USING POETRY IN THE CLASSROOM -- Part 6-- POETRY LEARNING CENTERS

It's about time, teachers,... that I continue this blog.  I was interrupted by the birth of my grandson, Olin Robert.  :)  He's perfect and I'm utterly smitten!

When I am establishing my poetry center, I model everything I expect to my class during our morning meeting.  Hence, together we will rebuild the poem using the sentence strips and the pocket chart.  Together we will circle the word wall words on our individual copies.  Together we will make a list of all the words that end with -ing.  You get the picture.  

I use task cards at my poetry center.  They describe what the students are to do that day. For example: 

Students will circle the rhyming words on their individual copies.  Typically, this task will be one that I demonstrated on last week's poem.

Using a grease pencil or a Vis-a-vis marker, I fill in the box with whatever letter or blend we are studying at the time.  I provide a POETRY RECORDING SHEET for students to use.  However, blank or lined paper could suffice.

As my students' capabilities grow, so do the requirements of the task cards.

These task cards are appropriate for emergent readers.  I have also used them with reluctant, older readers.  

For students with advanced reading & writing skills, I start with more difficult tasks and build from there.

For upper grade and/or advanced students, the task cards require more.

In my next post, I'll describe POETRY LEARNING CENTERS that focus on poetic structures, elements, and writing.

If you like my poetry task cards, you can find them at my TN Shop or in my TpT Store.