Write Out and Kilo

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This afternoon I had the opportunity to learn more about the traditional Hawaiian practice of Kilo. Three educators from Hilo, HI hosted a gathering on Zoom to share this practice with educators through NWP’s Write Out.

Kilo is all about observation. Bringing your whole self and all your senses and attention to whatever nature is around you: sky, earth, water. After spending some time learning about Kilo, we were invited to find a window or walk outside to take the time to experience a moment of kilo ourselves.

I walked into my backyard, senses tuned, notebook in hand. I listened, smelled, felt, looked, and even tasted (without actually putting anything in my mouth) what otherwise feels ordinary. The intentionality of the kilo somehow intensified the experience for me.

From my notes, I wrote.

Wind calls, beyond a whisper

yet not a shout

urgently ruffling my hair

caressing my cheek with cool fingers on a warm afternoon

Sun peers over my shoulder

my hand casting a shadow on my notebook, my eye catches

sister orb weaver’s web dancing

light and wind holding hands

Sweet and tart blueberries

tease my tastebuds

a reminder of summer

lingering, hanging around

well into fall

#smallpoems #kilo #writeout #writewherewestand #inthebackyard

You can find more information about the Kilo on the Write Out choice board. I highly recommend trying it out. I know I will also be doing it with my students in the next weeks.

Write Out with a Mentor Text

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Getting outside to take photos, to walk, and to anchor my writing is a daily endeavor. With tides cooperating with my schedule, I was out walking on the beach this afternoon. The water was warm (more than 70 degrees F), the beach was wide, and today–because of the effects of the storm this weekend–the beach was sudsy.

I spent time during my walk videotaping the clouds of foam dancing along the shore, gathering and spreading as the waves chased and scooped. Then I turned to still photography to capture the foam in close up.

On the second day of the two-week Write Out experience, I turned to a mentor text to support my writing. My colleague Christina started a Google Doc with potential mentor texts when I asked whether we were starting a list for people to lean on as they participate in Write Out. I added a couple…and today tried another on the list to see where I would take my writing.

Using The Lesson of the Falling Leaves by Lucille Clifton as my starting point, I explored a different kind of repetition of words for my #smallpoem today.

the sea exhales
blowing bubbles
bubbling questions
questioning understanding
understanding complexity
I strive to become
a scholar of the sea
#writeout #writewherewestand #mentortext

What mentor text would you add to the list? Which will you use for your own writing? Which would you share with students?

Be sure to #writewherewestand this week!

Write Out 2026

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Today marks the beginning of Write Out 2026–an annual 2-week event with the National Writing Project and the National Park Service that urges all of us, adults and children alike, to get outside and do some writing.

New this year is the #writewhereweare challenge in the Write Now Teacher Studio. Every other day over the course of the two weeks, we are invited to write and post to a common prompt. Today’s prompt was to write a 6-word story about our place.

Southern CA has been dealing with the effects of Hurricane Rachel, bringing some much needed rain along with high surf, high tides, and coastal flooding. Some beaches are experiencing the loss of sand and parking lots filled with the ocean.

Today I was back at my local beach, hopeful that the low tide would offer a wide expanse for walking and that storm damage would be minimal. It was cloudy, but comfortable with plenty of beach for my walk along with inspiration for my photography and my six words.

After the storm, beach walking still. #writeout #writewherewestand #sixwords

And the weather was cool enough for me to wear my Write Out Write Where We Stand sweatshirt! (Thanks to @deathstr42 for the photo) You can purchase your own at the NWP shop!

Please join us for Write Out and the Write Where We Stand challenge. Everyone is welcome!

Wildspeak and Poop Paper

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It’s the last week of school…a hard time for teaching and if you can get students’ attention and focus (and that’s a big if!), it’s a great time for learning.

A few weeks ago our amazing school librarian hand delivered an amazing picture book to me while I was eating lunch. She explained that it was a “Kim book.” And once I opened the cover and began to read, I knew she was right! At the time I was up to my eyeballs in assessments with my students with teaching time at a premium. I set the book aside–knowing I would find a way to fit it in before the school year ended.

Wildspeak by Sangma Francis is a new book (published in April) that exhilarates in nature, describing wonderful outdoor spaces and then uses invented words to highlight the delight. Today after lunch, once I read the book, students picked out their favorite wildspeak words like sunglitter and rockglisten. On our second read, I only read the wildspeak words…and the first graders were hooked!

We got out our notebooks and picked something in nature to describe. I started with the sky over the ocean and students helped me come up with some wildspeak. Then they started their own. Nature included the baseball field, the forest, and, of course, many descriptions of the beach that lies right outside our school grounds.

Once they had written, I introduced PooPoo Paper. On a recent visit to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and the opening of the new Elephant Valley, I had picked up some paper made of elephant poop as swag. What better way to engage a first grade writer than to offer paper made of elephant poop? They did pretend disgust at first…and then fascination took over. They wrote their favorite nature description and wildspeak words on the poop paper and then hung them on the white board.

Here’s one:

Vines tremble from banyan trees like water coming out of a teapot.

Sparkle tips

Trembleworm

And a different approach:

Water clear like crystals shimmering on the bottom of the splish splash sea.

Writing for fun, having fun with writing, and still learning during the last week of school! Poop paper and Wildspeak for the win!

How do you keep your students learning when structures and routines begin to fall away?

Counting Poems: NPM26 #30

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On this 30th day of April, my pockets are overflowing with poems: those I’ve read, those I’ve written, those I’ve taught, those I’ve admired, those that echo in my ears. I’m grateful for the community of poets who have taken the time to read and respond to my poetry, to my blog visitors who stop by and tap the like button, to my students who have learned to love a metaphor, and to my husband who puts up with the push and pull of my need to write, my struggle to write, and the time it takes each and every evening to get words on the page. Poetry doesn’t begin and end with April, but it is wonderful to have a month where poetry gets the attention it needs and deserves. On this last day of National Poetry Month, my poem is about poems.

Counting poems

birds that flutter just out of reach

a flash of color

sweet melodies in my ear

I can almost see them

but not quite

until that blur comes into focus

with a word

a heartbeat

a breathe

don’t try to catch them

just count them

and spread them

to seed the world

@kd0602

A Yes Day: NPM26 #29

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For a whole month we have been reading and writing poetry in my first grade classroom. Poetry is not specific to April in our classroom, but the intensity increases as we participate in National Poetry Month. Yesterday we read some of the poems from the book, If I Could Choose a Best Day: Poems of Possibility, noticing that all the poems start with the word “if.” We focused our attention on the poem that book is titled for, noting the kind of information the poet included.

After the reading and the talking, priming the pump for these young poets, they opened their notebooks and began to write. I asked them to start with the word if…but the topic could be anything. I encouraged the use of metaphor, action, color, and senses, but didn’t require any particular approach. If students were stuck, I pointed them back to the beginning, “If I could choose the best day…”

There is something about this poem, written by a 7 year old that inspires me. And the young poet was so excited about the “unusual metaphor.” (If you missed it, it is the part about blowing up.)

If I could choose a best day

I would choose a yes day

My mom would say yes to everything

I would be so happy

I think I would blow up!

I love the rhythm of those first two lines…and the idea of that “yes day” sounds amazing. I asked the poet if he’d had a yes day, but no, it was something that came out of thinking about a best day.

I can’t get the idea of a yes day out of my mind. So I let some words pour into a poem of my own, inspired by this one written by a first grader. Maybe it’s a call to courage for myself. Here’s my unedited draft:

Say yes

to something that scares you

that makes your heart pound

and your breath catch

say yes

to an adventure

you couldn’t imagine

last week

last year

Will you jump from a plane

hike a hidden canyon

dance on a bridge

or sing outside the shower?

Say yes

today

tomorrow

right now

@kd0602

If you could choose a best day…or have a yes day, what would it be?

Instructions Ignored: NPM26 #28

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Some people are genius at following directions. Me, not so good. And the first graders in my care, they take a sideways route. Today’s Verselove prompt was about instructions for writing poetry. That made me think about the way students often start with energy and ideas that seemingly evaporate just when it’s time to begin writing. Luckily, more often than not, they are able to grab those vaporized ideas and allow them to condensate onto the page once the pencil begins to work its magic.

How First Graders Write a Poem or Instructions Ignored

Start with a puzzled look

To keep your teacher on her toes

Then burst into talking

About anything and everything 

Redirected and reminded

Consider action

Add in metaphorical thinking 

Don’t forget your senses 

and a sprinkle of color

Open your notebook

Draw a blank…let all those ideas

Vanish, evaporate, disappear

Pick up your pencil

Trust the magic

Delight in your own ideas 

Push past the spelling worries

Until that poem

Blooms

Delight in your words 

Read them to your classmates

And smile in satisfaction

@kd0602

Interrupted: NPM26 #27

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After a day of serious, serial interruptions, Dave’s Verselove invitation was to write about…interruptions. Classrooms are notoriously places of interruptions (at least from my insider point of view)…and I’m not even talking about technology!

Questions bombard me

missiles propelled

From every direction 

     Is she dead?

     Can I have a bandaid?

     My dog is named (fill in the blank) too

All in the course 

of reading a book to my class

Hands in my face

A tug on my hem

My name called over and over and over

     I need help

     Is this good enough?

     What’s next?

As I launch into today’s lesson

Not to mention

vibrations, bells, unexpected

visitors

     stops and starts

     emotions overflowing 

     phones that ring and ring and ring

Send her to intervention

He’s being picked up to go to the 

     dentist

     doctor

     Disneyland 

Wait!

It’s time for lunch…

@kd0602

Rain Joy: NPM26 #26

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Today’s Verselove prompt was to describe your place…down the dirt road, and my mind immediately went to the raindrops on the windshield as we drive down the freeway last night, to the music of rain on the roof overnight, of the evidence in the backyard after another shower this morning. Rain is rare here, so it commands attention, not just from people, but from plants and animals too. I spent some time this morning tiptoeing around the backyard in my pajamas and flip flops, listening to the birds, noticing light on water droplets, watching the backyard plants smile and snapping some photos to remind myself it was real and it happened today.

Streaking down car windows 

tiny rivers filling

snaking in search of the parched

finding a path through dips and crevices 

Taps of wind and water

serenading me in my sleep

moistening memories

drip dropping into my dreams

Damp streets and random pools

reminders of liquid treasure

gathered in succulent bellies

hiding beneath aloe spears

polka dotting blueberries 

hanging teardrops cling

as backyard plants cry happy tears

rain is here, if only for a moment

@kd0602

Bookstore Day: NPM26 #25

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Imagine this as spoken word poetry, find the rhythm in the sound of the words, say them loud and clear. Books matter, words matter, libraries matter, poetry matters…even when it’s not perfect. Thanks Verselove and Ashley for the push to try something different.

On bookstore day

reading rules 

stories sing

poems play

words somersaulting 

dancing together

to the rhythms of syllables 

and sentences

On bookstore day

book lovers gather

writers and readers

uncovering treasures

buying books and borrowing books

making long lists TBR

to be stacked teetering 

on bedside tables

On bookstore day

protest library cuts

postcard the mayor

appreciate books

shoulder to shoulder

with bookstore crawlers 

not in search of a bargain 

but to celebrate bookstores 

book doors

openings to worlds

only books unlock

on bookstore day

@kd0602