
After reading Fran Haley’s post about golden shovel poems, I decided to have a go at writing one using a line from my post yesterday about girls and how we can help them to shinethrough education (that’s my digraph for today, ‘sh’ so a golden shovel poem fits right in!)
The line I chose was part of a quote about the girl child and reads: she is fierce, she is courageous, she has learned the value of peace.”

I am also posting, a little randomly, a couple of pages from my students in Class 1 who have just put together and published a Thankful Book with their teacher’s and my help, via a few zoom lessons recently. The only rule was that they all had to be thankful for something different and I was impressed by their diverse ideas and of course the illustrations. This should have come under the ‘th’ digraph posting, but I didn’t receive them in time. Their Thankful Book will now go into our school library. I am planning to get students to publish as many as possible this year in their writing classes. The only frustrating thing is that I can’t actually hold and read them for myself!


Not much to say about the ‘sh’ digraph, it is the softer version of the ‘ch’ sound and again two letters form one sound that students need to learn and recognise by sight.

Beautiful poem. Strong words for all of our girls.
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Thank you!
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I love golden shovel poems and your inspiration line and your poem. It reads like a mantra for girls. The girls’ books are wonderful, too.
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Thank you for your encouraging words and I am impressed by their level of writing too.
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Hooray for golden shovel poems! I also tried that form out today. I love how you took your own words and dug even deeper to write about the power of she. Of course you cleverly wove the digraph sh into this post. An inspirational read.
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As always, this blog is a joy to read. I love the “thankful for my knees,” sort of an unexpected and delightful gratitude expression from a young child. I also love the poem and am going to try that shovel poem as well. Yours is so moving.
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Thank you so much! I feel relieved that the poem seems to have worked, will look forward to reading yours. And yes, the knees was classic, when she read it to me via zoom I had to hide an unexpected smile!
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Love how you used the lines to inspire the poem and those illustrations from your students are so fun.
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Thank you for your encouragement and yes, I love the students’ work, it’s so fresh and genuine.
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How perfectly the shovel for “sh,” just as the student books do for “shine”! Their expressions of thankfulness brighten the day, indeed. I cannot help thinking how your powerful poem embodies “shining” for the girls who are learning there in your class, and how much this learning means to them. Please know that you always inspire me.
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Thanks again for your appreciation, it’s really uplifting. Yes, in a slice I can highlight the bright moments and know that in between it is a lot of constant repetition and at times, a sense of when are they ever going to ‘get this’! The end results are worth it!
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