Light planes landing or taxiing.  Some parked.

A few taking off.  It’s a poster over in the corner by my mostly unused classroom desk.  The planes are drawings former fifth graders made the day we walked to the Reid-Hillview Airport sitting on the lawn watching and drawing.  I requested the planes as “good-bye cards” at the end of the school year.

Eventually I cut out each drawing, bought a big piece of silver poster board and glued them into what I think a rather whimsical composition.  The overhead fluorescents in my classroom add mood to the background.

Why this image today?  I can write when an image “speaks” to me.  The picture that draws me may tell a theme from my day.

I know March 1 is Saturday, yet late last night I began my Slice challenge.  My day, with the groups of students coming in and taking off, reading with them, prompting, coaching, and having some fun was just like my airplane poster.  Even after a teachers’ happy hour and a pleasant evening at home, when I picked up my laptop to write, my brain was still full of the air traffic and the buzz of a successful school day.

Each child different, some cartoon-like in their six-year old animation, and others more defined in personality. All needing.  Wanting.   The groups of children coming and going while I fit in assessments.  Celebrating “book bag Friday” and then the tedium after school of re-charging their take home book bags.  My classroom is like a small local airport.

And that is what was pressed into my mind at the end of an intense school week.

Now, sleeping in a bit (on PST), on a wonderfully drizzly rainy day in California, I’m adding my “Slice” to this calendar day.  The rest of my Saturday will be errands, then a date — going to cook and watch a movie at the new man friend’s house.  So this is my little window to journal today.

My cat, Mickey, has slept in with me, and led me with little cheetah chirps to the kitchen to press a bit of tuna water tea into his bowl and make sure the crunchies cover the “feed me” message on the bottom of his bowl.

Since I have company from New Mexico, I am in my guest room at the desk, with the white quilted curtains pulled back to let in the soft light.  My artist neighbor’s driveway is filled with ceramic sculptures, some of which have become water features this morning.  What glorious peace and quiet!!

It is delicious to bring in my pot of tea to the desk, let the radio mutter the classical tunes, and write.  So, sometimes writing is the joy of observing what is right in front of me.  Sometimes there is a strong feeling that brings the moment to life from my day, making something stand out.

However, when it comes to blogging, I have become quite dependent on having an image.  (This reminds me of intervention with pre-reading first grade boys.  I would have them thinking as they came into my room, “What do I want to draw?”  And the first 5 minutes they drew.  Then they talked to a buddy off their drawing.  Next we turned the sound button on our fat pencils and they wrote.  We wrote without word walls, with close up support.  And, of course, then we read our writing.  I huddled in close to all eight of them at the horse shoe table and questioned, prompted, and assisted when it would be helpful.) ((Note:  Some of those boys did not need reading intervention in grade two and three of them just exited Friday.)

So I crave a picture before I write.  Perhaps if this month I don’t snap photos often, I’ll have to pull out my sketch book and iPhone camera before I blog?