"I heard a poem, I almost cried..."

Haiku-of-the-day: April 9, 2012 (I've been tweeting my #haikuoftheday each day in April, and will compile them at the end of the month)

Children carefully
crafting creative combos
of words: POETRY!


We finished Love That Dog in 4th grade library today.  There were tears (luckily, not my own!), though a student did call me out on a wavering voice at one point.  We talked about connections to the poems, the emotional response most of them had at listening to My Sky by Jack, and then they worked briefly on writing some poems of their own.  One student wrote a poem about her sadness listening to My Sky.  I think I may have stopped her mid-poem, but she was happy to share.

Interestingly enough, many of them were struck by the contradiction of the sadness of Jack's poem and then his use of the phrase "smooshed in the street" when writing to Walter Dean Myers.  We talked about why Jack (and Sharon Creech :) may have decided to use words in that way.  There were many thoughtful responses!

I really can't wait to show them the Teachingbooks.net video of Sharon Creech and Walter Dean Myers reading from the Love That Dog Reader's Theatre.

First graders also had a chance to work on some acrostic poetry.  We wrote class poems about library (what better way to celebrate Poetry Month AND School Library Month!) and then they tried their hand on acrostic poems of their choice.

There were many examples for our Celebrate Poetry wall!