Meet My Collaborator, Marcie Flinchum Atkins

A couple of weeks ago, I introduced you to Ed Spicer, the awesome teacher who wrote the activities for What’s Inside? Poems to Explore the Park (that book is free TODAY only on Kindle, by the way–just asking for an honest review in return). I’m close to bringing out the second book in my 30 Painless Classroom Poems series, and I’d like to showcase the educator who has done the activities for this next one: Marcie Flinchum Atkins.

One of the reasons I was thrilled to have Marcie working on activities for Riddle-ku: Haiku for Very Close Reading, was her Picture Book Month Teacher’s Guide. It’s a resource I had looked at many times as inspiration for creating teacher materials to go with my own books. She is a picture book lover and a really creative thinker! Without further ado, here’s…

Marcie Flinchum Atkins
Photo: Kimberly Smith

Marcie Flinchum Atkins

Marcie Flinchum Atkins holds an M.A. and M.F.A., both in Children’s Literature, from Hollins University, where she was a two-time recipient of the program’s most competitive honor, the Shirley Henn Creative Writing Award. For seventeen years, she’s taught 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades. She’s an active member of SCBWI and Julie Hedlund’s 12×12. She’s written for children’s and adult magazines and been published in the educational market.

Friend her on Facebook: facebook.com/MarcieFlinchumAtkins

Follow her on Twitter: @MarcieFAtkins

Visit her website/blog: www.MarcieAtkins.com

Here are just two of the 25 activities Marcie created for Riddle-ku!

• Do two paintings of an object?one close-up and one of the whole object. Write a riddle-ku to go with the paintings.
• Read the cloud riddle-ku. Go outside to do some cloud watching. Have students take their journals and make notes about what they think the clouds look like. They can think like scientists and actually name the clouds with their correct names. NOAA has a great cloud classification site to help. Students can also think like wordsmiths and create metaphors for the clouds.

Aren’t those cool? Some of the activities relate to specific riddle-ku, while others are more general. Marcie came up with a fantastic variety of suggestions across the curriculum. Since she’s an expert in both mentor texts and using picture books in the classroom, that’s really no surprise!