SIMILE POETRY

Simile Poetry is one of my favorite “beginning of the school year” activities. This type of poetry is a simple blend of acrostic poetry

and similes. 

Have each student write his/her name down the left side of a piece of paper.  Using each letter as the first letter in a phrase, s/he writes a series of similes that describe him/herself.

Simile poems are a great way to get to know your students, or at least gain some insight into their self-images.  A display of these poems is a big hit at the fall open house.  Keep these poems in your students’ portfolios.  Repeat the assignment at the end of the year and enjoy comparing the two.

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Poet-tree

Just outside my classroom window, there is a beautiful maple tree.  My kiddos and I love to watch it grow and change throughout the year.  A while back, I decided to make a paper version of that maple and posted it just outside my classroom door.  Then, as a class, we  would mimic the changes the real tree went through.  

I start with a brown, craft paper trunk. 

Prior to school opening in the fall, I use the school's Ellison Die Cut machine to cut bunches of green maple leaves.  Writing each student's name on a leaf helps to make them feel a part of the group and welcomes them back to school.

                

I put the leaves on the trunk and pretty much leave it alone for awhile.  

As the leaves begin to change colors and fall, we make our tree do the same.  (Swapping the green leaves for the fall leaves is a great activity for early finishers.)

The tree transitions from fall to winter and we replace the leaves with snow (stretched out cotton balls).  All of this is in conjunction with scientific observations of our tree.

Because I do this with 1st graders, the tree does not become a Poet-tree until spring, when they are more skilled writers.  Then, as they write poetry, they make a copy on the computer and print it.  Recycling the green leaves from the fall, my students glue their poems to a leaf and put them on the tree.  It never fails to amaze me how motivating that is for 1st graders!  Before long, the tree is full.

Our tree buds with budding poets!  

Writing Center Graffiti

It's about time, teachers,... that I admit I am a word collector.  I {heart} words.  I {heart} interesting phrases.  Although I do not feel a need for an intervention, I will (gulp) admit that as a child I used to read the dictionary.  

This love affair with words has continued throughout my adult life and I strive to share my passion with my students.  That is what led me to create a graffiti wall in my writing center.  

My graffiti wall is simply a bulletin board dedicated to posts of interesting words and phrases.  Both the students and I can write words on strips of paper and post them on the board.  At the beginning of the year, I demonstrate this by extracting words and phrases from our read-alouds to post on the board.  Before long, my students are pointing out the words they find interesting.  I invite them to copy them and post them on our graffiti wall.  Students who "catch my fever" even bring phrases in from home.

I've forged an alliance with the computer teacher to further spur our graffiti.  When he introduces fonts to my class, he uses some of our graffiti wall words.  Using the SmartBoard, he gives our words "life" by applying cool fonts to them.  You should hear the ooo-s and ah-s! Naturally, there is a marked increase in graffiti after that lesson!  

As a corollary to our graffiti wall, I have a "tired words" board.  We put overworked words to bed and list alternatives on the foot board.

This, too, gains momentum over time.  Before the year is over, we have a dormitory of beds with tired words!

Both of these boards have improved my students' writing markedly.  They are easy to accomplish and the payoff is huge.  Try it.  You'll like it.

USING POETRY IN THE CLASSROOM -- Part 8 -- RANDOM THOUGHTS

It's about time, teachers, ... to wrap up Using Poetry in the Classroom.  As promised, today I'm posting my random thoughts about poetry centers.

Many, many teachers like to use composition books for student anthologies.  They describe having the students paste the poem under study into the book and then use the facing page to write responses.  I prefer to use 3 ring binders because no matter how many times you tell your students that "a dot is a lot," they still get glue on the pages. Carefully tearing the pages apart for them is not my favorite activity and it's way too time consuming.

But, you object, then the students can't write a response on the facing page.  Au contraire!  I have my pupils punch holes on the right margin of the poem.  For many of the poetry responses, I use a Poetry Recording Sheet.

Other times, I have the students insert notebook paper.  Either way, the kiddos now have the poem on the left and response paper on the right.  

Earlier on this blog, I referred to supplies you may wish to have at a poetry center. Although I recommended markers, crayons, scissors, etc., I usually place only colored pencils at the center.  I call them "Poets' Pencils," which makes them more special to the children.  I love the metaphor that "Poets' Pencils" create colorful, figurative language.  

Colored pencils are also preferable for highlighting and underlining words on the poem because they don't bleed through the paper, as markers can.  Moreover, they are erasable, if need be.

By making colored pencils specific to our poetry center, I am also avoiding confusion (and arguments) over whether the markers and/or crayons are part of the center or belong to one of the students. 

Poetry can be used in so many ways to enhance your teaching.  It need not be saved for April, National Poetry Month.   It need not only be used for studying the elements of poetry.  Poems bring rainbows into your classroom.  Visit the land of poems often. You'll be glad you did.

For more ideas for using poetry in your teaching, check out these resources:

  

USING POETRY IN THE CLASSROOM -- Part 7 -- POETRY LEARNING CENTERS

It's about time, teachers,... to talk about using poetry centers for POETRY!

Depending on the age and stage of your students, you may wish to begin a study of poetic structures with rhyme scheme, meter, and/or stanzas.  The figurative language synonymous with poetry is a rich source of study for centers.  For example, metaphors are an appropriate subject for task cards:

Similarly, assonance, similes, alliteration, onomatopoeia, etc.  can be studied at centers.

Writing responses to poetry are appropriate for centers, 

as is creating original poetry.  I find that elementary students are more comfortable writing poetry when they have a "prescription" for writing.  For example, they love writing haiku.

There are many, many types of poetry that are engaging for students to write, but the "prescription" may be elusive.  At my poetry centers, I place poetry posters with the task cards that ask them to write specific poetry.  For instance, when using the task card for haiku, I put this poster at the center:

My goal at learning centers is for the students to be as independent as possible.  After all, I'm conducting guided reading groups during center time.  By using task cards and posters, I have largely accomplished this goal.  There will always be some children who struggle to work independently, either because of their personality or learning needs. The majority, however, can act independently or find the assistance they need from their peers.  

Please remember that none of this happens overnight.  You must invest time in training your students to use centers of any type.  With poetry centers, it is essential that you model the things you want your students to do and ensure that your students are very familiar with the poetry before you place it in the center.

Next time, I will address some random thoughts about poetry learning centers.

If you are interested in my poetry task cards and the poetry posters I created for poetry centers, you can find both at my TpT Store or in my TN Shop.

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.

POETRY LITERACY CENTERS -- Part 5

It’s about time, teachers, that we covered poetry literacy centers.  I {heart} centers that have high interest for the kids and low effort for me.  That doesn’t happen overnight, but you can start to establish a poetry center and train you students to use it.  Then all you have to do is swap the poems and a few supplies.

Poems placed at the center must be familiar to the children.  You are just inviting problems if you post an unfamiliar poem.  Through shared reading, your students should have a clear understanding of the poem’s meaning or essence.  During those reads, ensure that your students understand the vocabulary and have sufficient background knowledge.  Ideally, the poem will be one that everyone can read independently.  If that is not possible, and I don’t believe it always IS possible, have a system whereby those who can’t read it can readily find a helper.

Poems placed at the center are in several forms:  individual copies for the students’ anthologies, an enlarged or poster version, and sentence strips with the poem copied on them.  A pocket chart is available for the latter.  Whisper phones are there, as well.

Have supplies available at the center so that students need not travel back to their desks to fetch them.  You will likely need scissors, pencils, erasers, crayons, colored pencils, and/or markers.  I also place a 3 hole punch at my center for students to use since we collect our poetry in 3 ring binders.

There are myriad activities for students to pursue.  As you can well imagine, the activities available at any one time, are limited and variable.  Following is an eclectic list of those activities:

          Read the poem with a buddy (EEKK)        
          Find rhyming words & highlight them

          Illustrate the poem

          Find patterns in the poem

          Identify word wall words in the poem & highlight or make a list

          Highlight words that are hard or tricky

          Complete a poetry Cloze exercise (fill in the missing words)

          Make a bookmark based on the poem

          Read with expression/read the punctuation

          Build poems from sentence strips

Create poetry with magnetic poem kits

          Memorize a poem

Perform a poem

Another set of activities at the poetry center is based on language arts skills.  The poetry center can reinforce skills currently under study or review some previously taught.  Some skill lessons to consider include:

          Rhyming words
          Onsets and rimes

          High frequency words

          Spelling list words

Vowel sounds   

Digraphs

Blends and clusters

Base words

Prefixes and suffixes

Punctuation

Rules of grammar

Parts of speech

Homonyms, synonyms, antonyms, homophones

For higher performing students in the early grades, as well as students in middle and upper grades, additional activities may focus on the craft of poetry.  Such activities include:

          Make text innovations
          Compose a poem

          Identify elements of a poem

          Explore figurative language

          Compare 2 poems using a Venn diagram or a T-chart

          Write a response to the poem

          Conduct an author study on the poet

In my next post, I will explore some of the activities in more depth.

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All of these products are available in my TpT Store or my TN Shop.