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First Graders Use Fibonacci Folding Book App

growing patterns over

First graders at The Dalton School in New York City did a recent reading, writing, and art project using our Fibonacci Folding Book App for the iPad. They took photographs, wrote Fibonacci poems, and made Fibonacci Folding Books. You can see their work here.

Regular readers of the blog may remember that Julie Owen and I developed the Fibonacci Folding Book Project, and that Richard turned it into an app for iPads and Android tablets.

The Fibonacci Folding Book project is also available on my website in the section labeled For Teachers. I love hearing about it when teachers and librarians use the educational materials we’ve created for Growing Patterns and Wolfsnail.

A Favorite Poem

trees with yellow leavesYears ago my college roommate Sarita gave me a book of poems by Alice Walker called Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful. A favorite from that collection is a poem called HOW POEMS ARE MADE/A DISCREDITED VIEW. I was reminded of the poem yesterday when someone talked about letting a lover go. I feel inspired to share it, but I’m not sure about the rules about posting entire poems. I’ll post the first two stanzas, and let you follow a link to the rest of it.

HOW POEMS ARE MADE: A DISCREDITED VIEW
by Alice Walker

Letting go
in order to hold on
I gradually understand
how poems are made.

There is a place the fear must go.
There is a place the choice must go.
There is a place the loss must go.
The leftover love.
The love that spills out
of the too full cup
and runs and hides
its too full self
in shame.

Click here to read the whole poem.