Well, Door Prizes this year – drawn from names entered of those who created and read – which means every participant was a winner this year! Yeah! Have I mentioned that for the past two years Nathan has won the Lincoln City Poetry Contest at the Library? (I think I may have mentioned that before.. . . )  I was excited for this year, but for whatever reason – the boys were not excited about writing for the Library.

This Year’s Challenge:  Celebrating Community

This event is based on the last line from the poem “Our Valley”
by Poet Laureate of the United States, Philip Levine. 
The line is…
…Wait on the wind, catch a scent of salt, call it our life.
Participants are invited to write a poem using one or all of the five senses,
sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste, to capture a “sense” of our community.

At the same time we heard about the upcoming Poetry Month Challenge – we also were excited about the March Writing Lesson from the  Schoolhouse Teacher’s Website –   Color Poems. Kim Kautzer of WriteShop is our tutor.  She gave us teaching tips on how to get started, and then more teaching helps on how to challenge the different age levels – Teens to Primary Grades. She broke it down simply for us, and included a 3 page worksheet to help us along.

The first page had samples from kids aged 10, 13 and 15.  The Second Page had a thoughtful brain storming activity.  Targeting the color of your choice , she asked questions like “What things smell blue?”.  Blueberry pancakes? She also had links to a couple of thesauruses  help with extra synonyms. The third page had a fill in the blank sheet to help you put together your poem. It was a simple fun activity. The boys and I picked our colors. It took a bit of adjusting to think of what Feels Red. What Sounds Red. What Tastes Red.  What does a Color Smell Like? Jon chose Green, Nate chose Purple and I choose Red.

We each read our poems at the gathering on April 29th to a nice sized crowd. I enjoyed hearing the other poems as well.  I relish listening to the conversations with the boys, on how the poetry made them feel, what they thought of them, and what they liked. My favorite was of a friend’s who wrote about how it feels to live in “Romantic” year round, day after day.  (We live in a tourist beach town, many people come here for anniversaries and such from Portland. )

We happen to be reviewing a product for WriteShop that I’m excited to share in a couple of weeks. I can let you know that her preparation to help my boys ease into writing is fantastic. Have you had your 5th grade boy say – Is this Writing? It’s too easy. Ya. I am really enjoying it!

If you are already a member of The Schoolhouse Teacher’s Site – the link for the Lesson is in Writing, March. Kim would like you to know that the Lessons on The Schoolhouse Teacher’s site – are not lessons copied out of her curriculum, WriteShop, but rather extra lessons that she has thought of to share with us. If you are not a member, or have not activated your membership yet – You’re missing out! http://schoolhouseteachers.com/

Thank You Ron and Teena for encouraging the boys to step out! Thank you fellow participants! Thank You Kim for your Lessons, and Thank you SchoolhouseTeachers.com!

(This is just a glimpse of our actual life.
I am not affiliated with
The SchoolhouseTeacher’s.com or WriteShop,
I have just really enjoyed them the past couple of months!)

(The Boys have asked me not to publish their poems on the blog.)