grow."

- "Mother Earth's Routine," from the album Mother Earth

Tom Chapin and John Forster do it again and provide the perfectly detailed simplicity I'm looking for.  Thanks, guys!


The roundup today is with Jone at Check It Out, we think!  See you there.

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our school has a really big rock out in front

"Letter by letter, the bigger the better--
Great big words!"                                      --Michael Mark & Tom Chapin

And so a new school year begins, with a change from the tiniest full-timers at the school--the kindergarteners--to the not-very-much-bigger second-graders.  Looking back now at my consternation* over this change, I realize that I believed that 7-year-olds would be simultaneously* less innocent and more challenging* than 5-year-olds, less imaginative* and more conservative* than 5-year-olds, less new and sparkly and more ordinary*.

I must have had rocks in my head.  Second grade rocks, especially in the first week of school!  They do not consider themselves too grown-up to enjoy the same greetings and singing games as the 5's, but when you say "Please line up," they already know how to do it.  They were thrilled to climb all over the big rock, but they were able to stop climbing and thoughtfully describe it. And they are very into vocabulary* and learning great big words as well as different words for the same thing.  Just yesterday we compared vomit, puke, barf and throw up in our discussion of the very few things that might interrupt our work on Independent Reading Stamina.  (We reached 10 minutes by Thursday, without nausea* or emesis.*)  Perhaps "Magic Pebbles" would not be a wrong class name after all...thesey are small and shiny and smooth and powerful, just like Sylvester's Magic Pebble.

You'll understand why the following might be the first Poetry Friday poem for our Poetry Anthologies.  I found it in The Walker Book of Poetry for Children. 

Flint | Christina Rossetti

An emerald is as green as grass,
       A ruby red as blood;
A sapphire shines as blue as heaven;
      A flint lies in the mud.

A diamond is a brilliant stone,
     To catch the world's desire;
An opal holds a fiery spark;
     But a flint holds fire.

The round-up today is with Linda Baie at TeacherDance, one of the several Poetry Friday participants who generously contributed to my DonorsChoose project.  I'm thrilled and grateful to say that my request for 4 Kindle Fire HD tablets, intended for allowing kids to enjoy the ever-growing array of online read-aloud sites and apps, was fully funded in less than a week!  However, it's not too late to help,  Any additional donations will come to my classroom in the form of gift cards that I can use to purchase headphones and cases for the tablets.  Long live crowd-funding, and thanks!

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This is a wonderful commentary from singer-songwriter Tom Chapin on the end-of-year tests that students and their teachers are now focusing on. In addition to core subjects that have been virtually eliminated from the curriculum (like social studies), art, music, drama and author/illustrator visits are almost things of the past.



What kind of society are we creating here? Anyone like to chime in?

Thanks to Lee Wilson at Education Business Blog for his post on this song.

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