Slice of Life Tuesday: On Sunsets

This post is part of the weekly Slice of Life challenge from Two Writing Teachers. Check them out! Yesterday was a bingbangboom kind of a day. One of those days where I rely on to-do lists and razor-sharp logistics. Drop the dog off, take care of Chanukah packages, make it to my meeting, squeeze my plans in,

On Finding a Writing Community

Sometimes my lessons are OK, but no great shakes. Sometimes they crash and burn – sometimes sadly and softly, others in a great fiery blaze of glory. But sometimes. Sometimes I have an idea for a lesson that’s a GREAT ONE. And it WORKS. I’ve been trying to be deliberate this year about writing workshop

Little Folks, Big Ideas

My third graders have been delving into philosophy, of all things. Because if little minds deserve ANYTHING, it’s the ability to wrestle with BIG ideas. I’ve been using resources from The Prindle Institute to support our work. Our questions lately have focused on: what is alive? what is real? After an AMAZING webinar with my

A Thing of Wonder

Today I saw an owl. It glided over and lit in my next-door neighbor’s tree just as I was returning from a walk at dusk. There it sat, easily a foot tall and several inches across. It was a thing of wonder. It sat long enough for me to walk through the front door of

Teacher Life, Exhibit P

Scene: Indiana Dunes State Park. I’m hiking with my husband. It’s a cool, crisp early autumn day, the wind is at our backs, and we have the place to ourselves. The only sounds in my ears are the crashing of waves, the crush of hiking boots on sand, and the echo of my thoughts. It’s

Stepping Back Up to the Soapbox

I have a lot of soapboxes to stand on when it comes to education. I mean…c’mon. Just look at the name of my site. It’s easy to get riled up about things when you feel as passionately I do about teaching, when you have as much faith in public schooling as I do. One of

Poetry, Found

If you had asked me today whether or not writing poetry should be on my to-do list, I might have laughed at you. But knowing that the universe has a way of conspiring, and knowing that grocery list poetry is a thing in this world, I felt compelled. What I loved were the ways this

Exhibit Q, R, S

“So, Lainie. How do you know you’re working with gifted kids?” I present to you an obituary for…wait for it… an EXPO marker. People, I can’t make this stuff up. Earlier this week, we read Leo Lionni’s obituary to learn more about him as an artist and as a person. To understand that text, we

So Much for a Soft Landing

I meant to take it easy on my kiddos today. I really did. They’re just coming back from break, and I was fully prepared for a slow start to ease them back into big ideas, big thinking. It all started when I realized we needed to finish up our conversation about Dr. Seuss’s allegory Yertle

Steering My Craft: Sound of Words Part 2

This blog post is part of an effort to refine my own work as a writer. For each exercise, I’ll provide the directions, my effort, and a short reflection. The Assignment: Write a(nother) passage that wants to be read aloud, this one dealing with a particular action, feeling, or emotion. Here’s where I landed: Yes.Please.Thank you.Tight words,