This post is part of the annual month-long Slice of Life writing challenge organized by Two Writing Teachers. Join us! It’s my third year of slicing in the challenge and I’m looking forward to writing and learning along with all of you.
Happy first Friday of spring, everyone! It’s the second to last Friday of the 2019 Slice of Life Challenge at Two Writing Teachers (how is that possible?) AND it’s Poetry Friday. I’m slicing up a bit of poetry this rainy Friday in response to a big event that occurred last evening. Rebecca Herzog is hosting this week’s PF gathering on her blog, Sloth Reads. Won’t you join us there as well? And BTW, slicing poetry on Friday’s during the SOLC is a great way to flex those writing muscles. If you are ever wondering where to find the weekly host of Poetry Friday, you’ll find a list of hosts and their blog links here.
Last night was a big night. “Big Night” for amphibians, that is! The first rainy spring night in the Northeast, with temperatures in the 45-50 degree range, is the first night amphibians start making their move. After hibernating all winter long in the woods, it’s time for them to make their way to local vernal pools for breeding season.
Our Kindergarten biologist-in-residence, Emilie, visited us yesterday to show us the traps she was about to put in our campus vernal pool. She will be monitoring them regularly, and in a few weeks, when the “Big Night” party animals have conducted their business, we will meet Emilie there to collect the wood frog eggs we will be headstarting in our classrooms and meet, face-to-face, whomever might have wandered into the traps after a wild night of partying. If we are lucky, we will get to meet a frog or two up close, or even a salamander. Seriously? Could these party-goers be any cuter?
Photo: parklands.org
As you can imagine, my Kindergarteners were enthralled at the thought of 100s of 1000s of frogs and salamanders on the move in the middle of the night. Wow! All I can think of is a party train. (I’d cue the Gap Band, but WordPress won’t let me.)
There are “Big Night” enthusiasts who meet up in the middle of the night, in the rain, to guide these adorable, but vulnerable creatures to safety across roads. I’m obsessed, but not that dedicated! To learn more about “Big Night,” click here.
And finally a “Big Night” poetry party favor to take home.
This is a spine poem I created from the titles of the books in my collection for teaching our year-long vernal pool study. Party on, creatures of the night.
This post is part of the annual month-long Slice of Life writing challenge organized by Two Writing Teachers. Join us! It’s my third year of slicing in the challenge and I’m looking forward to writing and learning along with all of you.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited about spring. Longer days. Warmer temps. Bulbs popping up. Love it all!
What I don’t love? The flies that have been hibernating somewhere, and suddenly wake up and are in our house. I am trying to write at the end of a long day, and they are annoying!
They are lethargic, I must say, just having woken up from a long winter’s nap. This makes them pretty easy to catch. But they keep popping up everywhere, and I’d rather they not.
Because I am always curious, I Googled around a bit and discovered they are most likely cluster flies. Click here to learn more. It’s a thing!
This post is part of the annual month-long Slice of Life writing challenge organized by Two Writing Teachers. Join us! It’s my third year of slicing in the challenge and I’m looking forward to writing and learning along with all of you.
This post is part of the annual month-long Slice of Life writing challenge organized by Two Writing Teachers. Join us! It’s my third year of slicing in the challenge and I’m looking forward to writing and learning along with all of you.
This post is part of the annual month-long Slice of Life writing challenge organized by Two Writing Teachers. Join us! It’s my third year of slicing in the challenge and I’m looking forward to writing and learning along with all of you.
Today was not a good day. It was a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day,” to quote Alexander in Judith Viorst’s classic. That’s all I am able to say other than to share this wish for a student. I wasn’t going to slice. I didn’t feel like slicing, but here I am.
This post is part of the annual month-long Slice of Life writing challenge organized by Two Writing Teachers. Join us! It’s my third year of slicing in the challenge and I’m looking forward to writing and learning along with all of you.
