Tons of puns

Hi everyone,

My thanks to Terry Bond for passing this one along to me:

Q
What does a thesaurus eat for breakfast?
A
A synonym roll.

Terry has been guilty of such wry word play in the past. In my book with Tim Rasinski and Gay Fawcett called PARTNER POEMS FOR BUILDING FLUENCY, you’ll find a poem called “Groanosaurs”. At the time I was working on the poem I shared it with Terry, who promptly doubled the number of puns. The final poem reads like this:

GROANOSAUR TEST, 2 voices
(Terry Bond, who loves puns, wrote half of this poem. DLH)

(teacher)
What do you call a dinosaur in a hurry?
(class)
A dino-scurry.
(teacher)
What do you call a dinosaur in a snowstorm?
(class)
A dino-flurry.
(teacher)
What do you call a dinosaur at a funeral?
(class)
A dino-bury.
(teacher)
What do you call a dinosaur who likes spicy food?
(class)
A dino-curry.
(teacher)
What do you call a dinosaur stuck in tar?
(class)
A dino-tarry.
(teacher)
What do you call a dinosaur digging a hole?
(class)
A dino-quarry.
(teacher)
What do you call a dinosaur pulling a wagon?
(class)
A dino-lorry.
What do you call a dinosaur who takes this test?
(class)
A dino-sorry!

(c) 2009 by David L. Harrison
from PARTNER POEMS FOR BUILDING FLUENCY
Scholastic Teaching Resources

A family who reads together

Hi everyone,

As I told you, this past weekend Sandy’s cousin Leslie Johnson was here with her husband Johnnie and three children Caleb, Hannah, and Grace. Grace starts school this fall. Hannah goes into 5th grade and Caleb will be a 7th grader. All three kids have been brought up on books and are excellent readers. One or our activities was to take turns reading poems from my book with Tim Rasinski and Gay Fawcett, PARTNER POEMS FOR BUILDING FLUENCY. This is a book written for teachers for which I wrote forty-two poems for two or more voices. When Grace saw the book, she wouldn’t put it down until Sandy and I had taken turns reading nearly every poem in it with her. We didn’t want to stop reading with her either. Some lucky teacher is going to love having a first grader who already loves books and reads with fluency, understanding, and feeling.

The whole time they were here no one asked to turn on a television. The kids were outside for much of the time. They swam and played games.They were curious about their surroundings and asked a lot of good questions. And they read. Thank you, Leslie and Johnnie, for being such great parents. Thank you, Caleb, Hannah, and Grace, for being such good kids.

In the top 5 again

Hi everyone,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As I look at my WordPress report for 2014 I see that once again one of the most popular posts in my blog records was one from back on September 18, 2009 when I introduced a book of poems for two or more voices called PARTNER POEMS. I wrote the poems and Tim Rasinski and Gay Fawcett wrote the content and classroom activities. It was published as a Scholastic Best Practices in Action title and erroneously identified as a book for grades 4-6 because at the last minute they discovered they already had a book of partner poems for grades 2-4, which is the range for which we created the book. Our book continues to sell well
( http://www.amazon.com/Partner-Poems-Building-Fluency-Comprehension/dp/0545108764/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420041311&sr=8-1&keywords=partner+poems+for+building+fluency ) but now and then we’ve been criticized by a reader who is led by the misleading title to think we don’t know our audience.

Each year since I introduced the book, the post has been in the top 5 most popular for the year. In 2014, it was number 2 and number 4. I think the double ranking refers to different dates when I featured PARTNER POEMS. Here’s a poem from the collection called “Lollity Popity Day.” My thanks again to teachers who have used the poem to excite students to read and perform it. Here’s a picture by Patricia Cooley at Komensky School of two girls who made masks and entertained their schoolmates. I’m making a slight change in the poem to wish you more than a Lollity Popity Day. I wish you a Lollity Popity Year!

IT’S A LOLLITY POPITY YEAR

It’s a lollity popity year.

It’s a lollity popity
hide-and-go-seekity year.

It’s a lollity popity
hide-and-go-seektiy
read a good bookity year.

It’s a lollity popity
hide-and-go-seekity
read a good bookity
roll in the grassity year.

It’s a lollity popity
hide-and-go-seekity
read a good bookity
roll in the grassity
talk with a friendity year.

It’s a lollity popity
hide-and-go-seektiy
read a good bookity
roll in the grassity
talk with a friendity
sit on a lapity year.

It’s a lollity popity
hide-and-go-seekity
read a good bookity
roll in the grassity
talk with a friendity
sit on a lapity
play with your petity year.

It’s a lollity popity
hide-and-go-seektiy
read a good bookity
roll in the grassity
talk with a friendity
sit on a lapity
play with your petity
happy-go-luckity year.

CHEERS!

Year-end wrap-up

Hi everyone,

For those of you who blog, you’re probably receiving an annual report on how your blog performed during 2013. Here are a few tidbits from mine. I know that there are many blogs that are more active than mine, more professionally done than mine, and draw far more visitors than mine. Still, this one suits me and I have no aspirations to make fundamental changes for 2014. There are times when I scarcely have time to post at all but those of you who regularly drop by to see what’s up are a forgiving group and graciously allow me to sit in the corner for a while to catch up on other obligations. I thank you for your understanding and I thank you for visiting this site as often as you do.

During 2013, the blog was viewed about 57,000 times by people in 150 countries. The most visitors came from the United States, France, and Canada. The way the report reads, it would take roughly the equivalent of 23 sold-out performances at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall for that many people to see it.

I posted 260 times in 2013, bringing the total since 2009 to 1,264. The day with the highest visitor count was March 9 with 2,698. The post was my poem, “The Song of the Tree Frogs,” which originally appeared in 2010.

Of the 5 most popular posts during 2013, only one was posted for the first time during the year and that was when J. Patrick Lewis, who was then our nation’s children’s poet laureate, issued a new poetry challenge on my blog.

Of the list of top five attractions, one appeared for the first time in 2013; three first appeared in 2010; and one came from 2009. A post about poems for two voices — featured in PARTNER POEMS, the book I did with Tim Rasinski and Gay Fawcett, made the list twice, once from its 2009 post and again from when I repeated it in 2010.

The most comments were left by Linda Baie, Catherine Johnson, Jeanne Polond, Jane Heitman Healy, and Matt Forrest.

My thanks to one and all for joining the fun around here during 2013. I am always surprised by the numbers involved in social media communications. Thank you for your comments throughout the year to let me know that you’re there and that you find things to like here.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

David

It’s a Lollity Popity Day

Hi everyone,

My poem for two voices called “It’s a Lollity Popity Day” appears in a book co-written by Tim Rasinski and Gay Fawcett, PARTNER POEMS FOR BUILDING FLUENCY, published by Scholastic.

Our new book

I should point out that the book was written with grades 3-5 in mind. At the last minute Scholastic realized that they had another book with the same title for younger grades so they changed the title of ours to read Grades 4-6. We’ve taken some grief over this from teachers who bought the book expecting material for older students. As long as you know to use the book for younger children, it all works out.

The alternating voices build on the opening line.

(1st)
It’s a lollity popity day
(2nd)
It’s a lollity popity
hide-and-go-seekity day.
(1st)
It’s a lollity popity
hide-and-go-seektiy
read a good bookity day.
(2nd)
It’s a lollity popity
hide-and-go-seekity
read a good bookity
roll in the grassity day.

And so on. The fun is to begin reading slowly and increase speed with each new stanza. Both voices finish in a rush and shout “Hooray!”

I introduced the poem at this year’s poetry workshop in Honesdale. A few days ago one of the poets who attended, Patricia Cooley, brought it into her school in Illinois. Here’s Pat’s report.

We had a Lollity Popity Day at Komensky School today! Two of my students were so taken by David’s poem that they made lollipop puppets and went from classroom to classroom throughout the building – hamming it up and performing with a lot of voice and actions to each of his lines. The teachers loved it. David, I am attaching pics of their lollipops. Wish I could send pics showing how cute the students are, but I never post any pics showing their faces or names. You would have been proud of them!

Pat did share her young actors holding up their lollipity popity puppets and here they are.

Pat

I am, of course, enormously pleased and proud of the girls behind those charming masks. Pat, thank you so much for introducing the poem and doing it in such a way that your kids saw the fun of it and had such a fine time. Many thanks!

David