Friday, September 27, 2013

Mortimer Minute


Thank you, Carmela, for inviting me to share a Mortimer Minute! The official Mortimer Minute rules are listed below. The main aspect is answering three questions (two that you invent yourself, one from a previous hopper).

My three questions:

1) What has been one of your favorite ways of sharing poetry in school?

One year at my children's elementary school, we had students read poems during the morning announcements every day during National Poetry Month. This was a great program for several reasons -- it gave the whole school a chance to hear the poems, it was quick and easy for teachers, and the kids loved it. Students picked poems that they liked, and their appreciation for the poems was evident in their readings. My son performed Allow Me To Introduce Myself by Charles R. Smith. It would be a worthwhile program to have year-round. Each week, a different classroom could be in charge of sending readers to the office. If daily readings seem too complicated, it could take place weekly instead.

2) Imagine you were running a children's poetry weekend for Poetry Fridayers. Where would you have it and what would you feed Jama?

Well, off the top of my head, I can imagine having it at St. Mary's College of Maryland, where they have a writers' conference in the summer. I haven't been to the conference, but I have visited the campus and it is charming. If we were taking a picnic over to the waterside, I would probably bring finger foods, so we could read and write while we ate. Cheese, crackers, fruit, hummus, veg, but more importantly, espresso chocolate shortbread, lemon crinkles, and pecan pie cookies.

3) Please share one of your poems with us.

I wrote this acrostic in honor of one of my son's favorite subjects:

Geography—
E
ducating Ourselves;
Getting Reports About Places
from the Heavens to the back Yard.

by Tabatha Yeatts

Guess what the Earth weighs? Nearly six sextillion tons!
Earth moves sixty-six thousand miles per hour 'round the sun;
Our world's biggest lake is the (mis-named) Caspian Sea;
Greenland might be the biggest island, but would Australia agree?
Russia and China touch the most other countries: fourteen,
And San Marino is known as the world's oldest country;
Plateau Station, Antarctica is the coldest spot we've got;
Head to Dalol, Ethiopia if you want to be hot.
You + geography = legend!


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The Hop continues! Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche will be joining the Poetry Blog Hop on October 4th!


Our bunny Foo Foo reading A Visit to William Blake's Inn,
photo by Elena Y.

Here’s How-to-Hop, “Mortimer Minute” style!

* Answer 3 questions. Pick one question from the previous Hopper. Add two of your own. Keep it short, please!
* Invite friends. Invite 1-2 bloggers who love children's poetry to follow you. They can be writers, teachers, librarians, or just-plain-old-poetry-lovers.
* Say thank you. In your own post, link to The Previous Hopper. Then keep The Mortimer Minute going: let us know who your Hoppers are and when they plan to post their own Mortimer Minute.

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Amy has this week's Poetry Friday round-up at The Poem Farm.

I announced the winners of my giveaways on Wednesday.

P.S. Geography side-note: This List of Sovereign States is interesting. They say that 33 countries don't recognize Israel, that 22 countries don't recognize China, and that North and South Korea each "claim" the other!

14 comments:

Author Amok said...

Hi, Tabatha. The weight of the Earth stopped me -- amazing detail! I hope there are some of those cappuccino delights left over for me.

(P.S. Not sure that St. Mary's still runs that summer conference. Will try to find out.)

Linda B said...

There is a class at school who is studying geography as a class unit-I'll be sure to share your poems. Love the idea of a Poetry Friday weekend-wouldn't it be lovely, and chocolate as we write! I 'think' my Mortimer Minute is next week, but have to wait for my 'tagger' first. Fun to see all your answers!

jama said...

I would thank you for this fun post and tell you how much I enjoyed it but I'm too busy eating espresso chocolate shortbread . . . :)

Andromeda Jazmon said...

Fun post! I'd love to join that conference at St. Mary's. Picnic on the grounds sounds lovely!

Michelle Heidenrich Barnes said...

So much I'd like to respond to in this post, but it might take me more than a mortimer minute and I don't think that's allowed. Suffice it to say, great idea for celebrating Poetry month, I'm all over your delicious poetry weekend, and if my kids learned geography with fun poems like that, they might actually enjoy the subject! Someone please tell their 5th grade teacher it's not all about memorizing state capitols.

BJ Lee said...

Tabatha - great geography acrostic! Such fun factoids! Nice bunny hop. I'll be bunny hopping next week!

GatheringBooks said...

Hi there Tabatha, my daughter in 6th grade just had a loooong Geography test. She'd be happy with this acrostic. :) Nice to see Mortimer here! Yum for espresso chocolate shortbread. :)

Amy LV said...

You had me at the Poetry Friday-ers weekend! I'll eat all of those things with you. Heck, I'll serve them and cook them if we all get together. The earth is so amazing - thank you for the celebration of it in your cool poem today. I'm now even more ready to travel...

Heidi Mordhorst said...

YES. Poetry Friday Weekend at St Mary's College! I see that I hopped on into the CPBH without having the full complement of gear--no Mortimer Badge for me! My favorite part of your interesting poem is the title. HY heavens to the back yard!

Tara @ A Teaching Life said...

Your post made me forget that I have the flu, Tabatha...delightful. What a great idea to have poetry to begin school the day. I will propose this next week!

Ruth said...

I like the idea of starting the day with poetry, too.

Carmela Martino said...

Tabatha,
I love the idea of students reading poetry to the whole school. How great if more schools would do that.
And I especially love these two lines of your poem:
>>Guess what the Earth weighs? Nearly six sextillion tons!
Earth moves sixty-six thousand miles per hour 'round the sun; <<
Thanks for joining the Hop!

Jeannine Atkins said...

I love the way your included all those places, and how cool that geography is your son's favorite subjects.

And I'm glad that wondering what to feed Jama is at the top of the planning list.

Margaret Simon said...

A little late on the uptake here, but wanted you to know how much I enjoyed your post. Sign me up for the Poetry Friday Weekend! Your acrostics are wonderful models for both Social Studies and writing. Thanks for the tag. I'll be hopping along this Friday.