Irene Latham's Blog, page 130

Investigate Science & Poetry with PFA FOR FIRST GRADE!

Each day this week I will be sharing about the new PFA FOR SCIENCE, brought to you by Sylvia Vardell & Janet Wong, with a host of fine poets contributing!

Here's the schedule:
Monday: KINDERGARTEN
Tuesday: FIRST GRADE
Wednesday: SECOND GRADE
Thursday: THIRD GRADE
Friday: FOURTH GRADE
Saturday: FIFTH GRADE

Each day I will be giving away a copy of the Student Edition for that grade level... and at the end of the week, I will choose one winner from all the commenters via blog/Facebook/Twitter for the K-5 TEACHER edition!

So, FIRST GRADE. Again, the line drawings that accompany the poems in the Student Edition are wonderful and engaging! There's also a Glossary and Index, both of which I find particularly helpful. And I especially appreciate the inclusion of English and Spanish translations of some of the poems. Nice!
Today I've got not just one, but two poems I'm excited to share:
BACKWARDSby Janet Wong
Everyone is asking WHY.Why is the sun hot?
I know I should wonder why butI'm thinking:Well, why NOT?
---------------------
LOVE NOTE TO A MAGNETby Patricia Hubbell
Dear Magnet,I'm drawn to you.Irresistible you!You're so attractive.You make me feel quite active!And though I know I should shrug,I can't resist the tug of this feeling of love.I want to hop, jump, and skip, Really let rip...So I'm on a big trip--Past pens, pencils, and papers,Rulers, tape, and erasers--Because...I'm drawn to you!Hugs,             Paper Clip
-----
Being a bit "backwards" myself, I especially love Janet Wong's poem! Sometimes the best questions are not the obvious ones. :)
And the Love Note poem... I am and always will be a sucker for a love poem. And how fun is this one?! In the TEACHER'S EDITION for this poem (p.79), Sylvia Vardell has created TAKE FIVE! activities that include: 
Showing a paper clipdividing the kids and having them participate in the poemDiscussion about the usefulness of magnets in everyday lifeDemonstration of a magneta companion poem and book recommendation

So much fun! And yes, I have another (riddle) poem in this one... "Riddle for a Wet Day"


GIVEAWAY: Comment here or on Twitter @irene_latham or on my Facebook page! Winners announced daily.

Celebrate Science & Poetry with the KINDERGARTEN PFA FOR SCIENCE!

Each day this week I will be sharing about the new PFA FOR SCIENCE, brought to you by Sylvia Vardell & Janet Wong, with a host of fine poets contributing!

Here's the schedule:
Monday: KINDERGARTEN
Tuesday: FIRST GRADE
Wednesday: SECOND GRADE
Thursday: THIRD GRADE
Friday: FOURTH GRADE
Saturday: FIFTH GRADE

Each day I will be giving away a copy of the Student Edition for that grade level... and at the end of the week, I will choose one winner from all the commenters via blog/Facebook/Twitter for the K-5 TEACHER edition!

So, KINDERGARTEN. First of all, the line drawings that accompany the poems in the Student Edition are wonderful and engaging! There's also a Glossary and Index, both of which I find particularly helpful.
Here's one of my favorite poems:
THANK YOU, ISAAC NEWTONby Eileen Spinelli
My bookshelf falls upon the bed.Harry Potter bonks my head.Spaghetti slips --splat!--to the floor.Clean-up is a messy chore.Orange juice spills. Socks slide down.Hail stones ping all over town.Acorns plunk--ouch!--from a tree.Oh, the joys of gravity!
-----Isn't that fun! I particularly love "Socks slide down." The joys of gravity indeed... this would be an entirely different poem if aimed at the middle-aged crowd. :)
In the TEACHER'S EDITION for this poem (p.40), Sylvia Vardell has created TAKE FIVE! activities that include: dropping a book (with a bonk!)allowing kids to drop other items while identifying other sounds (like plunk, splat, etc)-- and of course, cleaning up!some research on Isaac Newtona comparison of how different items of different shapes and weights falla companion poem to read together
So much fun! And yes, I have a poem in this one... "Riddle for a Dry Day"
GIVEAWAY: Comment here or on Twitter @irene_latham or on my Facebook page! Winners announced daily.

Sign Up Here for 2014 KIDLITOSPHERE PROGRESSIVE POEM!

Dear Friends,

Hello, and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit lovely Louisianian Margaret at Reflections on the Teche for Roundup.

National Poetry Month (April) will soon be upon us, which means it is time again to sign up for our annual Progressive Poem!

Here's how it works:

Poetry Friday Friends and other poetry lovers are invited to join in a community writing experience during National Poetry Month (April).

What is it? a poem that travels daily from blog to blog, with each host adding a line, beginning April 1. Anyone who wants to join in the fun can sign up in comments below.

Also, it would be great if you could include in your post (or sidebar) the schedule for readers to more easily follow along/look back/look forward. And feel free to snag the above graphic.

And that's it! We'll all contribute our line... and we'll see where our poem takes us by April 30! Big thanks to Charles Waters, who has agreed to contribute our opening line (on his new blog!). Can't wait. :)

Sign up on this Google spreadsheet. Thanks!
ETA: Due to problems with the Google spreadsheet, you are welcome to leave your info in comments! Please request date with your name, blog name, blog url and email address. Thanks so much!

1 Charles Waters
2 Joy Acey
3 Donna Smith
4 Anastasia Suen
5
6
7
8 Matt Forrest Esenwine
9 Diane Mayr
10 Tabatha Yeatts
11 Linda Kulp
12 Mary Lee Hahn
13 Janet Fagal
14 Deborah Bussewitz
15 Tamera Wissinger
16
17
18 Irene Latham
19
20 Buffy Silverman
21 Renee LaTulippe
22 Laura Shovan
23 Amy Ludwig VanDerwater
24 Linda Baie
25 Michelle Heidenrich Barnes
26
27
28
29
30

Stars & BIRD by Crystal Chan

“A close binary system. Stars, you know. Stars are rarely ever alone.” His voice got funny. “Stars can come in clusters, but they most frequently come in pairs. A binary system.”
“Oh.” It was nice to think of Bird and me like that, twinkling pretty in the sky.“Sometime stars in binary systems orbit each other really closely, much closer than normal. That's why they're called close binary systems. And the stars with less mass orbits its companion, which has more mass.”
“And more gravity,” I pointed out.
Eugene grinned. “Sometimes these two stars orbit so closely that they transfer matter to each other.”
“They what?”
“Parts of them fly off and get pulled in by the gravitational pull of the companion star. And vice versa. Each star is changed by the other.”
“They each have parts of the other?” I asked.

“Yup,” Eugene said. “And because of that, the stars' compositions change, as well as how they develop in the future.” he craned his neck up to the sky. “It's like with you and Bird. He's in you. And you are in him, wherever he is.”
- from BIRD by Crystal Chan

Movie Monday: 12 YEARS A SLAVE

So, 12 YEARS A SLAVE, which last night happened to have earned Best Picture at the Oscars! I've heard people say they know they should watch this movie, but they don't want to -- or they have to be in a certain frame of mind to embark upon this particular journey.

To that I say, yes, proceed with caution. But do proceed!

This movie made me shudder, squirm, cover my eyes, and cover my ears. It's a very itchy, uncomfortable movie. Beautifully made. But oh the horror and brutality! Man's inhumanity to man, indeed.

But. There is also hope and triumph and reunion and change. I've thought about the movie a lot since I saw it -- it's a great companion to THE INVENTION OF WINGS by Sue Monk Kidd, which I blogged about last week. An important movie and deserving of Oscar attention.

Were you watching last night like I was? Whose speech did you like best?? Any stars stand out to you? I actually dreamed last night of Brad and Angelina, so there you go. The power of the movies. :)

What the Heart Knows by Joyce Sidman

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit the ever-inspiring Anastasia Suen at Poet! Poet! for Roundup.

I'm pretty much in love with WHAT THE HEART KNOWS by Joyce Sidman. It includes 4 sections: Spells & Invocations, Chants & Charms, Laments & Remembrances, Praise Songs & Blessings.

Here are three of my favorites (though I totally could have selected 3 entirely different ones. Much to love here!):

Blessing on the Curl of Cat

As Cat curls
in a circle of sun--
sleep and round,
snug and warm,
a hint of ear
cocked in readiness--
so may I find y place
in this shifting world:
secure within yourself,
certain of my wroth,
equally willing to
           purr
             or leap.

-Joyce Sidman


Illness: A Conversation

I asked my feet why they could not walk
and they said, We are treading water.

I asked my legs why they buckled and fell
and they said, We are growing roots.

I asked my fingers why they had loosened their grip
on the world and they said, It is too hard to hold.
We are gathering clouds instead.

Why? I asked my eyes, which kept crying and crying,
and they said, We are waiting for the very last ear.

Speak! I told my lips, but my voice was not my own.

So I asked my heart, Who am I now?
and my heart said, The you underneath the you.

And I asked my soul, Who will I be?
and my soul answered,
        The one whose heart is open,
        the one whose eyes are clear,
        the one whose hands are full of sky.

-Joyce Sidman


Song in a Strange Land

I awaken in a village
on a mountain
far from anything
I have ever known.

My eyes are no use--
the dark is that deep--
and my ears
buzz with silence.

No ripples in the black,
no chink in the quiet.
Unmoored,

I could rise, teeter,
rumble down the hillside,
drown in the sea.
Why am I not afraid?
Amazed, my heart
waits for direction.

And there -- oh!
A rooster has found the dawn.
Its peal arcs through dark,
waking the circling hills
till the valley rings
like a steel drum.

Oh, yes,
says my heart.
Whatever the day brings,
let it ring.
Whatever the music,
let me sing.

- Joyce Sidman


Let us all sing!

"Err on the Side of Audacity" with THE INVENTION OF WINGS by Sue Monk Kidd

You may have heard me talk about these words of wisdom from my mother:

ERR ON THE SIDE OF LOVE

Well. This past week I had the pleasure of listening to a wonderful book THE INVENTION OF WINGS by Sue Monk Kidd. It's historical fiction about the real-life abolitionist Sarah Grimke and Hettie (Handful) Grimke, the slave girl Sarah was given on her 11th birthday, during early 19th century Charleston, SC.

I love this book. There's mothers and daughters and quilts and history and daring characters changing their own worlds as best they can. And young Sarah latches onto this advice: ERR ON THE SIDE OF AUDACITY.

I love it! Here's to audacious women!! I'm doing my best to be one. xo

Our Cat Maggie, Who Could Be a Circus Elephant

In my experience, every cat has a "thing." Maggie's is balance. She is constantly testing herself on narrow ledges and staircases and such.


image at etsy shop GraphicGearsDon't even bother calling, Ringling Bros. We're not-so-secretly hoping Maggie lives FOREVER. She's that great a cat.

Maybe next we should get her a ball?

Squirrel Poetry: Flora & Ulysses, The Illuminated Adventures by Kate DiCamillo

Hello, and happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Karen Edmisten for Roundup!

I'm taking a break today from my Karla Kuskin series to talk about the poetry in FLORA & ULYSSES: The Illuminated Adventures.

I'm a huge Kate DiCamillo fan, so I was very excited when I first heard about FLORA & ULYSSES. Yet I wasn't able to get to it for months. And then it won the Newbery! So of course I HAD to make time for it. :)

It's a zany adventure, in part, about a superhero squirrel and a self-proclaimed cynic. The best part? Ulysses (the squirrel) writes poetry!

"I love your round head,
the brilliant green,
the watching blue,
these letters,
this world, you.
I am very, very hungry."

---------------------------------------
"In any case, he wasn't thinking about dying. He was thinking about poetry. That is what Tootie said he had written: Poetry. He liked the word - -its smallness, its density, the way it rose up at the end as if it had wings.
Poetry."

---------------------------------------
And in one of the comic strip segments wonderful created by K.G. Campbell, one of the cells says this:

AND THE SUPERHERO WAS
ENORMOUSLY, INORDINATELY
PLEASED WITH HIMSELF.

HE FELT IMMENSELY POWERFUL!

HE FELT LIKE WRITING A POEM!

--------------------------------------
Finally, in the Epilogue:

Words for Flora

Nothing
would be
easier without
you,
because you
are
everything,
all of it --
sprinkles, quarks, giant
donuts, eggs sunny-side up-
you
are the ever-expanding
universe
to me.

Poetry Is in the Air!

photo courtesy of wikicommonsWe may still be recovering from snow and ice, but that hasn't stopped Poetry from springing up in all sorts of places around here! Hope to see you at some of these upcoming events:

PHENOMENAL WOMAN -- celebrate Black History Month with poems by black female authors! DISCO, Thursday, February 20, 6:00-7:30 pm. I will be reading Lucille Clifton's "Homage to My Hips."

ALABAMA STATE POETRY SOCIETY -- 10:00 am - 2:00 pm, Saturday, March 1, Madison County Library. Jennifer Horne will be talking about book-making!

  SAKURA FESTIVAL - a number of events, including these poetry-specific ones:

Bards, Brews, & Haiku,  Friday, March 7, 6:30- 9:00 pm, Birmingham Central Library, Fiction Department. Featuring haiku readings and sake tasting in addition to the usual performance poetry and beer sampling. Japanese crafts for sale to raise funds for Miss Iwate, the Japanese friendship doll who has called BPL home since 1928. Miss Iwate is in need of some restoration work which will be done by master dollmakers in Japan. 

Haiku Workshop, Saturday, March 8, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm. Birmingham Central Library, Storycastle. Led by Terri French, the Southeast Chapter Coordinator for the of the Haiku Society of America (HSA). Registration required; call 205-226-3670.