A Rusty Weathervane

Get your pen and paper ready!  You are going to write a poem.

Instructions:

1.  The poem will consist of 2 couplets (rhyming pairs of lines).  Rhymes may be imperfect.

2.  Every word in the poem must count.  If you have "the" or "a" in there, you'd better be able to explain why.  Efficiency is everything.

3. You will have 15 minutes.

4. The topic of the poem:  "A Rusty Weathervane" (selected at random from Creative Writing Toolbox)

This is the project Anderson and I did this morning.  in 15 minutes he came up seven and I came up with one.

(some of) Anderson's:

A Rusty Weathervane

Dust

Must

Blow

Bill

A Rusty Weathervane

Iron oxide clad,

The stoic chicken had

Pointed its bill south

To keep warm its frozen mouth.

Caroline's:

A Rusty Weathervane

Going, going, gone! Still spinning,

Sold! - that baccy geezer, grinning.

Once fortune's bronze-topped finish,

Now junked (yet mystic) cynic.

Now YOU can write your own and submit it!

totes holding a python baby

The Stomach of Doom

Short story by one of my students, based on a true story:

The Stomach of Doom

       It seemed like a normal day for the kids, but they did not know what was coming. BOOM BOOM BOOM.  

“What is that?” asked Katrina.

“I do not know,” said Bailey.

“I thought earthquakes can’t happen here?” asked Lily.

“They can’t!” said Trevor.

 “I thought they could,” said Blake.

“UGGGHHHH!” growled Makayla.

 “I am going to cry,” said Lily.

“Be brave,” said Katrina.

“Where is the bathroom?” asked Lily.

“If I were you, I would not leave,” said Bailey.

“But I have to go,” said Lily.

“Then go risk your life,” said Blake.

“We have to hide,” said Katrina.

“Agreed,” said Makayla.

“Let’s go to the basement,” said Bailey.

“No, they know we will always go down there if there is something wrong,” said Makayla.

“True,” said Lily.

BOOM,BOOM, BOOM!

“It is coming closer,” said Blake.

“Oh thank goodness the parents are here,” said Trevor.

“Wait, where are they going?” asked Bailey.

“They must’ve heard the noise too,” said Makayla.

“Well then, I am not baking my dad brownies tonight,” said Lily.

“Wait, we are forgetting someone,” said Katrina.

“Mrs. Clare,” said Blake.

“OHHHHHH,” said the whole class.

“Is it possible that the noise is her STOMACH?” asked Makayla.

“OHHHHH,” said the whole class again.

“I feel really dumb that we did not know that was her,” said Bailey.

“Well, let’s get her some breakfast,” said Katrina.

“Now I feel great,” said Ms. Clare.

“So now we can do MATH,” said Ms. Clare.

“Noooooo,” said the whole class.

“A lesson for the day: always feed your teacher,” said Makayla.

Also, who knew, but earthquakes do happen in Minnesota.  My student brought me a link and said we're along a fault line:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/events/1975_07_09.php

lake in late-April

I am endlessly fascinated with taking pictures of our lake during its various seasons.

Frozen

Sheepishly, I like the Disney film Frozen.  I saw it for the first time in a cabin in the middle-of-nowhere-Mongolia, which gives Disney a different feeling than American living-room-and-popcorn.  Plus, it opens with a bunch of blond Scandinavian dudes working outdoors and singing well, which is epic.

So our all-school field trip happened to be a day-trip to see a performance of Frozen by Disney on Ice, at the Target Center in Minneapolis.  Frozen on ice skates?  That's fitting.

My class and I tried freehand drawings of Elsa.  Here's mine.  (Okay, we used a YouTube tutorial, but it still turned out decent for freehand.)  I wanted to keep it but we ended up using it as a thank-you card to the people from the bank who gave us the field trip.

aging

"Grandma!"  says my student to me this morning.  Well, that's a first.

"You look...dead."  says another student this afternoon, upon seeing a photo of me in a choir concert.

I seem to be aging.

melt

I am extremely happy!  The ice has finally melted!

I did not realize that the ice can pile up on the shore when the wind blows it and it melts.  (It looked more impressive in real life.)