Yesterday, we drove 75 miles down the Great River Road from West – Central Wisconsin to North – Eastern Iowa. My husband and I had a dual purpose to our trip. Firstly, I needed to deliver some pieces to a gallery in the town of McGregor where I am on consignment as a jewelry designer/artist….
Working together on our haiku unit in the spring is one of my favorite writer’s circle activities. By the time students are in third grade, they are at least familiar with, if not adept, at counting the number of syllables present in words. Accuracy in counting syllabic parts of words is an essential part of…
Over the summer I heard a few times from one of my former students from the Third Grade Writer’s Circle group I have led as a volunteer for the last six years. She was a particularly precocious writer and has continued to send me bits and pieces of her writing since she was in my…
There is much I could write about today for my slice of life post and the supportive writing community of two writing teachers blog. There is the personal angle, really foremost in my mind that today is my 30th wedding anniversary! It really is a milestone of two lives entwined with a shared past, content…
Today, I discovered something about myself. I have a very difficult time calling myself a teacher! While at the local copy store this morning, getting my third grade writer’s circle student newspapers made from the mock-up, the clerk said, “You must be a teacher.” She was looking at the student work on the 11 x…
It used to be that my role as a nurse was celebrated on May 6th, commonly known at National Nurse’s Day. The exact date of this professional celebration had escaped me recently. I knew it was the first week in May. I haven’t practiced as a nurse for almost twenty years, but I do remember…
If there is one thing I could impart to students to not say, this is it! Earlier this week, I held my Tuesday Writer’s Circle meeting with six third graders that I have been meeting with weekly since January. This is the sixth year I have voluntarily led such a group. It’s always been once…
Yesterday was World Poetry Day and it also so happened to be my weekly meeting with the third graders in my writer’s circle group. I was a little on edge because the week before, one of my students had started sobbing twenty minutes into our meeting, while writing Haiku poetry. But, as I arrived at…
Tomorrow, my Writer’s Circle resumes. We had just started a poetry unit when I had to cancel our meeting last week. The students will be sharing two different Cinquain poems and an acrostic with our group. We will then go on to Haiku. When we talk about poetry, I make sure that the students understand…
In lieu of an essay today, I thought I would post some Haiku poetry that I will be sharing with my Writer’s Circle students tomorrow. Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry consisting of three lines that has a pattern. The first phrase has 5 syllables, the second 7 syllables, and the third 5 syllables. Haiku…