Last Days

Still reading,
Still creating,
Still dramatizing,

"Library" is so much more than. . . (fill in the blank)!

I took almost 600 photos this year of students and activities in the library. I hope you have been able to see that we have shared words, stories, strategies, poetry, and joy.

As a teacher, sharing the lifelong joy of learning is my mission. Reading is one avenue to joy, and I hope that the students who have come through my classes have experienced this.

Peace to all!

P.S. All library books are due this Thursday, May 14th!

Winslow Emerged!

Winslow, the caterpillar I have been sharing with library classes since she was a baby caterpillar egg, emerged from her chrysalis during third grade's library class on Monday, May 4, at 10:05 am. I had just appointed an official "butterfly watcher" because I knew that it could happen at any time as the chrysalis was translucent and dark with a "bunched up" butterfly inside ready to get out. The chrysalis had started breaking apart at the golden ridge across the top.

As soon as my "butterfly watcher" reached the desk and started watching, she shouted, "Mrs. Owen, it's happening now!" We all rushed to see. AMAZING. There were "oohs and aahhs" all around.

The third grade had a butterfly in their classroom that emerged on Sunday. They were trying to feed it with an orange slice. Their classroom butterfly was a male. Winslow was a female. Female monarchs have thicker veins. Male monarchs have two black dots on their bottom wing along one of the veins.

We watched Winslow's wings grow and her body shrink. The photo above shows her prickly feet latching onto the wire of the container. She hung for most of the day to allow her wings to develop and dry.

These are Kindergarten students marveling at Winslow. The book is something new that I ordered for my family because we have loved raising these monarchs so much. It is by Joyce Sidman, one of my favorite children's poets. The illustrations by Beth Krommes, this year's Caldecott winning artist, are stunning.

My family, some friends, and I released Winslow late on Monday afternoon in the Fondren area of Jackson. She immediately flew up to the trees until we couldn't see her.

Poetry & Chrysalis

Students celebrated poetry by reading poems, writing poems, performing poems, and carrying poems in their pockets for National Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 30, 2009.

First grade students are raising at least three monarch butterflies that I shared with them from my own family's butterfly rescue project. We harvested the eggs from a field in Jackson. You can read more about it here. As of Thursday, they had one chrysalis, one large caterpillar, and one smaller caterpillar that still has some eating and growing to do. When I poked my head in the classroom on Thursday, students were reading Eric Carle's classic book The Very Hungry Caterpillar (which turned 40 years old this year) to their tiny friends. I love this.

At our last Reader's Theater Club meeting for 2009, students shared their "pocket poems," and divided into small groups to read, analyze, and perform sets of poems from This is Just To Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness by Joyce Sidman. This is one of my favorite recent books of poetry for children, and Sidman is one of my favorite poets.

The students in the Reader's Theater Club have been a joy! This was our last meeting for the year. We have had lots of fun, laughed, experimented, dramatized, tongue-twisted, pantomimed, read, discussed, read with expression, read some more, and acted a little silly from time to time! What could be better?