Alina's Adventures

Claire Datnow's wonderful, Alabama-based eco-mysteries for middle schoolers.

Pond Slider Turtle, Limestone Park, Alabaster
(photo taken Boris Datnow at bioblitz in Alabaster, Alabama)

At the Alabama Writer's Conclave last month, I had the exciting opportunity to attend a workshop on eco-Mysteries and ecological fiction sponsored by the amazing Claire Datnow. I learned about how her love for Alabama's ecology led her to write eco-fiction for middle-schoolers in order to empower, inspire, and educate them about ecological principles. And then I bought all the books in the Adventures of the Sizzling Six for my children.

The first book in this series, The Lone Tree, is only $2 on kindle and $7 for print. Here's the synopsis:

They thought it was going to be a boring summer. It wasn't! When six determined teenagers decide to save a magnificent old white oak their adventures begin. Can they save their tree and the animals living in it? Will they get to build their secret hideout in its great branches? What could go wrong? The Sizzling Six will have to reckon with a ticked off neighbor on the city council, an unusual teacher, a thickheaded bully and his ditzy girlfriend, a mysterious dreamtime eagle, and an awesome night bat.

Given the extent to which young people (especially young females) are bombarded with advertisements and media which celebrate looking "cute" and trying to "make boys like you", Claire's fiction provides a counter-narrative in which the heroines are driven by eco-fascination and the desire to preserve something they love. 

Because what Claire writes is not likely to be bestseller Y.A. material, we have to ask ourselves more about this amazing woman that spends her time reaching out to Alabama's youngest citizens. Claire in her own words:

Born in South Africa, I immigrated to the US having lived in California, Minnesota, Alabama and Canada. I am a mother, grandmother and wife, and my family is the core of my life. All that I see, feel, experience feeds and inspires my writing. What I have learned in college and through wide reading informs my writing. I earned MA degrees in education of the gifted and talented, and in public history.

The series of YA Eco mysteries for 4-8 graders, The Adventures of The Sizzling Six, reflects my passion and awe for the natural world. With the trusty aid of Boris Datnow, my technological guru, the third book in the series uses QR codes to transport readers from the printed word on the page to video clips that let readers see and hear what the characters in the story are seeing and hearing! My memoir, Behind the Walled Garden of Apartheid, drew inspiration from a beautiful country scared by the iniquities of apartheid. The Final Diagnosis: What The Autopsy Reveals About Life and Death is a tribute to my husband, an autopsy pathologist. My historical novel, The Nine Inheritors, pays homage to my grandmother and two aunts and all those killed in the Holocaust.

What's next? On my trip to Australia, I found inspiration for the fourth book in the eco mystery series for middle grades, The Adventures of The Sizzling Six: Who Kidnapped The Koala? My newest books are published as Enhanced e-books as well as electronic books.

On her website, Claire offers an incredible amount of resources and activities for home educators. In her words:

Each time I write a new eco-mystery for the series, The Adventures of The Sizzling Six, I am amazed at what I learn about the species central to my story. I have developed this unit to share the excitement of learning with students. It is my hope these lesson plans will inspire them to take action in their own communities, and, ultimately, become wise stewards of the earth’s precious natural heritage.

Feel free to download and print the curriculum unit How to Become and Eco Detective. Lessons can easily be correlated to the Common Core State Standards Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects. You can also print up the Role Playing Cards and the Driving Questions for use in your classroom.

I would be honored if you would share your students’ work with me at: [email protected]

Free handouts and teacher activities including Eco-mystery Writing Contest. But my favorite by far is the printable Lessons for How to Write Eco-mysteries, a free printable PDF packet. If you take nothing from this, print a copy of this packet and plan a roam school today. 

Since Max enjoyed Claire's mysteries so much, he did a little email interview with her. I am so grateful that she took the time to answer his questions. 

MAX: Did the oil spill from the Canyon Gulf really happen, or was it based on the Deepwater Horizon spill?

CLAIRE: Indeed, the oil spill in my eco mystery is based on the Deepwater Horizon explosion that occurred on 20 April 2010. NOAA continues to assess the fish, wildlife, and habitat harmed by the spill along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, and Florida.

MAX: What Functions do Diamondback terrapins have as a keystone species?

CLAIRE: So why all this effort to save one species? If terrapins no longer live in the marsh the eco system will become less stable. These terrapins can be considered a keystone species—if you take them out, certain invertebrate species, like snails, will keep on increasing, and they will eat more and more of the marsh grasses that many other species need to survive. That will cause a shift in the important balance of living things in the eco system.The terrapins help to maintain a healthy salt marsh that is a nursery for crabs, fish, oysters, and a large variety of aquatic life. (Max, you will find the more answers to this question in the eco adventure.)

MAX: Is Shelley Island a real place?

CLAIRE: Yes, the island is based on the site of Cedar Point along the Alabama Dauphin Island marsh where the female terrapins come to lay their eggs in summer. (For more information Google Cedar Point along the Alabama Dauphin Island marsh.)

MAX: Are all your stories set in Alabama? 

CLAIRE: They are all set in Alabama with the exception of The Adventure of The Sizzling Six: Who Kidnapped the Koala, which is set in Australia. The inspiration for that book came while I was visiting my family in Australia.

MAX: Why did you choose southern ecology for the subject of your books?

CLAIRE: To do research for my eco mysteries I need to visit the habit of the species I will be writing about. It’s easier for me to explore Alabama as I live in this state. I also interview and consult with conservationists and wildlife scientists who live in Alabama. 

Claire and her spouse, Boris, are currently traveling in Greenland, Iceland, and Labrador. Anyone who knows Claire imagines her explorations are probably sparking new ideas for eco-mysteries to come. 

I am deeply grateful to Claire for the time she took to speak with me and with Max-- even more grateful for the beguiling, ecological stories she writes, stories I can share with my children to inspire them to be the change they want to see in the world. 

Facebook Author Page

Claire's other eco-mysteries, including one about the Cahaba Lily

Roamschooling Greenwood Cemetery in Tuscaloosa.

The historic plaque at Greenwood.

After reading a few poems at the downtown Dunkin' Doughnuts and meeting a man from Gujarat who longed to return to the bright colors and unanxious life of his Indian homeland, we wandered over to the Greenwood Cemetery. According to the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society:

Greenwood is one of the oldest cemeteries in Tuscaloosa County, having been laid out shortly after the first survey of the city of Tuscaloosa in 1821. In it are the graves of many of early Tuscaloosa’s most prominent citizens. Among those is Dr. John Drish, a famed doctor and landowner, and Solomon Perteat, a prominent free, black craftsman who lived in Tuscaloosa prior to the Civil War.

Only grass covers many of the older plots of African and Native Americans and white settlers. 

Greenwood is the final resting place of five veterans of the American Revolution as well as more than 2,500 other individuals in marked and unmarked graves.

The bitter cold left us prey to a sun with teeth. Prophet, Gnome, and the Eldest wandered through the cemetery looking for their favorite gravestone. It was intriguing to see the difference in their preferences. 

Prophet's favorite.

Prophet liked the "big ones with entire families." She said there was something "kind" about being buried side by side with parents and uncles and aunts. She also got very upset when she found "baby gravestones" tiny as cereal boxes. I read the dates- one of which went back to 1867- and showed her the mother's grave nearby. Both the baby and the mother had been buried on the same day. 

She wanted to know why. I told her about the influenza pandemics and how mothers sometimes died during or after childbirth when midwives were unable to attend their labors. Winter babies were especially vulnerable. The Eldest walked around to check the months on the baby graves

The Eldest said this one was his favorite for the fabric draping.

Gnome was busy pouting and declined to select a favorite. But this one was cool.

Pick a gravestone writing assigment.

The Eldest had a creative writing assignment. He was responsible for selecting a grave, writing down the name and date and significant details, and then creating a story about the person's life based on historic context- historical records of what happened during that time in Alabama history. The historic context would include wars, epidemics, fires, economic development, environmental hazards, legislation, etc.

I can't wait for him to share the imagined history of Permelia S. Weger with us later this afternoon.

Other interesting historical gravestones at Greenwood include:

Solomon Perteet (1789-1863)
George Whitfield Crabb (1804-1846)
 Confederate General Phillip Dale Roddey (1826-1897)
Marmaduke Williams (1774-1850)
John Mason Martin (1837-1898)
The Leland Family 
Sallie Ann Swope
Jack and Jerry Winn
Dr. William Banks (d. 1877)
Richard C. McLester and family
James and Thomas Maxwell 
Captain Benjamin T. Eddins 

No one ever warned me about the enchantments of a sweet pea vine.

Sweet pea at dusk.

The sweet pea was the last flower I expected to see in our garden this year. Somehow, the delicate Lathyrus odoratus wears the mantle of the most unanticipated marvel- the beauty made all the brighter for being unharmed by expectation.

Add to this the fact that we did everything wrong (waiting until the weather was warm before planting the seeds directly in the soil) and I'm amazed that we get to see anything at all... But the tiny plants continue to flirt with their teepee... their tendrils beginning to curl and reach out.

"Treat it like a found poem," I urge the Eldest. He weighs the possibility of laying claim to treasures discovered by other pirates. 

"No," he replies, "I'm going to find my own found poem in another plant." Suit yourself, I think, remembering those days fondly, the ones where every secret worth saving needed to be entirely my own.

The surprise of the pea flowers enchants, keeps me from writing, the language of shoots and bulbs creeping into dialogue between characters. I need a technical distraction or some magical means of refocusing.

Sweet peas grow in full sun to partial shade and require rich, well-drained soil. A local green thumb I know warned me that sweet peas are heavy feeders, doing best with a few organic fertilizer treatments during the growing season.  

Word also has it that deadheading encourages a longer season of bloom.

Pea Shoots brochure, filled with delicious recipes
on how to cook those splendid pea shoots

3 FREE LAPBOOKING PAGES ON GARDEN PEAS

A SEASON IN THE LIFE OF A PEA (1 narrative bi-fold)

SWEET PEA FLOWER AND VINES (2 bi-folds with diagrams)

Telling the stories in a Poet's daffodil.

Cora Millay and her three daughters lived in the Coffin House in Newburyport, a Maine town that sidled up to the waters of the Merrimac River. It was a house in which every one of its women turned and churned poems. 

Reading Nancy Milford's biography of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay lit an image, perhaps even an association, in my mind, a line between two dots that harbors at least one story or poem. It is a relationship between a flower and what a pen does to a blank sheet of paper. 

Narcissus poeticus (Poet's Daffodil, Nargis, Pheasant's Eye, Findern Flower, and Pinkster Lily) was one of the first daffodils to be cultivated, and is frequently identified as the narcissus of ancient times—often associated with the Greek legend of Narcissus. Linnaeus, who gave the flower its name, might have done so because he believed it was the one that inspired the tale of Narcissus, handed down by poets since ancient times.

In her childhood journals, Edna describes the yard being "infinite" with the flowers of Narcissus poeticus. Given the intoxicating fragrance of its bloom, the possible metaphors abound, especially once you learn that the Poet's daffodil, like all narcissi, is poisonous when eaten.  Unlike other narcissi, however, this flower is extremely dangerous to consume- and even to keep. The scent is powerful enough that it can cause headache and vomiting if a large quantity is kept in a closed room. 

Do something beautiful with that fact. Here's a handout I created for the Eldest this morning.

The stories in a Poet's daffodil (PDF)
Free handout describing Narcissus poeticus in history, myth, and legend.

JOURNAL PROMPT: Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay credits the poet’s daffodil with bringing poetry to her childhood days. Write a poem or a letter adopting Edna’s childhood perspective where she explains why the daffodils covering her front yard exposed or elicited poetry. Consider using the sonnet form for your poem, since this was one of the poetic forms in which Millay excelled.

Creative writing prompt: The bear image.

Tell my story (PDF)

Why art is more likely to appear as a drag queen than a mailman.

Art is a true account of the activity of mind. Because consciousness, in Husserl's formulation, is always consciousness of something, art thinks ever of the world, cannot not think of the world, could not turn its back on the world even if it wished to. This does not mean that it's going to be honest as a mailman; it's more likely to appear as a drag queen. The problems I mentioned earlier, as well as others not taken up, enforce complexity. "We do not spend much time in front of a canvas whose intentions are plain," writes Cioran. "Music of a specific character, unquestionable contours, exhausts our patience, the over-explicit poem seems incomprehensible." Flannery O'Connor, an artist of the first rank, famously disliked anything that looked funny on the page, and her distaste has widely been taken as a tough-minded put-down of puerile experimentalism. But did she also dislike anything that looked funny on the wall? If so, a severe deprivation. Art cannot remain in one place. A certain amount of movement, up, down, across, even a gallop toward the past, is a necessary precondition.

An excerpt from "Not Knowing", an essay by Donald Barthelme

I took the last two lines as a morning journal prompt for myself and the Eldest. He ruminated about our trip to Transylvania, and how it connected him with sheep and Dacian history- how wearing his wool vest reminds him of the rhythm of village life.

The Eldest tries his hand at a pantoum.

Since the Eldest decided to play with pantoums BEFORE I had the opportunity to "teach" him about pantoums, I fooled no one except myself in creating this ex-post pantoum handout on one of poetry's most obscure forms.

For a free handout and activity- Exploring Poetic Forms: The Pantoum- just click on the image below and download in PDF format. Because you should be pantoum-ing too.

 

 

Experiments in lapbooking: Whereupon the Eldest becomes an expert on Antarctica.

Since Bunica and Ratpaw just set off for a three week visit to the coldest continent in the world, it made sense to study what we will surely be regaled with upon their return. Of course, everything begins with a map. Using the brochure from Bunica's expedition (in the photo above), the Eldest traced her voyage around the edges of the Antarctic Peninsula. 

We played around with maps for a good part of the afternoon, exploring the edges of the known world, fiddling with the colors in which such things are "known".

The Fantastic Antarctica Map (They Draw and They Travel)

For the lapbooking inserts, I combined free things found with things we made on the spur of the moment, intrigued by a particular I scoured the web for lapbooking resources and pooled the freebies together into one file which you can download and print below.

Antartica Lapbook Components (PDF)

There was so much to explore and learn that our expedition turned into something between a unit study, a lapbook, and a reckless cavorting. Loads to learn and see at Time Magazine for Kids' special Antarctica Mini-site.

resources for free exploration of antarctic climate and geography
Land of Ice worksheet (Time Magazine for Kids)
The Ozone Hole Tour (Center for Atmospheric Studies)
Ice sheets (British Antarctic Survey)
Ice shelves (British Antarctic Survey)
Ice streams (British Antarctic Survey)
Explorapoles (International Polar Foundation)

Tip of the Iceberg Notebooking Page (PDF)
A creative writing exercise.

Gibbs Island Icefalls Coloring Exercise (PDF)
A description and topographic coloring activity of "icefalls".

Deception Island Foldable Booklet (PDF)
Printable booklet on the history of Deception Island.

free resources on antarctic explorations
Exploring Antarctica worksheet (Time Magazine for Kids)
Polar Exploration worksheet (Time Magazine for Kids)
The best resource page for every single expedition (Scott Polar Research Institute)

free resources on antarctic species and life
Emperor penguin adaptations worksheet (Time Magazine for Kids)
Go Penguins Go worksheet (Time Magazine for Kids)
Three kinds of penguins worksheet (Time Magazine for Kids)

As we continue our trip through the icefalls and ice streams of the Antarctic, I'll try to add what we learn from Bunica's voyage. On the slate for Friday: An investigation of expeditions and explorers who dared to go where no landlubbering mammals had gone before.

Writing prompt of the day.

Let's see what comes of it. Between myself and the Eldest, surely something redeemable....

Story starters coloring page.

Story Starters (PDF)

Just something I made for our cross-country road trip- it kept Max journaling while Micah marked off each completed journal entry by coloring it in. 

New Year's road-trip: Going through ten different states in ten days.

En route to our mountain vacation, we drove through a total of 10 states. Courtesy of the tourism bureaus in each state, the little folks and I walked away with bags of information about American history, geography, geology, economic development, and culture. 

OUR TEN STATES

Missississippi
Tennessee
Arkansas
Oklahoma
Kansas
Colorado
New Mexico
Texas
Louisiana
Alabama

On the way, the King and I learned a few lessons about long road trips, teachable moments, and the importance of multiple good playlists. The take-homes:

Pee outdoors when possible.
Stopping at established restrooms involves walking through gas stations full of candy and glitter intended to seduce your kids (and you) into forking over a small chunk of change in return for some junk. Also, imagine all the germs and viruses you can avoid by just peeing in the woods with the song of a sparrow to lighten your load. So pack that toilet tissue and vow to find nature-made restrooms on your road trip. By the way, snow isn't a problem. In case you haven't noticed, kids will pee anywhere. It's their adult companions that crave the water wasted by those porcelain thrones we call toilets.

Nature journals.
Whenever we stopped at a rest area or even along a scenic piece of road, Max wandered around with his nature journal and made notes. The King provided the latitude and longitude as Max canvassed a brief area for local birds, trees, plants, grasses, and insects. Then, when we got back into the car, he flipped through his field guides and tried to identify each living thing while journaling them into a context (i.e. climate, geography, etc.).

Geocache kits.
Simple as having an iphone, a compass, and a geocaching log. If you have a signature stamp, bring it along as well. There are geocaches aplenty all over these fine United States. It makes a great excuse to pee in the woods for the more inhibited family members.

Printed maps and colored pencils.
Oh the things you can do with just a few maps and pencils. Encourage the writers to list all the towns they pass through on the map and then turn them into a narrative poem. Show little ones how to draw a blue circle to indicate a lake (and then mark them as you pass) or a red square to indicate a barn or a black dot to indicate a cow. Then let them make their own map adding what they observe along the way.

Read-aloud chapter books.
Long car trips are a great time to read that awesome book to a captive audience. Who needs illustrations when the scenery keeps catching your eye? I shared A Finder's Magic by Phillipa Pearce with the crew, while Max read chapters from the original Winne the Pooh by A. A. Milne aloud to the girls.

Water bottles.
Skip the juice boxes and other sugar-laden laxatives- water is the best possible drink for the road. It saves big folks the frustration of spills, sticky luggage, and endless restroom stops. Kids tend to drink water when they are thirsty, while they will often drink juices to satisfy hunger or a craving for sugar. Keep it simple. Milk at night and water during the day.

Apples and clementines.
Bring along washed apples and seedless clementines. The little folks like to peel their own in our family. As for the apples, what could make a better all-around snack?

Scissors, glue sticks, and white drawing paper.
Using all those fantastic resources procured at each stateside rest area or travel office, cut out pictures of landmarks or places in each state and pass them (along with glue stick and paper) to the little people to make their own state-based collages. Alternately, let them tell stories by cutting their own pictures and pasting them to white paper (reimaged as a blank storyboard). Then, when you make your next stop, tell everyone that he or she has to pick up all the paper scraps around their chair and put them in the trash bag if they wish to "get off the bus", so to speak. Consider cleaning up as a ticket (a get-out-of-van-free-card). 

White cardstock and stamps.
Make your own postcards using glue sticks and travel brochure cut-outs. Let the kids write a message on their creations and then use your iphone to look up addresses. Put on a stamp and drop them off at the next post office box you see. 

Good music and playlists.
There are so many ways to tie the music to the state you are visiting. For example, some cities are mentioned in songs. Travel brochures will mention which musicians hail from their state, so add a few locals to your playlists. Use the songs as segues for discussions about history and culture. Or just find a few favorite sing-alongs. We use Spotify rather than mp3s or ITunes because we can find any song in world and enjoy it without having to "own" it. You can also find lots of stories and songs for kids. 

Poems and inspirations.
Find beautiful words to add to the mix when whimsy is conspicuously lacking. The little people may or may not show interest, but it will probably stir your soul just right. Keep your own journal of impressions and observations. Everything you see becomes part of the story you discover together. 

Make a map for the island of Gnomeland.

Make a map for the island of Gnomeland.

Know that both humans and gnomes inhabit this island.

Add a key.

Tell a story about the human part of Gnomeland versus the gnome part of Gnomeland.

How do the creatures treat their environment differently? Why?

What can we learn from gnomes and the way they relate to nature?

MAKE A MAP OF GNOMELAND ACTIVITY (PDF)

Printable story starters coloring page, a freebie for thee.

My little freebie for your holiday car trips.

Just download the PDF version below and make sure journals and crayons are in hand.

STORY STARTERS (PDF)

Just a thought... stolen from Wendell Berry.

It's our journaling prompt for the day, and it set me to thinking. What moments in your life have illustrated Wendell's thought?

Two poems about journaling by William Stafford.

A friend found in the grass this week.

KEEPING A JOURNAL by William Stafford

At night it was easy for me with my little candle
to sit late recording what happened that day. Sometimes
rain breathing in from the dark would begin softly
across the roof and then drum wildly for attention.
The candle flame would hunger after each wafting
of air. My pen inscribed thin shadows that leaned
forward and hurried their lines along the wall.

More important than what was recorded, these evenings
deepened my life: they framed every event
or thought and placed it with care by the others.
As time went on, that scribbled wall--even if
it stayed blank--became where everything
recognized itself and passed into meaning.

William (or Bill) Stafford stayed faithful to his journals and diaries over the years, urging friends, family members, and students to keep a record of their thoughts. The thoughts cherished and saved in ink often took shape as poems on a later date, when the experiences ripened well enough to attach themselves to words.

Exploring figurative language: Idioms.

Part of all the script-writing we've been enjoying lately involves being able to use and understand different types of figurative language. In my opinion, it's easier to learn how to write dialogue in a story by starting with writing dialogue in a script. That way, the essential verbal communication is captured first, prior to additional descriptions and mood. 

Figures of Speech Study: Idioms (PDF)
5 pages of worksheets like the one above

Today is devoted to idioms. Max started with the Idioms worksheets I made for the occasion (which you may use as well) while the ladies colored some fantastic pictures of idioms and learned from the  Illustrated Idioms Handout (PDF) that I discovered online at Henry School.

Curiosity Killed the Cat coloring page (PDF)
Raining Cats and Dogs coloring page (PDF)

More idiom-based free fun to chase:

Eye on Idioms (Read Write Think)

Illustrated Idioms Handout (Henry School)
Idioms Worksheet Set (Education.com)
"The idiotic joys of idioms" (The Guardian)
An Idiom A Day Activity (Fancy Free in 4th)
Idioms and their meanings (Idiomsite) 
The origins of proverbs and idioms (Phrases Finder)
Idioms (The Dog Hause)
Idiom worksheets (John Sherman Mills)
Out of this World Idiom Story (The Dabbling Speechie)
Children's books for teaching idioms (The Best Children's Books)
Online games related to idioms, for kids
Idioms Illustrated video (Vimeo)
Unveiling Idioms: A Game of Concentration (Read Write Think)
Paint By Idioms game (Fun Brain)
Idioms by Kids, a great site with illustrations
English Idioms Daily Blog 
8 Fun Things to do With Idioms (Minds in Bloom)
Idioms Worksheet #1 (Have Fun Teaching) 
Idioms Worksheet #2 (Have Fun Teaching) 
Idioms Worksheet #3 (Have Fun Teaching)  
Idioms Game (Children's University of Manchester) 
Teaching children with autism to understand idioms (Hear Our Voices) 

Why I teach my children poetry.

We begin each morning together on the red carpet with a poem- from sonnet to limerick to ballade to hymn and on through any form or un-form imaginable, Robert Frost, George Herbert, Eugene Fields, Lewis Carroll, Herman Hesse, WB Yeats, Eugene Ionesco, Mother Goose, Auden, the sublime rubbing shoulders with the silly.

Literary essays, novels, articles, essays, scientific papers, and textbooks enable us to explore, ponder, and discuss many beautiful things, creatures, and ideas. This is undisputable and quite obvious. No amount of rationalistic description, however, can convey to us what it feels like to be inlove or to seek the sacred in the ache of a long day. To study these hallowed chambers of life requires the assistance of poetry and song- words arranged aiming not to provide THE account but to linger upon and live and sense various aspects of the accounting process itself. 

The child who can discuss anatomy and football yet who shudders, frustrated and mute, in the face of love- finding no words to honor this experience, no form in which to share it with others- is a sad and uneducated child indeed. For he has been taught only one part of a bigger puzzle. He will gain his instruction in lust from the magazines lining the grocery store aisles, the movies, and the homogenizing banter of friends and fellows. But this burdensome lust will lack something bigger to magnify. 

To offer poetry, a daily dose, as it were, is to provide a young heart and mind with a means of reproach against the sordid banality of groupthink, the dull-witted profanity of everyday life. It arms you with the possibility of meaning and hope; it awakens and nourishes a sense of awe for the sublime and unspeakable, for the wonder and the mystery. So feed them fairies and legends, tales of wonder and magic. And put the gift of poetry on their tiny tongues so they may learn to speak about the soul stirring beneath and throughout. 

Calpurnia Tate continued: Chapter 2.

We are continuing our study of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate  which, of course, I intend to share with fellow home learners out there. If you missed the introduction, you can find materials for Chapter 1 right here.

“It’s amazing what you can see when you just sit down and look.”

Our chapter 2 study is heavy on the writing side with acrostics and similies as a central part of the supplemental activities.

Chapter 2 Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary (PDF)

Journal Entry Write About A Quote (PDF)

Character Impressions Through Acrostics (PDF)

Similies Stories (PDF)

Enjoy and share. I think Calpurnia would appreciate it.

The tree that didn't get trimmed: How to love your tree beyond the holidays.

Last night, what started as a simple storytime ended with a family council. The kids got in their pajamas, Patrick made a fire, and we read a short story, "The Tree That Didn't Get Trimmed", published in 1957 by Christopher Morley. It is available for free reading online and also on Google Play. 

The story begins in the woods with vivid imagery of what it must be like to live as an evergreen tree:

If you walk through a grove of balsam trees you will notice that the young trees are silent: they are listening. But the old tall ones- especially the firs- are whispering. They are telling the story of The Tree That Didn't Get Trimmed. It sounds like a painful story, and the murmur of the old trees as they tell it is rather solemn; but it is an encouraging story for young saplings to hear. On warm autumn days when your trunk is tickled by ants and insects climbing, and the resin is hot and gummy in your knots, and the whole glade smells sweet, drowsy, and sad, and the hardwood trees are boasting of the gay colors they are beginning to show, many a young evergreen has been cheered by it.

The final paragraph of the story left the family feeling hopeful, yet somehow disturbed about the future of our own tree. 

Something nice, the old firs believe, always happens to the trees that don't get trimmed. They even believe that someday one of the Christmas-tree bean poles will be the starting point for another Magic Beanstalk, as in the fairy tale of the boy who climbed up the bean tree and killed the giant. When that happens, fairy tales will begin all over again.

After reading it, all of us stared at our tree and thought things we didn't articulate. So I called a Family Council and tried to make the case for a better future.

ALINA SAID, WAVING HER HAND: 

"I move that, after the holidays, we take our tree into the woods behind the house and put it in a special place where it can return to its roots and we can visit it."

MAX:

"Yeah! It can be the Christmas Tree Corner."

ALINA:

"Does anyone second the motion?"

MAX:

"I second it!"

ALINA:

"All in favor, say aye."

EVERYONE CHEERS AND SAYS SOMETHING AKIN TO "AYE". 

If only all family council meetings and decisions went so smoothly.... Democracy in action is a messy, messy thing.

There's a poet in the room.

Earlier this year, Max submitted a poem to Highlights magazine. We were working on odes in our poetry journal and he thought it would be fun to see if it got published.

When a letter arrived a few weeks later thanking Max for his submission but explaining why it would not be published, Max was slightly dejected but surprisingly understanding. More understanding than his mother, who was raised to believe that being "the best" was the least one should do. We hung the rejection letter on the wall and shared a number of smirks and giggles over it.

Lo and behold, while reading the most recent issue of Highlights, a subscription gifted by our dear Grandma Vicki, Max discovered a poem called "Ode to My Swing" authored by none other than himself. He whooped with glee. I had to hide my puffy-chested pride and focus on congratulating him without over-emphasizing a "win". But I am so very proud of him- and can share it here.

MAX: "Mom, does this mean I am a published poet now?"

ALINA: "Yes, I think so."

A journal prompt from Annie Dillard.

All the recent rains have left the ground wet and the scent of fall permeates the air. "The scent of leaves becoming soil," as Max says. Our journal prompt for today situates itself among the fallen leaves and the awe inspired by the changing season. I gave Max the following quote from Annie Dillard's essay, "This Is the Life", and told him to write freely about how it made him feel and what it made him think.

People look at the sky and at the other animals. They make beautiful objects, beautiful sounds, beautiful motions of their bodies beating drums in lines. They pray; they toss people in peat bogs; they help the sick and injured; they pierce their lips, their noses, ears; they make the same mistakes despite religion, written language, philosophy, and science; they build, they kill, they preserve, they count and figure, they boil the pot, they keep the embers alive; they tell their stories and gird themselves.

Say you have seen something. You have seen an ordinary bit of what is real, the infinite fabric of time that eternity shoots through, and time's soft-skinned people working and dying under slowly shifting stars. Then what?

Annie Dillard

What indeed? I love the journal prompts that leave the doors wide open for whatever is coursing through his head.

Journal entry prompts about costumes.

Today's journal prompt ideas were taken from the lovely old vintage children's books in the Dandelion Colllection. They should be obscure enough to prompt imaginative storytelling rather than rememebering-- for little ones, at least.

Tell this story about this man and his tree suit.

The two horses, Brownie and Whitiy, are dressed as dames. Tell their story.

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain: A book and a few ways to play.

For Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain, Vena Aardema took an African folktale and turned it into a sonorous rhythm just perfect for a children's storybook. The tale was originally discovered in Kenya more than 80 years ago by Sir Claud Hollis, a British anthropologist who spent time learning from the Nandi tribe. Sir Hollis camped near a village and took the time to learn the Nandi language from two young boys. He learned riddles and proverbs from the Nandi children. He learned folk tales and legends from the Chief Medicine Man. Then he took all these beautiful folkways and published them in The Nandi: Their Language and Folklore, which first touched bookshelves in 1919.

Considered a tropical climate because it is hot and humid, Kenya is located on the East Coast of Africa. The average temperature is 80 degrees all year long. While there are also sandy beaches, rainforests, and swamps, three-fourths of Kenya consists of very dry plains. The plains receive about ten to thirty inches of rainfall each year.

A Nandi village home in Kenya.

There aren't any major cities here, but nomads roam the land tending their flocks and searching for food (grasses for grazing) and water. The people in rural areas farm and raise livestock.The Nandi people are an example of a nomad group; they live in Western Kenya, in the plains, and they keep cattle, sheep, and goats as their way of life.  We learned more about the Nandi tribe from the Joshua Project.

There is a highland area in the southwest that receives enough rainfall (forty to fifty inches a year) and has enough good soil to support farming. The majority of the people live here. Kenya also has forests and grasslands, and Nairobi, the capital city, is located in the highland area.

We read the book aloud together and the kids competed to see who could make the most comments per page. I decided to take a cue from a teacher I know and asked them to contribute comments in the form of "I wonder....." statements. Max kept a tally of our "I wonder..." statements for this book.

Max explained:

"I really like the way the story kind of piles up and has a beat..."

Alina agreed:

"Me too, Max. It's a cumulative story- it builds on itself- and the rhythm keeps is rushing past like a stream. It's a mix of predictable repetitions and bold rhymes. I can almost see creating a rain dance to match it."

Max:

"I was thinking about a dance. I was thinking about a story- like a pourquoi story. Isn't this a pourquoi story?"

Alina grinned:

"You're right! It is!"

Max continued:

"So I'm going to write one about the pink dogwood in our backyard and maybe I'll make it a piling rhyme like in this book."

Alina, excited:

"Piling rhyme. I like that description."

I didn't mention this to Max, but creating our own twine-and-twig harp would also be quite fun. The only image of this instrument is on the cover of the book. This is a close-up. Cool, eh?

We talked about the mud and straw houses built by the Nandi- why they used these resources, which are plentiful on the plains, to build homes. Micah observed that "they only have one tree, and it is for climbing, not building". Ecological scarcity and sustainable building practices come up quite readily in a discussion of this book with children of any age.

Chasing butterflies across Kapiti Plain:

Choral reading activity

Explore concept of scarcity with this book

Create an ecoweb for a Kenyan plain.

Introduce 3 new vocabulary words, like acacia, drought, and African plain

Reader's Theatre version from the Alabama Education Exchange

Journal entry answering one "I wonder...." statement in the form of a story.

Write a "piling poem" per Max's description.

Love letter #52: Speculative poetry.

We discovered a new world this week- a novel galaxy whose radioactive proximity excites the senses and imagination. In the past month, as I've tried to organize the Circles of Peace workshops for the coming year, various friends and acquaintances mention that I should meet David and Sonia Kopaska-Merkel. Never one to wait for stylized introductions, I packed the kids into the spaceship and cruised on over to make their acquaintance.

A drawing from Dreams and Nightmares.

No one was home. Or, perhaps, someone was home but preferred to be "un-home". When Max asked why we had come to meet this family, I explained that I thought they were pretty neat and that they wrote speculative poetry, words combined into stalagmites and supernovas both fantastic and no larger than the gnome residing under the tree stump in our front yard.

Max said:

"Cool. I could do that. Maybe they'll teach me."

Alina said:

"Maybe. Either way, I think we have lots to learn from them."

When we got back to the Coryell Castle, Max continued to inquire about speculative poetry. I answered his queries with a few poems by Mr. Kopaska-Merkel, available for free in audio format at his magazine, Dreams and Nightmares. 

Max said:

"I like how he brings the stars to earth."

Alina agreed.

Max said:

"Tell me more about the guy who wrote it."

Alina read aloud:

David C. Kopaska-Merkel is the editor and publisher of Dreams and Nightmares magazine, and was for six years the editor of Star*Line, the journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Fourteen previous chapbooks and hundreds of poems and short stories have been published in dozens of venues since the early 1980s. David lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, with 2 artists, 3 cats, 1 dog, 2 bunnies, and thousands of books.

Max said:

"I wonder if he'd like to teach some kids about stars and universes and poems?"

Alina said:

"I wonder as well."

Max said:

"How do we find out?"

Alina said:

"Every point has the potential to create a line or a circle."

Journal prompt on roots.

I wanted to see how Max interpreted this statement.... he's busy writing away right now.

Montaigne's thoughts on education and "unschooling".

Discussing essays with Max and how the essay came to be a literary form led us to Michel de Montaigne, the first essayist. In fact, Montaigne titled his collection of 107 written thoughts (which we now consider "essays") Essaies, which is French for "trials" or "attempts". Montaigne's Essays were published in 1580, thus giving rise to the "essay", which is a literary form in which a given topic is exposed and explored through a short, subjective treatment.

Reading a few of Montaigne's essays with Max led me to read a few more on my own last night. I was delighted to find some of his quasi-ancient views on education reaffirmed my own intuitions. Was Montaigne an early "unschooler"? I'll let you decide for yourself. Here are a few excerpts from his essay, "On the Education of Children", which is addressed to a Countess friend.

If you can overlook the use of antiquated references to "races" of children in which "race" does not connote our contemporary meaning, then you might find this passage making a firm argument for experence-based learning in a holistic context:

If, as is our custom, the teachers undertake to regulate many minds of such different capacities and forms with the same lesson and a similar measure of guidance, it is no wonder if in a whole race of children they barely find two or three who reap any proper fruit from their teaching.

Let him be asked for an account not merely of the words of his lesson, but of its sense and substance, and let him judge the profit he has made by the testimony not of his memory, but of his life. Let him be made to show what he has learned in a hundred aspects, and apply it to as many different subjects, to see if he has yet properly grasped it and made it his own, planning his progress according to the pedagogical method of Plato. It is a sign of rawness and indigestion to disgorge food just as we swallowed it. The stomach has not done its work if it has not changed the condition and form of what has been given it to cook.

Montaigne emphasizes the importance of broad exposure to ideas in the development of critical thinking and reasoning:

Let the tutor make his charge pass everything through a sieve and lodge nothing in his head on mere authority and trust: let not Aristotle's principles be principles to him any more than those of the Stoics or Epicureans. Let this variety of ideas be set before him: he will choose if he can; if not, he will remain in doubt. Only the fools are certain and assured.

He who follows another follows nothing. He finds nothing; indeed he seeks nothing. We are not under a king; let each one claim his own freedom. Let him know that he knows, at least. He must imbibe their ways of thinking, not their precepts. And let him boldly forget, if he wants, where he got them, but let him know how to make them his own.... With the pieces borrowed from others; he will transform and blend them to make a work that is all his own, to wit, his judgement. His education, work, and study aim only at forming this.

Sharply critical of the rote memorization so common to schools in the trivium method, which reigned supreme as a pedagogical prop during his life, Montaigne scoffed:

To know by heart is not to know; it is to retain what we have given our memory to keep. What we know rightly, we dispose of, without looking at the model, without turning our eyes towards our book. Sad competence, a purely bookish competence! I intend it to serve as decoration, not as foundation.

He also lauds the "apprenticeship" of life as a primary means of education.

Everything that comes to our eyes is book enough: a page's prank, a servant's blunder, a remark at table, are so many new materials. For this reason, mixing with men is wonderfully useful and visiting foreign countries... to bring back knowledge of the characters and ways of those nations, and to rub and polish our brains by contact with those of others.

Exposure to a vast array of conventions, practices, beliefs, and individuals enables a child to edit and revise his own opinions- it cultivates humility, as opposed to the need to be "right" or the desire to win (which can not be motivated by a desire for truth). In this sense, education cultivates certain virtues and worldviews broad enough to accomodate new knowledge.

Let him be made to understand that to confess the flaw he discovers in his own argument, though it still be unnoticed except by himself, is itself an act of judgement and sincerity, which are the principal qualities he seeks; that obstinacy and contention are vulgar qualities, most often seen in the meanest souls; that to change his mind and correct himself, to give up a bad position at the height of his ardor, are rare, strong, and philosophical qualities.

Montaigne's views on coercion in education were astonishingly progressive for his time:

As to the rest, this method of education ought to be carried on with a severe sweetness, quite contrary to the practice of our pedants, who, instead of tempting and alluring children to letters by apt and gentle ways, do in truth present nothing before them but rods and rules, horror and cruelty.  Away with this violence!  away with this compulsion! than which, I certainly believe nothing more dulls and degenerates a well-descended nature.  If you would have him apprehend shame and chastisement, do not harden him to them... amongst other things, the strict government of most of our colleges has evermore displeased misadventure, they might have erred less perniciously on the indulgent side.  'Tis a real house of correction of imprisoned youth.  They are made debauched by being punished before they are so.  Do but come in when they are about their lesson, and you shall hear nothing but the outcries of boys under execution, with the thundering noise of their pedagogues drunk with fury. A very pretty way this, to tempt these tender and timorous souls to love their book, with a furious countenance, and a rod in hand!  

I will definitely be forcing Max to read and recite Montaigne essays in the near future. Perhaps I'll begin with this one. (Alina cackles madly before preparing for a diaper run.)

Love letter #50: Brian Fox Ellis' stories about nature.

A poem Brian "Fox" Ellis animated by Vin Luong that celebrates the dance and migration of Whooping Cranes. 

Brian Fox Ellis is a gifted storyteller, poet, artist, and raconteur who draws on traditions in American history to bring nature to life and cultivate love. He is currently working on a documentary about John James Audobon, and you can watch him in character here. Brian blogs about everything from his latest publications to his love for the most recent Green Day album, no subject is too off-kilter for his narrative tapestry. In case you're curious about the Green Day reference, here is what he posted:

“An American Idiot.” One of the best new musicals anywhere! Yes, I am exuberant by nature, but I cannot say enough about this brilliant music, the astounding choreography, the intriguing use of video, the chemistry of the ensemble, and the amazing music. Did I say the songs are stupendous? In case you were wondering, the music is great. (I bought the sound track and I am listening to it now as I type this!)When this Green Day album was first released Bush was president, the twin towers had just come down, American Idol was in ascension, and America was lost in a fog of distortion and media manipulations. This album, like very few of the many others who have been so acclaimed, truly captured the angst and frustration of a generation, but it also did something more, namely it bottled that rage and love and fear in a set list that let a faint glimmer of light leak out from under the helmet clamped tightly onto the heads of so many. The album was written with a theatricality and broader story line that should make The Who’s Tommy weep, redefining Rock Opera.

But there is much more to Brian than quasi-punk aesthetics. Since I'm feeling rather list-ish today, I'll leave you with a list of twenty things to love about the man who calls himself "Fox".

1. How to tell a story and learn it by heart 

2. Capturing the Haiku Moment lesson plan

3. Fun with Fables lesson plan

4. Telling personal tales, a how-to

5. A recipe for a story, a printable chart activity

6. How to plan a porque story, a printable guide to writing your own how-and-why tale about nature

7. Telling Tales Tall and True lesson plan

8. Myth into Reality lesson plan

9. An array of early childhood lesson plans

10. An array of adult literacy and ESL lesson plans

11. How to host a family literacy night

12. A food web activity you can print and color

13. Audubon and Bird Tales lesson plan

14. Bird Is The Word, a lesson plan which blends ecology and creative writing

15. Arbor Day Tall Tree Tales lesson plan

16. Bioregional quiz to help develop and cultivate a sense of "place"

17. Stories Stones Can Tell creative writing activity

18. Speaking Truth to Power, a lesson plan about promoting peace through communication

19. Stepping into Character in 6 easy steps, a guide

20. The Lives of Saints, a storytelling and storymaking lesson plan

21. His poem about the meadowlark

Paranoid Rain Dance, a fibonacci sonnet dedicated to Ann Coulter.

The weather today requires something a little more technical than usual. Enter the fibonacci sonnet, a fantastic exercise in poetry, symmetry, and the best parts of math. Max is still working on his, but I know it's "about tape". In the meantime, here's mine.

PARANOID RAIN DANCE

by Alina Stefanescu Coryell

For Ann Coulter, who is always on the lookout for boogey-men

Raindrops

tiptoe

before running.

The pelting passacaglia.

An ear for dynamics might

sense when the waltz ends and ballet begins.

We watch, marvelled, as ballerinas, en pointe atop puddles, coalesce, parts becoming whole.

How a tiny dance transforms silt into the thick contagion called "mud" surely involves a well-trained cadre somewhere in eternal conspiracy.

Who can keep quiet when constant trickle is cover for hammer and sickle?

A true patriot sometimes speaks out against rain.

The homeland hero sees socialism

in thunderstorms and

sodden

trees.

Other exciting fibonacci sonnets to get you through this rain day:

• Love and Math, an anonymous fib sonnet
• Flame by David M. Pickford
• Two Fibonacci Sonnets by Bina Gupta

Max's sisters are his poetic muse.

Micah remarks that the thunderstorms "flooded" their mud.

Sisters

playful, silly

running, dancing, banging

House turns to playground

sharing, booting, beeping

tiny, tender

siblings

Found poetry fun.

Austin Kleon's creative writing and sketching whisked perfect "clean the house" moments from our day. We would be grateful for that alone if there weren't so much more on his website to celebrate. Since we didn't have time to do everything, this means we did, at least, have time to do something. We discovered poems in magazine articles. "Found poetry". Poetry made from words which emerge from a periodical page and arrange themselves magically into a poem.

A found poem found by Austin Kleon which seems quite worthy of a tee.

Like a scupltor faced with a block of granite, wondering what shape will emerge, the poet of found poems stares long and hard before beginning the process of elimination and carving that will reveal the poem among the wasteland of words.

Max chews on his tshirt while scouring the printed magazine page for words.

Our eyes felt a little heavy after carefully sifting through all the fine print, but it was a fun and simple lesson in constructing poems from those building blocks called words.

You find more leeway for wackiness in both grammar and syntax and, in the process, find a way to discuss grammar and syntax in a manner that does not lead to immediate death by boredom.

I'm sure you could play this by circling found words rather than painting over the non-found words, which would make this a great game for long car trips and other moments in which sitting in one place is required.

A creepy diamante poem.

The snail Max discovered.

To emphasize that there should be no shame in trying to speak the language called poetry, I let this photo of Max and his snail lead me through my own little diamante-writing experiment. The form is very restrictive, which is nice because it tends to provoke an imagery-driven approach. Find a photo and see where it leads you. Or step outside and narrow your horizon to one tiny living object. 

Snail

rotund, modest

rolling, sliming, sticking

table, pebble, rock, trunk

creeping, inching, leaking

viscous, glistening

trail

<center><a href="http://www.alinasadventuresinhomemaking.com/diamante-poems.html" _mce_href="http://www.alinasadventuresinhomemaking.com/diamante-poems.html" target="_blank"><img alt="Diamante Poem" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UgXy7AwpWP4/TxuREeTioNI/AAAAAAAARyw/Ic_NuMt8DRI/s200/IMG_02760.jpg" _mce_src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UgXy7AwpWP4/TxuREeTioNI/AAAAAAAARyw/Ic_NuMt8DRI/s200/IMG_02760.jpg"/></a></center>

Odes are not odious.

An ode is a poem which celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea. It is a formal address to something close, far, or invisible. The word "ode" comes from the Greek word aeidein, meaning "to sing or chant". Its roots lie in lyric poetry, and its branches stretch out to encompass a variety of forms. 

Originally accompanied by music and dance, and later reserved by the Romantic poets to convey their strongest sentiments, the ode is a fanciful event. We read a few odes aloud- Max used his "ode" voice, a combination of pomp and declaration. 

"Ode to a Pair of Socks" by Pablo Neruda (with audio)

"Ode to Pablo's Tennis Shoes" by Gary Soto

"Ode On a Unicycle" by Ken Nesbitt

"Ode to the West Wind" by Percy Bysshe Shelley

"America" by Robert Creeley

Then Max made a list in his journal of 15 things which deserve an ode from his hands, including his sisters, a car, a lightpost, Hurricane Creek, words, a movie, a bee, a road, a railroad, a playground, a grass meadow, a flower, an apple, a fence, a book, and a swing. The swing captured his ode-ing fancy, and he decided to write and ode to the swing right away, while watching Milla and Micah fly, twist, and giggle through the air.

Since he was enjoying odes, I told him about poet Danielle Pafunda’s simple, four-line ode structure: 

Ode to (ode topic)

(one word describing the subject) + (one word describing the subject) 

(fact about the subject)

wild card line (imagine your subject speaking or acting or speak to your subject)

He loves formulas, and brevity certainly lent its appeal. He played around with the four-line formula and his remaining topics. Then, he jumped up and exclaimed:

"Mom! I want to share my swing ode the way that kid shared the sock ode! Can I read it aloud and you record it and put in on your blog so other kids can hear it? "

How can I resist? I finally found an excuse to use Garage Band, which deserves an ode of its own.... And here is Max's ode.

ODE TO MY SWING by Max Coryell

Subject: A barn.

Max's barn.

THE BARN, a poem by Seamus Heaney

Threshed corn lay piled like grit of ivory
Or solid as cement in two-lugged sacks.
The musky dark hoarded an armoury
Of farmyard implements, harness, plough-socks.

The floor was mouse-grey, smooth, chilly concrete.
There were no windows, just two narrow shafts
Of gilded motes, crossing, from air-holes slit
High in each gable. The one door meant no draughts

All summer when the zinc burned like an oven.
A scythe's edge, a clean spade, a pitchfork's prongs:
Slowly bright objects formed when you went in.
Then you felt cobwebs clogging up your lungs

And scuttled fast into the sunlit yard-
And into nights when bats were on the wing
Over the rafters of sleep, where bright eyes stared
From piles of grain in corners, fierce, unblinking.

The dark gulfed like a roof-space. I was chaff
To be pecked up when birds shot through the air-slits.
I lay face-down to shun the fear above.
The two-lugged sacks moved in like great blind rats.

You can listen to a reading of this word-rich poem online at Writer's Almanac.

Asher B. Durand's "Kindred Spirits": A journal conversation.

"Kindred Spirits" by Asher B. Durand, 1849

Max immediately identified with Durand's painting which shows fellow Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole and poet William Cullen Bryant in the Catskills. He noticed the stick and conjectured that the two men were having a lively conversation. So he devoted a journal entry to sharing the conversation between these two kindred spirits.

Thomas: I wonder, I wonder... Could that bird really be a bald eagle?

William: Well, according to the book, we are looking in the right place.

Thomas: But maybe it was a robot eagle.

William: We are in a paradise for the red sparrows.

Thomas: Maybe we should look for them. But it is.... (R-R-R-ring) The phone! What?

William: The other side. They found it.

Thomas: We can beat them to find that red sparrow! Ha, William! Great idea!

So Max took a very current view of this painting- a view in which the men were involved in a competition to find various birds with some gentlemen across the way. I wonder if he was inspired by our geocaching ventures, in which we use our cell phones to track caches.

Chase butterflies:

• Durand's painting at the National Gallery of Art
• A printable brochure about Durand's Kindred Spirits
• Asher Brown Durand on wikipedia

Journal prompt about circles.

Cube story starter for journal.

Max loves jumping-off points. He loves to read or learn something and then think out loud about it. Not converse, mind you, but merely think out loud. When he plays outside, I miss the chatter of his thoughts being chased around the house. 

Journaling allows him to build little castles of ideas and revisit them- stand back and walk around them, examining the structure, noting how his castle-building tastes have changed, wondering why this castle has acquired a sense of the past tense. Unlike the castles he thinks out loud, these castles are tangible and historical (i.e. they celebrate a place in his past imaginings). Before I completely lose you with my castle metaphor, I'd like to share my newest inexpensive journaling prompt.

For $3 at a craft store, you can buy a plastic photo cube with space for six photographs. At the beginning of the week, pick six photographs, drawings, magazine illustrations, words written on paper, or whatever strikes your fancy. Fill the cube with these story starters. 

During free journaling time, encourage your child to pick an image as a jumping point for a story. If prompting is helpful, then prompting is a great idea. For example:

Imagine that you are a journalist or reporter and this image is your story image. Report what happened.

Create a fairy tale for this image.

Imagine that you find this image lying on the floor in your mother's room. Why does she have it? What does it represent?

Imagine that this image is in a science or history textbook. Write the paragraph next to the image in the textbook which explains its relevance.

The goozly grandydoy who lives on Golozonk.

The Terrateeth and wind holes on Golozonk.

Max's response to dr. haase's wondering:

This is a Goozly Grandydoy who lives on Golozonk. Now Golozonk is a huge planet. Once a year, it comes alive and volcanoes make it a fiery circle of vapors. Then, huge Terrateeth gnaw the rock apart. The Goozly Grandydoy jumps on the Terrateeth and waits until the new igneous rock cools. Then, it jumps off the Terrateeth. They sink and form wind holes to suck in Goozly Grandydoys. This Goozly Grandydoy is the last one remaining. I'm hoping he figures something out.

Fall scavenger hunt turns into an excuse for poetry.

Milla noting changes in the bark? Or not....

Earlier this week, everything seemed to be falling from trees, changing colors, or acquiring a new, autumn-laden scent. So I thought it might be fun to go out and explore all the changes in the natural world- to take note of them, collect them, and reflect upon them.

I put together a printable scavenger hunt handout (which you can download and use below) and set Max loose in search of collectibles. Then, once he and his friend Ellie returned with a bag full of autumn loot, we ventured outside to fulfill the "experience" part of the scavenger hunt.

The Autumn Scavenger Hunt Handout

Max and Micah needed a little prompting to "experience" a few of the items on the list, but once the experiences started, they found all kinds of words and analogies to describe them. The comparisons just kept coming.

The texture of tree bark was "rough", "scaly", "like a dragon's skin", "rocky", and "lumpy-like".

The sound of shoes on the pavement was "flat", "thuddish", "like a horse running", "thumping", "hollow", and even "like a kangaroo". 

The scent of dried leaves evoked "wet cardboard", "snails", "underground tunnels", and "our hideout under the magnolia". 

The feel of pine needles on their cheeks "tickled", "itched", "worrisome, like ants", and even reminded Max of how his pen feels when he taps his cheek with it while looking for a word.

All these fall feelings couldn't quite fit into the rest of the day without a poem- and observing the way in which autumn stimulates the senses proved inspirational for Max. So he grabbed a pencil and some paper and wrote the following fall poems as a result of our scavenger hunt.

POEM FOR FALL #1

    by Max Coryell

Fall air, fall breeze,
Blow, blow again, please.
Rough, scaly, lumpy are the trees.
Don't die, don't, please.
Leaves on your cheek like to tease,
Fall down, fall, oh please.

POEM FOR FALL #2

    by Max Coryell

Tickly, cool, rough,
Crunchy, sweet, lovely,
That is fall.
Fall breeze blows leaves,
Cooling trees and making
    a scene.

I would love to see if any other poems come from the glorious change of seasons- your poems, the poems of your children.

Journal prompt about ways of knowing.

Strange bird journal prompt.

Exploring the difference between narrative and lyric verse.

Narrative poetry is based in the traditions of storytelling and folk tales. It always has a plot- something happens. A narrative poem usually tells a story using a poetic theme. Narrative poems were created to explain oral traditions. The focus of narrative poetry is often the pros and cons of life. Types of narrative poems include:

1. Epic - a long, serious poem that tells the story of a heroic figure
2. Ballad - a narrative poem that tells a folk tale or legend and often has a repeated refrain. The ballad’s 4-3-4-3 line beat in matching quatrains has become the most familiar spoken-word and recorded poetic form of modern times.
3. Idyll - either a short poem depicting a peaceful, idealized country scene, or long poems that tell a story about ancient heroes. The word is derived from  the Greek word 'eidyllion' meaning "little picture". Idylls can be lyric poems if their subject matter tends towards the pastoral.
4. Lay - a long narrative poems, especially one sung by medieval minstrels and French trouveres.
5. Romances

Read some narrative poetry online:

• "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• "The Destruction of Sennacherib" by Lord Byron
• "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest L. Thayer
• "The Eve of St. John" by Sir Walter Scott
• "The Walrus and the Carpenter" by Lewis Carroll
• "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" by Sir Walter Scott
• "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe
• "The Legend of Gelhert" by Josie Whitehead
• "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" by Robert Browning
• "The Ballad of Swift Nick" by Josie Whitehead
• "The Holy Grail" by Lord Alfred Tennyson
• "Ave Maria" by Alfred Austin
• "On Turning Ten" by Billy Collins
• More.....

Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. It is usually short and song-like. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat. The lyric poem, dating from the Romantic era, does have some thematic antecedents in ancient Greek and Roman verse, but the ancient definition was based on metrical criteria, and in archaic and classical Greek culture presupposed live performance accompanied by a stringed instrument.

1. Sonnet - English (or Shakespearean) sonnets are lyric poems that are 14 lines long falling into three coordinate quatrains and a concluding couplet. Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnets are divided into two quatrains and a six-line sestet. 
2. Ode - a long poem which is serious in nature and written to a set structure; often a tribute to a person, place, thing, or sentiment.
3. Haiku - a Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables often based on an image.
4. Villanelle - a nineteen-line poem with two rhymes throughout, consisting of five tercets and a quatrain, with the first and third lines of the opening tercet recurring alternately at the end of the other tercets and with both repeated at the close of the concluding quatrain.
5. Cinquain - a short, usually unrhymed poem consisting of twenty-two syllables distributed as 2, 4, 6, 8, 2, in five lines.
6. Aubade - a song or poem greeting the dawn or describing a dawn parting.
7. Ghazal - a lyric poem with a fixed number of verses and a repeated rhyme, typically on the theme of love, and normally set to music. This form of poem is traditional to the Middle East.
8. Bhajan - any type of Indian devotional song. It has no fixed form. Often, bhajans praise the sacred and holy.
9. Pastoral - a  poem that depicts rural life in a peaceful, idealized way for example of shepherds or country life. 
10. Romantic verse - Nature and love were a major themes of Romanticism favoured by 18th and 19th century poets such as Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. Emphasis in such poetry is placed on the personal experiences of the individual.
11. Elegy - a sad and thoughtful poem lamenting the death of a person.

Read some lyric poetry online:

• Dante's lyric poems
• "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" by W.H. Auden
• "Oh Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman
• "America" by Robert Creeley
• "Ode to the West Wind" by Percy Bysshe Shelley
• "When I consider how my light is spent" by John Milton
• "Sonnet 18" by William Shakespeare
• "Ode to Tomatoes" by Pablo Neruda
• "Ode to Joy" by Friedrich Schiller
• "Aubade: Lake Erie" by Thomas Merton
• "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats
• "Even the Rain" by Agha Shahid Ali
• "The Ghazal of What Hurt" by Peter Cole
• "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas
• "The Sonnet-Ballad" by Gwendolyn Brooks
• "Ode to Joy" by Buster Baxter
• An assortment of bhajans including audio files

Chasing butterflies:

• In classifying the differences between lyric and narrative poetry, Mobin's guide was useful.
• Lesson plan for writing lyric poetry.
• Origins in Sappho of lyric poetry.
• Poetry Through the Ages, an online interactive exhibit.
• Venn That Tune.
• Using Venn diagrams to examine poetry.
• Explore how bhajans are used as a way of worship.

Rocks under rainbows and other story starters.

Inspired by Mamaroots' Once Upon A Table Story Table Projects, in which she of great heart actually offers many printable tutorials for fantastic story characters and props, I asked Max if we could use his rock pilferage to create our own story characters and props. He brightly agreed.

So we whipped out the acrylic paints, googly eyeds, Modge Podge, fabric scraps, and the trinket bin always brimming with perfect crafting junk. Inspired by leprechauns and MamaRoots, we decided that our land must have a rainbow first because there is always something under the rainbow, if not more than a beautiful horizon. 

Various characters, including a green pirate, also came to be. However, they are currently drying. Manyana...

The story of a poncho family.

Designing and sewing ponchos for my family causes me to see ponchos everywhere. Suddenly, the poncho has become an object of my not-so-discreet fascination. When Max inquired about the origins of the poncho, I realized I needed to study a little history. And then I realized the history of ponchos is as rich and multi-faceted as the individual members of our family. Sometimes the best way to explore history is by telling a story....

THE STORY OF A PANCHO FAMILY

Nothing went as planned for the Pancho family that evening. The Pancho children kept coming unraveled while their parents kept misplacing the needles needed to stitch everyone back together. When even fresh stitches didn't help, and every difference between the Pancho kids proved a reason for more fighting and fussing, Mom and Dad Poncho realized that the time had come to bridge these differences with a little family history.

Given his penchant for clean dishes and well-organized pre-planning sessions, Dad assembled the kids on the couch in a mostly orderly fashion. Given her taste for embellished velvet and stories fatter than a bullfrog on a wet rock under a summer full moon, Mom started telling the family story. And this is what she said.

Long ago, before Mr. Clean invented the wall eraser to help homes with crayon graffitti, when ponchos rode in horses and buggies and colonialism was cooler than the beer, my family history began. We've traced my ancestors back to the Fruitlands, a utopian commune created in Concord, Massachussetts in 1884 by people who wanted to opt out of the industrial economy and get back to the land. They believed that manual labor was a "purifying discipline"- that it was good for the heart and the head and the soul. A man named Bronson Alcott, the father of Louisa May Alcott, who wrote the book Little Women, brought his family to Fruitlands. Bronson was part of the the Nonresistance Society, "a radical offshoot of the abolitionist movement who believed in the systematic oppression of all human institutions opposed to divine law and the duty to withdraw immediately leaving them to collapse under the burden of their own evil".

The requirements of manual labor made suits, cravats, and city clothing useless at Fruitlands. So Bronson walked about in an unbleached cotton poncho which helped to shield him from the elements and served as a sign of outward modesty. I come from this utopian white unbleached poncho- the uniform of hopeful humans trying to find and extend the good in the world. Bronson didn't stay at Fruitlands for too long- he soon discovered that all the manual labor made leisure and reading and family time impossible. He felt that his spirit suffered under the weight of poverty and endless work. So he took his family from Fruitlands. Today, you can visit Fruitlands as a museum and retreat, but the commune is only a memory. My family, rooted in this utopian spirit, continued and you can meet its extended progeny at various concerts and communes around the country.

Daddy's ancestry is more exotic and colorful. His family comes from 17th century Peru, where the wet climate of the Peruvian mountains created a need for warm outer coverings. Since the Peruvian mountain people cultivated alpacss and were very skilled in the art of textile weaving, they wove dad's ancestors by hand from alpaca wool, which is waterproof, like fleece, when stitched.

The Peruvians decorated the ponchos by dying the wool. The common Peruvian poncho had a bright geometric design on a red background. It was often accompanied by a brightly knitted woolen hat with ear flaps. Over time, the colors and patterns on ponchos were used to indicate family lineage (like Scottish kilts), occupation, and place of origin. Dad's ancestors communicated important social information to the human culture of Peru. 

Today, you can see dad's extended family at various Peruvian festivals and across the Latin American world. You can also understand why he tends towards the colorful and reddish moments of life.

When you bring together the fibers from an unbleached cotton poncho and ornately patterned alpaca wool ponchos, you end up with very diverse, beautiful, and interesting results. Because your family history is rooted in such different textures and fabrics, as little ponchos, you honor those differences in your appearance, tendencies, tastes, and styles. Rather than fight and argue over your individualities, try to remember that your common ancestry has given rise to beautiful distinctions. 

For more about the history of ponchos:

• Print a copy of Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands and share it with the family. Discuss what Bronson learned from his utopian experiment and how he learned it. 
• Get more information about the history of Peruvian alpaca ponchos.
• How Incan kings used ponchos.
• Make a paper bag poncho. 

Cinquains everywhere.

Cinquains provide an excellent and fun refresher and skills-builder in identifying and using nouns, adjectives, verbs, participles, and synonyms. They also reinforce the understanding of syllables. 

A cinquain (pronounced: sing-cane) is a 5 line poem that describes a noun. It comes from the French word "cinque", which means "five", or the Latin word "quinque", which also means "five". The number five lies at the heart of the cinquain's charm.

A cinquain can also be considered a kind of shape poetry. Because of the exact number of words required for each line of this poem, a unique, symmetrical shape is created from interesting, descriptive words. This shape can resemble a Christmas ornament. We used the homemade handout below to explore the structure, history, and form of cinquains.

 

MAKE, DO, AND PLAY

Read "Bubbles", a cinquain supposedly written by Buster from PBS Kids.

Write an instant online cinquain.

Use this printable graphic organizer to practice writing your own cinquain.

Submit a cinquain to Amaze, the cinquain journal.

Browse more cinquains by Adelaide Crapsey, mother of the Crapsey cinquain.

"Teaching a Quintet: The Cinquain Recipe" by Corie Feiner.

 Read some global cinquains by Joy Carter Fisher.

"The Mule", a poem by Max Coryell.

A photo taken by Patrick yesterday of our Max in the park.

The Mule

The animal has funny ears

but does not burst into tears

because he has no fears

about people's verbal sneers.

Max is a big fan of AAAA rhyme schemes. Or so he says. In those exactish words. On that note, isn't "exactish" a great invented word, just primed and pumped for writing nonsense verse? I get little tingles in my pinky fingers when Max tells me that he wants to write a poem. Isn't that what "schooling" is all about- to create a desire and curiosity and appetite for learning, reading, writing, exploring, and loving our shared world?

A Visit to William Blake's Inn by Nancy Willard.

A Visit to William Blake’s Inn, Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travellers is Nancy Willard's poetic tribute to the poet, William Blake. What if William Blake owned and ran an inn for travelers? How would such an inn look? What kinds of voyagers would it attract? 

Blake's inn is no ordinary landmark. Its inhabitants include two mighty baking dragons, two patient laundering angels, William Blake himself, and the cornucopia of visitors which season the pages. "Blake's Celestial Limousine" takes travelers to and fro, while a rabbit shows the little boy who is visiting to his room. Other memorable characters include the excitable King of Cats, the dreamy Wise Cow, the chatty sunflowers, the story-craving Tiger, and my personal favorite, the Man in the Marmalade Hat.

Alice and Martin Provensen's award-winning illustrations bring out the whimsy in Willard's imaginary voyage. In a gentle way, the illustrations also pay tribute to Blake's penchant for illustrating some of his poems in a fantastic manner.  

THE WISE COW ENJOYS A CLOUD

"Where did you sleep last night, Wise Cow?

Where did you lay your head?"

"I caught my horns on a rolling cloud

and made myself a bed,

and in the morning ate it raw

on freshly buttered bread."

The book ends on a note worth sharing with every child. We used it as a journal prompt for Max's journaling today. His head was abuzz with all sorts of fantasies after we polished off this tasty book; itching to journal, ready to write, the words come to him like pigeons in the park nowadays.... 

Chasing butterflies:

• Listen to the delightful pieces composed by Dale Lyles for each poem in this book. We listened to each as we read the various poems and tried to describe what the music revealed about the poems.
• A Blake-illustrated version of "The Tyger", one of the poems penned by Blake which inspired this book (Finish the Book).
• Images and a few poem pages (The Marlowe Bookshelf).
• More images from the book (Masha du Toit).
• Blake's illustrated version of his poem, "Jerusalem" (Counterlight's Peculiars).
• Companion poems with original illustrations from Songs of Innocence and Experience. 
• Nancy Willard bio (Poetry Foundation).
• Life of William Blake, an interesting endeavor by Anne Gilchrist.

Exploring nonsense verse and funny poetry.

Our study of limericks and Edward Lear led us to naturally to a place where Max wanted to learn more about "funny poems" and inventing your own words in poetry. 

The best way to study poetry is to engage it completely by reading it again and again. We read the following:

1. My Pet Germs by Kenn Nesbitt
2. The Mule by Ogden Nash
3. The Mule by Douglas Florian
4. Today is Very Boring by Jack Prelutsky
5. I Lost My Invisible Puppy by Jack Prelutsky
6. The Jumblies by Edward Lear
7. Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat by Lewis Carroll
8. The Crocodile by Lewis Carroll

And then we strolled through each poem again, scoping out the scenes and sets like naturalists in a new ecosystem. Each poem has its own background, its own creatures, its own verities unique to its world.

"My Pet Germs" combines a simple rhyme scheme with a fun idea- the thought of germs as pets- to create a poem you can enjoy. Nesbitt uses words like "epidermis" to lighten the mood; using scientific jargon is a clever way to add humor to a poem, especially when it seems silly.

• Make a list of ten scientific terms that sound funny to you and save them for later when we write funny poems. They can be a great resource. 

"The Mule" poems describe interesting aspects of an animal, the mule, using few words and great rhymes. A rhyme scheme is a regular pattern of rhyme, one that is consistent throughout the poem. Poems that rhyme without any regular pattern can be called rhyming poems, but only those poems with an unvarying pattern to their rhymes can be said to have a rhyme scheme. For example, a very simple rhyme scheme is used in Nash's mule poem- he uses AA. Both lines rhyme.

Generally, Ogden Nash liked to use the AABB rhyme scheme. Douglas Florian uses an AAAA rhyme scheme for his mule poem. You can explore rhyme schemes further or, if you understand how they are noted with letters, you can try your hand at the activity.

• Write your own short and sweet mule poem using an AABB rhyme scheme or an AAAA rhyme scheme.

"Today Is Very Boring" pokes fun at the idea of being "bored". Prelutsky is pointing out that it isn't the day that is boring but rather the child who sees it as boring. I like to tell my kids- There are no boring moments, only bored people. Prelutsky starts with a statement and then uses his entire poem to show how it isn't true. 

• Can you trace Prelutsky's rhyme scheme in this poem?

"I Lost My Invisible Puppy" makes use of the rhyme scheme ABCB and words that mean of the opposite of what the narrator in the poem is trying to say. By the end of the poem, we realize that you can't lose a puppy you could never really see in the first place. 

• Make a list of the adjectives and words Prelutsky uses to suggest how invisible this puppy must truly be. 
• Jack Prelutsky, king of funny poetry, explains how to write a funny poem in this handout. Write your own funny poem using his recipe.

"The Jumblies" describes a fantastic adventure of Lear's invented characters, the Jumblies, in a drain sieve. Lear invents his own words to fit his invented characters. He also makes a lovely illustration to help us imagine the Jumblies.

• Make a list of Lear's invented words and try to define them.
• Create an encyclopedia entry for "Jumblies". Look in an encyclopedia for examples.
• Write your own poem that invents characters which live in the gutters of you home or apartment and only come out when it rains and they are "washed" out. Invent your own words and verbs to describe their actions.

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat" is Lewis Carroll's take on a classic poem by Jane Taylor. Carroll pens a funny poem by merely substituting a few of his own words for words like "star" and "are". He maintains the AABB rhyme scheme.

• Sing Carroll's version of the classic poem to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".
• Write you own twinkle poem that begins "Twinkle, twinkle little....." and keep to the AABB rhyme scheme.

"The Crocodile" uses the last line of the poem as a punchline. We are surprised to learn what he does with the fish. The ABAB rhyme scheme gives the poem a fun reading rythm, while Carroll's personification of the crocodile makes him come alive as an image.

• Print and color this page with Carroll's crocodile.
• Try to write your own rhyming poem that personfies an animal and ends with a funny or surprising punch line.

"The Swing", a limerick by Max Coryell.

Hanging out in our massive magnolia tree between rain showers.

THE SWING 

There was a young boy named Max,

Who had a swing made of wax;

    But when he jumped off,

    He flipped and he coughed,

And landed straight on some tacks.

    - Max Coryell (a.k.a. Nisse Gnome)

You can download and print your own I LOVE LIMERICKS LESSON PLAN created with love by yours truly. Max had a great time with it this afternoon and did plenty of limerick writing. My unsung love affair with Edward Lear is written all over it. Anyone whose name rhymes with "queer" is bound to be a dear, 'tis clear.

Not to mention if you've never seen his illustrations and botanical discoveries, including the famous Manypeeplia Upsidownia....

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs.

Or something equally profane in meteorological terms. We took a few minutes to watch the cars and clouds and dogs strut by. Max did some journaling about an incredible letterboxing cache he is planning. He looks so much like 7-year-old-Alina in this photo because that Alina always bit her tongue between her teeth when writing in her journal.

My Grand Bunicu used to tell me that I'd get "a nest of flies on the tongue" if I didn't put it back in my mouth. Little did he know the amazing images my young mind conjured when the words "a nest of flies on the tongue" were uttered in the magical Romanian language. Compared to English (or American), the language of Sunday school and multiple-choice tests and reasonable expectations, Romanian was the secret, magical tongue- the language in which there were words and places and feelings that could not pass over the border into my America, the language of romance and history and smoky rooms. I wonder if the children will pick up a smattering of Romanian when we visit next month. I wonder what they think- what Romanian evokes- when it slips over their auditory nerves.

Max works on his letterboxing acrostic.

Micah and Milla and their latest debate.

Today's favorite toy.

The Tuscaloosa Poems for Peace Prize.

Circles of Peace is sponsoring a Poems for Peace Prize which awards $200 to two creative young people who write interesting, moving, and poignant poems on the topic of peace and peacemaking. Share near and far within 50 miles of Tuscaloosa County line. Hey, that's far enough for some folks down here...