IT'S NATIONAL POETRY MONTH!

 

It's about time, teachers, for National Poetry Month.  So let's create some poetry! 

A fun project for poetry month is to create a collage of spring things.  (It's also a good way to use up construction paper scraps.)

Once the collage is completed, invite your lower grade poets to make a 5 senses poem.  Provide a formula for the poem:

    I see ____________________________

    I hear ___________________________

    I smell __________________________

    I feel ____________________________

    I taste ___________________________

Attach the poems to the collages and display them for the world to enjoy.

Older students could write triplets, quatrains, haikus, acrostics, ... really any form of poetry you'd like. 

If you would like help with types of poetry, you may like this set of Poetry Posters --

You may also like:

SPRING TEACHING RESOURCES

 

It's official! Spring is here and to help you plan your spring lessons, I offer these resources...

FREEBIES

CRITICAL THINKING

MATH

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS

MATH & LITERACY CENTERS

IT'S WHIRLYBIRD TIME!

I awoke this morning to what I thought was hail hitting my skylights.  Odd since it was sunny, calm, and beautiful outside.  Then I realized --

Watching this seed dispersal is fascinating and inspired me to write a little poem.

If you follow me, you know that I love poetry and use it extensively in the classroom.  I give focus to poetry elements and appreciation, but I use poetry primarily as a vehicle for teaching an abundance of other subject matter.  

My nod to poetic elements for this poem would be to discuss the theme.  Obviously, the theme is whirlybirds, but more importantly, it's about their movements.  I establish this through discussion.

This leads naturally to an exploration of present participle verbs.  Students are directed to highlight the present participles on their copies of the poem.  Then I challenge them to write a present particple, or -ing poem.  The most intriguing of these poems are composed almost entirely of these verbs.  Thus, I present just such a poem -

We compare the 2 poems; feeling, rhythm, flow, etc., before I launch my young poets to do their writing.

There is an obvious correlation to the science of seeds.  So we study nature's methods of seed dispersal, collecting seeds and classifying them.   

There are so many more lesson possibilities for this poem....

• fluent reading
• punctuation
• alliteration
• rhymes
• rhythm
• syllables
• parts of speech
• phonics
• and so forth

Enjoy!

If you would like more poetry possibilities, you may like

It's About Time, Teachers, for Spring!

Just in time for spring, I have finished updating and refreshing these spring products:

 

 

• Spring Square Puzzlers - an excellent activity for exercising your students’ problem solving and critical thinking skills. These puzzles provide a quick and easy activity for teachers looking to challenge fast finishers, create differentiation opportunities, and provide enrichment exercises. The challenge with these puzzles is to reconstruct the square so that all of the images match on every interior side.
• SCRATTLE: Spring Edition - a learning center activity that combines word work with computation; individual effort with competition. As in Scrabble™, students use a set of letters to create words. After recording their words, they calculate each word’s score using the letter values. Then they engage a friend in a battle wherein they compare their scores using >, <, and =. The pupil with the most >s wins the battle! (SCRAbble + baTTLE = SCRATTLE!) This product offers instant differentiation in that it provides 3 different recording sheets. SCRATTLE can be played by students with basic addition capabilities. This makes it useful for primary teachers and as an RTI resource. Students capable of advanced multiplication will be best served by the second recording sheet. Those skilled in solving mixed operations in complex equations will enjoy the third option.
• Poetry Possibilities for Spring - a collection of 20 poems about spring celebrations and activities with custom designed skill lessons. This poetry unit incorporates poetic elements, poetic forms, writing, grammar, multiple subject areas, and craftivities. There are even directions for a class play! 
• Poetry Possibilities for Animal Poems - a science and literacy unit incorporating multiple subjects through poetry. This collection of 12 animal poems provides teaching points, skill lessons, and activities custom designed for each poem. It masterfully combines language arts with science.  It even includes center activities.

If you already own these resources, please download the new version.  You'll be glad you did.  If you don't have them, try them!  I think you'll like them. 

You may also like these resources:

   

More Springsational Poetry

In my quest to inspire passion about poetry, I have 3 more springsational poems for you to try.

• Engage your students in writing a 5 senses poem about spring.  After identifying the 5 senses, challenge your students to describe spring by writing 1 line for each sense.  You can make it a super easy task by giving them a template for their poems, such as this:
• I see ______________
• I hear ________________
• I smell _________________
• I feel _______________
• I taste _________________         

Here's an example:

• Spring
• I see the bright sun shining.
• I hear the baby birds chirping.
• I smell the garden flowers blooming.
• I feel the warm breeze passing.
• I taste the gentle rain that is falling.

Writing 5 senses poems provides a perfect opportunity to highlight adjectives and present participle verbs.  

• We all know that April showers bring May flowers, so during this month dedicated to poetry, rain seems to be an appropriate subject. Hence, try writing Umbrella Poems about rain with your class. (I suggest you provide an umbrella shape for your students' writings, thereby enhancing the shape poem.) The format is easy:
• Line 1 - Write 1 word related to rain.
• Line 2 - Write 2 words that describe line 1.
• Line 3 - Write 3 words that tell how line 1 sounds.  (Think onomatopoeia)  
• Line 4 - Write 4 words that tell what line 1 does.  (This may or may not be a sentence.)
• Line 5 - Repeat the word in line 1, writing it vertically in the handle.

• Tongue twister couplets are tons of fun to write and even more fun to read aloud. Create the first line of the couplet using spring thematic words that begin with the same sound.  The 2nd line should also be a tongue twister about the same topic, however, it may contain words that begin with a different sound. As per traditional couplets, the 2 lines should rhyme and a similar rhythm pattern is desirable. Provide access to a dictionary and/or thesaurus to assist your students' efforts. Then have students trade tongue twisters, challenging each other to read them without getting their tongues twisted. Here's an example:
• Ten terrible tornadoes tore through the town.
• The storms shattered shelters, shook shops, and struck steeples down.

Have fun!

Perfect poetry products picked for you:

Springsational Poetry Activities

April is National Poetry Month and I would love to share my passion for poetry with you.

  

Try some of these Springsational Poetry activites:

• Collaborative poetry is a fun way to use poetry in your classroom. It can be done with the entire class or in small groups. Each student will write 1 sentence about spring on a sentence strip. Give your students a prompt, such as 1 of those listed below. Collect all of the sentence strips and mount them on one large piece of poster paper.  Invite students to illustrate around the poem and display it for everyone to enjoy. Prompts:
• It's a sure sign that it's spring when...
• The best thing about spring is...
• Spring is the best season because...
• The worst thing about spring is...
• Spring weather...
• One spring day, I ...     You get the idea!

• Acrostic poems are always fun and leave the poets free from the need to create rhymes and rhythm. This can be an individual or collaborative effort. Begin by brainstorming a list of spring words, encouraging students to think in extensions; that is, going into more depth on vocabulary. Use word webs on the board to accomplish this (illustration below). Once you have a nice variety of terms, allow students to choose one of the word web words to use for their acrostic. I often have students circle the word on the board that they are going to use, writing their name or initials by it. If you have enough words, each student can use a different one.  If not, you may wish to impose a limit on the number of children who can choose the same word. Then set them loose to create their acrostic poems (example below).

If you are passionate about poetry (or at least enthusiastic), your students will find that feeling is contagious.

Check out these poetry products borne of my passion (how's that for poetic writing?):