Stuffed Animal Daze

I shared this over at PhotoFridays. This week, we held a Stuffed Animal Day for descriptive writing. When the kids went off to gym, I noticed my room full of stuffed creatures at the desks of my students, so I took this shot:

Peace (with lovin’ stuffin’),
Kevin

Archetypes of Comics — what are they saying?

This is an incredible chart. I hung it up in my room and all the kids are crowding around it, checking it out. I think they are both drawn to the comic element, but also to the way that this artist has cross-pollinated our expectations of characters.

(PS — If you go the comic on my Flickr site, you can add funny note overlays on the picture, giving voice to the characters. It is now part of the PhotoFridays pool. The more the merrier – come join the fun. http://www.flickr.com/photos/dogtrax/3348124669/in/pool-photofridays.)

From: http://creebobby.com/timestable.html

Peace (in the comics),
Kevin

Photo Fridays: Some Japan Photos

I love the community of Photo Fridays, the Flickr community created by Bonnie where we share pictures and connect. This week, I added a few from Japan, including this one:

As I wrote:

The shrine was defended by a series of Samurai statues, most with swords and weapons in their hands. This one, however, caught my eye. Instead of a sword, he had a pen and paper (perhaps an early editorial writer?) and I dubbed him my “writer warrio.” He looks like he has some digression to write about, doesn’t he?
Kevin

Come join us with Photo Fridays, if you get the time.

Peace (in pictures),
Kevin

The Red Sled


This photo is from my backyard and it reminded me of the imagery from the William Carlos Williams’ poem, Red Wheelbarrow. (The photo is part of the Photofridays project, too)

Remember?

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

What about:

so much depends
upon

the red plastic
sled

covered with white
snow

beside the children’s
tracks.

Peace (in a poetic mood),
Kevin

A PhotoFriday Picture Story

Allanah showed me this site — called Capzles — that seemed intriguing, so I grabbed all of my submissions to the PhotoFriday Flickr group and made this little show, with some original music of mine.

I think the site is pretty nifty. And it was incredibly easy to use — I uploaded, created and embedded this whole thing in a short amount of time.

(You can also view the show directly with this link. I noticed that the nice background I created in Capzles is missing in the embed widget, so it is worth the visit, I think)

Peace (in slides),
Kevin

Halloween is here, so ….

I have a few items to share on this Scare Night:

First of all, over at PhotoFridays, a few folks are sharing out Halloween-inspired pictures, so I added a few of my own. Mine come from the annual neighborhood Pumpkin Contest, which featured more than 100 carved pumpkins, a pumpkin rolling contest, the lighting of a Burning Man (perhaps it was Bush, in effigy, given the politics of our ‘hood), a gathering of friends and kids running around ramped up on sweets.

Here is one of our family’s entries — Elvis.

Also, Larry Ferlazzo has added to his already great list of Halloween sites for teachers, should you be in need of some resources. As always, Larry gives a good snapshot and considers applicability for all students and consideration of the classroom. In fact, you should really subscribe to Larry’s blog and read over all the wonderful lists and compilations he does. Larry is amazing!

Finally, I can’t resist sharing this video from Common Craft. it is called Zombies in Plain English, and it is a nice funny take on the outstanding videos they produce and dhare about Web 2.0 tools. The Zombie movie was put out last year, but it is timeless. I though about sharing in my classroom but the ending (which I love as a viewer) makes me think that I won’t be doing that. Too many napalm bombs and such.

Peace (in ghostly ghouls),
Kevin

If it’s Friday, it’s Photo Friday

Here are the two images I added to the Photo Friday project this week:

This is a collection of student-created temples in honor of Greek gods and goddesses. We are reading The Lightning Thief, which is rich in mythology. These were created with air-dry clay, which crumbles but is effective for ancient ruins.

And this is a picture of the darn bird that has eaten all of the corn that we hung on our door. It makes a racket as it pecks away.

Peace (in images),
Kevin

A PhotoFridays’ Adventure

I don’t always blog about it, but the PhotoFridays project that Bonnie started up continues to be a source of great interest. Simply put, participants (and you are invited!) add photos via Flickr to the PhotoFridays group, and then write comments and share ideas, etc. It’s a nice way to mix the visual with the written word.

Bonnie has now launched a project within PhotoFridays in which we are mailing around a pair of California Raisin figurines. When we get them, we take photos of them in our environment and then mail them off to the next person (I said it is sort of like a Flat Stanley project).

When I got the little dudes the other day, I also wrote a short, first-person narrative of their visit, and I am hoping others will follow my lead and do the same, adding the stories both to the PhotoFridays site and also in paper form into the envelope. At the end, it might be neat to see the entire collection.

Here was one of my photos:

And my narrative:

Arrived yesterday. Sick of being stuck inside this envelope. And tired of hearing my brother practice his saxophone. If he plays the melody to Tequila one more time, I am going to squeeze the last bits of grape juice from his body and leave his skin behind. Before the envelope was even opened, I heard a lot of commotion. This must be a busy house, I thought, and I warned my brother. He ignored me and started to work on some Ornette Coleman free jazz lines, which also drives me crazy. Finally, some dude opened us up and took us out. Fresh air, at last. I looked outside the window and noticed all of the trees were different colors. This must be New England, I told my brother. In the autumn, the leaves go from green to red, yellow and orange. Beautiful, man, was all he could say. He so much wants to be the hipster. The dude who took us out of the package them lined us up next to a comic book. A comic book! What are we? Some playthings? The picture on the cover was some scrawny guy, looking like he was running for president. Click. Then, the guy puts us on top of some blocks that were hung on the wall. I noticed some musical notations, and so did my brother. Cool, man, my brother said, and then started to play some Grover Washington Jr. Now, that I didn’t mind. Click. I figured we had some time, but then this guy stuffs us right back into the envelope and starts writing on the outside. Hey, man, that pen hurts! I wonder where he is sending us this time …

If you want to be a recipient of the traveling raisins, just let Bonnie know (you can find info at the PhotoFridays site, including Bonnie’s email).

Peace (in sharing),
Kevin

Comics and Bears for PhotoFriday

It’s time for PhotoFriday (the collective Flickr photo sharing group started up by Bonnie) and I am sharing out two photos this week.

The first photo is related to my Slice of Life story the other day, as I captures a bear going through my trash:

The second one is another installment of my new comic series called Outerworld Web. (You can also catch up on the series at my new Google Sites home of the comic):

Peace (in pictures),
Kevin