Search results matching tag 'poetry'

Love that Dog and Piano presents

Anonymous — Tue, 07 May 2013 23:48:00 GMT

Hello my friends! I am linking up with my best girl Holly from Fourth Grade Flipper for her Tried it Tuesday..

I have a couple things I have tried this week :]

First of all - I just finished reading aloud "Love that Dog" by Sharon Creech. I have never read it aloud to a class, since this has been my highest grade level of teaching [4th]. I love it, and it is very touching and I think that getting kids to be inspired by other kids or a book is what it is all about.

A few of my students were very touched by this story, and we began writing all different kinds of poems. One of my students "stuck" with the shape poems and loved how the boy in the story would repeat a word three times (it really is catchy!)

For example: "Spring is a ladybug who flies, flies, flies with her wings, wings, wings."

Here is what my lovely student came up with:

I admit, I did help him outline the dog, but that's it! He came up with the ideas on his own :)

Another thing I "tried" this week are making up different goodie bags for my piano students! I do teach piano, and I love it. It is my 3rd year teaching, and it is so wonderful to watch your students grow and have them build their musical talents.

They always deserve a gift at the end of each year (and recital) and I wish I had all the money in the world to get them really nice gifts. Last year I gave them a musical keychain with a goodie bag.

I had to post this pug! In honor of mine and Holly's XOXO Love pugs.. [found on tumblr]

This year I will be giving them a piano pin with goodie bag, and an award (and card - I love telling them about their accomplishments!)

I am so glad I found these cute awards at the Dollar Tree.

All of my children deserve something special... can't wait for their recital May 30th :) I have 10 students and they will all be lovely.

I hope you all can link up with Holly!!

And don't forget about the HUGE Teacher Appreciation Sales going on now...

My entire store is 20% off and then an extra 8% when you put in the code TAD13!!

Today and tomorrow :) Have a wonderful night!

May Newsletter and New Freebies!

Anonymous — Sat, 04 May 2013 15:22:00 GMT

Happy, happy Saturday!

It's been one heck of a week. But thankfully, testing is over.

We have Field Day this upcoming week and I'm praying the kids

can release some of this built up energy.

The May newsletter is hitting inboxes at this very moment!

If you're not signed up, you're missing some fun, exclusive freebies!

I have also included links to several activities for Mother's Day,

Father's Day, and the end of the school year. One of my newest freebies

is a booklet that includes this end of the year poem:

Be sure to click the "sign up" picture above! I don't anyone to be left out. The exclusive freebies are just that - they will never be posted on TpT, Pinterest, or anywhere else!

I'm taking the rest of the afternoon to finish up my Math Endorsement portfolio. Then it's church and dinner time!

I hope everyone has a great day!

Learning About Haikus

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:26:09 GMT

Spring is here… it’s a great time to learn about poetry and other creative pursuits.

What is a haiku?

A haiku (俳句) is a type of Japanese short poem. Traditionally, haikus have consisted of 17 syllables, with:

Five syllables in the first line
Seven syllables in the second line, and
Five syllables in the third line

However, haikus do not have to follow this format… many famous Japanese haikus are simply short poems with a “cutting” (or juxtaposing) rhythm, often about nature or everyday objects or occurrences. It’s also fun to tell stories using poetry as a medium.

It’s a lot of fun to create your own haiku poems… it takes a bit of work to follow the rules for lines and syllables in haikus and write something that does not sound choppy. It’s not enough to simply write 17 syllables worth of prose from beginning to end… the syllables per line rule means that the haiku should flow a certain way, in a manner that is moving and rhythmic. Getting kids to compose their own haikus is a great way to help them practice following other English grammar rules.

A poster about haikus

Here is a poster that will help you to explain haikus to your children or students in your classroom. The best part about this poem is that it is a poem about haikus, written using haikus! As such, your students can learn about the nature of haikus by reading a short series of haikus.

Click to download

Common Core poetry lessons

If you’re teaching your students English language arts and literacy lessons according to the Common Core State Standards, here is a packet that you can use to teach poetry. In this packet can be found lessons where students can learn about and compose a variety of different types of poems, including:

Haikus
Shape poems
Alphabet poems
Autobiographical poems
Alliteration poems
Color poems

… and more. If you have been teaching poetry in your classroom, and have been writing other types of poems that are not found in this packet, please let me know! I’d be interested in learning about other, different styles of poetry, and how to create new, unique types of poems.

First, Second, Third, and Fourth Grades

Common Core standards: 1.RL.4, 1.RL.10, 2.RL.4, 2.RL.10, 3.RF.4b, 3.RL.10, 4.RL.2, 4.RL.10

My post is finished.
I hope you have a great day
Writing poetry!

Making Little Poets

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:00:00 GMT

April: Poetry Month!!

April is one month that I have a love/hate relationship with :) It is such a wonderful month to teach because I do my Egg unit and my Poetry/Riddle unit...which I truly enjoy teaching both. But Hate it because it is such a busy month as we are near the end of the school year. There are tons of meetings, testing, class lists, schedules become full again and it seems that there is just not enough time to get it all done!

Each week I teach my students a new poem. Many time the poem will teach them sight words or about a certain topic. At the end of the week, we highlight sight words and put our poem in our P.I.G. (poetry is great) folders. Then the students take their folders home over the weekend and read their new poems (and old ones too) to their parents.

But this week...we are doing something different!

We are in the process of working together, as a class, to write our very own poem. I like my students to understand what authors and/or poets go through when they write a story/poem and to understand that it isn't something that is done by just sitting down and writing something and then it's done. There is so much more to getting a book/poem published. So we talk about the steps that they take to do this.

I let my students know that they are the ones making the decisions on what our poem will be about and what our poem says. The only time I get to choose, is if they can't agree on something.

Day 1: Brainstorming

I began by having the students brainstorm topics that they wanted our class poem to be about.They came up with several topics and then they voted to see which topics were the most popular. I took the top 3 topics and had them vote again to decide what we were going to write our poem about. Then we talked about how some poems rhyme and how some poems do not rhyme. I read an example of both types and then had my students vote again. (I have 21 students in my class and as you can see, not all of them voted. I told them that if they didn't vote, then their voice wouldn't be heard, so if they want a say what the poem is going to be about, they must vote.)

Finally, we had a topic to write about!

Kindergarten Friends

The next thing we did was turn our brains back on high and brainstormed again. This time we came up with things that we knew about our kindergarten friends, things we do with them, and things that describe our kindergarten friends.

Day 2: Getting Started

We reviewed what we had talked about yesterday and how we came to our topic. Then we went back over our brainstorming to decide how we wanted to start our poem out.

What would the first line of our poem be? What can we do to hook our readers? Do we we want to start with a question? Do we want to start with something excited?

These are all questions I asked my students and had them give me their ideas and opinions and then we voted...

The first sentence: I like my kindergarten friends.

Hmmm, where do we go from here...again, since it is a poem written by my students I gave them the freedom to discuss their options as I guided them.

Sentence number 2: We see each other at school.

Now that we had two sententces, we needed to start thinking about words that rhyme, so that we can write a poem that rhymes. I asked students to come up with words that rhymed with school and I wrote down what they came up with.

Then my students had to decide what word they wanted to use to rhyme with school in the poem about Kindergarten Friends. And so, we came up with four lines of our poem today.

Kindergarten Friends

I like my kindergarten friends.

We see each other at school

We play together outside

My friends are really cool!

Just before we were finishing up, one of my students said that we should start our poem out with "My friends are really cool" because then people will really want to read our poem. So, we did some editing (a day ahead of schedule :) I love teaching in the moment!)

Day 3: Continue/finish writing rough draft and begin editing

Tomorrow we will come together again and continue to write our poem. As a rule of thumb, I like to keep the poems to 10 lines or less (mainly because I want it to fit in a pocket chart once it is written out on sentence strips but also because I want to wrap it up in 5 days). I will repeat the process of thinking about words that rhyme, so that we can write a poem that rhymes. We will continue with the the theme of every other line rhyming. We will also continue to edit as we go.

Day 4: Edit and re-write

Thursday, we will read the poem and decide what changes need to be made. Is there a better choice of words that we can use? How does the ending sound? Do we have the lines in an order that makes sense? Are we happy with way the poems sounds? Does it rhyme? We will make the changes necessary to make a rhyming poem that our class agrees upon! (Majority rules). Then I will re-write the poem and we will re-read it again to make sure it is just how we want it :) If changes need to be made, we will make them accordingly.

Day 5: Final Copy to be put in our P.I.G. Folders

Thursday night, I will type up the final copy to put in the students P.I.G. folders. On Friday, I will hand out the final copy of the poem and we will read through it as a group being sure to use our "magic reading fingers" while reading.. Then students will draw a picture to go with the poem. They will then put it in their P.I.G. folder and take it home to share with their families.

Presentation Day:

Next week, I will have their poem written on sentence strips and in the pocket chart. We will read through it each day and highlight any sight words we may have used. By the end of the week, they should know the poem word for word. Then on Friday, we will have our Poetry Celebration Assembly and my students will be able to recite a poem, written by them, in front of their peers!

Want to see the final product???

To read their final copy, please visit my personal blog, Kindergarten Hugs this weekend. I will share it with you :) and hopefully I will remember to take pictutures of some of their illustrations too!

To see what we did last year for poetry month click here and here!

Carie Ramirez

Kindergarten Hugs

#Freebie Alert! I love National Poetry Month especially...

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 23:02:00 GMT

#Freebie Alert! I love National Poetry Month especially “Poem in your Pocket Day”.

#poetry #literacy #4thchat #5thchat #2ndchat

So…I created a few fun resources to share with you.

You can pick up this freebie at my TpT store.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Poetry-Freebie-Poem-in-your-Pocket-Day-resources

Pack includes

Printable “Poetic Licenses” (6 per page)
Large “Poetic Licence” that you can use on a bulletin board
“There’s a Poem in my Pocket Today” foldable. Students can add their own poem to share with others.
2 coordinating blank pages for student poetry. One allows room for student art work.

This year “Poem in your Pocket Day” is celebrated on April 18th.

Now for a few more resources more on the techy side.

Poetry Content Trailers - Just awesome!
Poetry Theater - Just like Readers’ Theater
Poetry Karaoke
Instant Poetry Forms
Shocked Poetry
Haiku Creator
Shel Silverstein and “Shelebrate” Poetry Month Printables
Splat Poetry
Poetry Video Library
Poetry Journal Scrapbook - Excellent idea!
Rhyming Dictionary
Create your own Words - Build your own Dictionary

All of these resources and more are included in…You’ll find resources for all age levels.h

Clever Tom and the Leprechaun!

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 18:49:00 GMT

Friends~This is my very favorite St. Patrick's Day book ever! Clever Tom and the Leprechaun. It is a really fun tale all about how Tom finds a leprechaun and he how gets him to lead him to his gold...but Tom makes one mistake that causes him to lose out. The kiddos love this entertaining story and it leads to great discussions in class.

Here you can listen to me reading the book.

And Yes, I am trying to sound Irish:)

I also love to give out Story Souvenirs to my kiddos to help them remember a special story like this. I copy this poem and add a red ribbon to a baggie for my students to take home. Click the image below to download a FREE copy of my poem!

Language is a Virus Neat writing website for high school...

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 22:09:30 GMT

Language is a Virus

Neat writing website for high school students.

#poetry #edtech #literacy

Includes writing games, generators, poetry guide and online publishing opportunities.

You may also like…

100+ Visual Writing Prompts (for older students)

One Word

Valentine's Love and Craft

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 04:35:00 GMT

Happy Valentine's Day to you all! I hope you had a wonderful day and enjoyed spending time and sharing the love with your students and loved ones. I had a great (but hectic) day with my lovely kiddos, but I am excited for February break coming up. I know many teachers do not receive a February break and they get a longer Christmas break than I do, but I like the split up. I just wish it wasn't so early this year!

Check out our adorable candy holders that me and Miss Mound's class made :) So cute!! Heather is a lot better than me with keeping up with Pinterest and finding the best ideas!! Check out this pin HERE and how you can make a DIY Candy Jar/Gumball Machine!

Also, we made delicious Valentine's ice cream sodas!! Also found on Pinterest, here :) [What did we do before Pinterest?] Even though I am on a "diet/changing lifestyle", I HAD to have one of these!!

The love of my life of 3+ years and counting got me a half dozen roses and a half dozen carnations :) He also got me a beautiful necklace/earrings set, and the adorable pug that you see below!

I am still in the process of updating my TPT and TN activties... so far, Government Unit is fixed, and I JUST finished my Poetry Unit!! :) Please check it out on Teachers Pay Teachers and of course, Teacher's Notebook!

TPT and TN are both wonderful, but I am so happy that Teacher's Notebook will be featuring my ELA Common Core Pack in the upcoming newsletter!! Steve and Debbie are amazing!!

Speaking of awesomeness, I think I am going to be getting my fonts from Tonya's Treats for Teachers from now on!! She is a great and talented gal, so I am definitely going to get a commercial license once she gets going... Please check out her blog if you haven't already and show her some LOVE :] Tell her Love to Teach sent you!

Well, I am tired and need to try to wake up in the morning to do my workout.. I have been so exhausted, but it doesn't help that it's already close to midnight by the time I go to bed! Again, I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day, whether you are single or taken, live with someone or alone, always know that there is someone that cares for you!!
And you are all the best teachers!!

Techie Tuesday: Acrostic Poems!

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 23:30:00 GMT

My kids and have been playing around with acrositc poems the past couple days. Some of my kids wanted to make some for Valentine's gifts.

Here's what we did together:

I did a little digging and found where the site Read, Write, Think has an acrostic poem generator! How fun!

Click the picture below to head over and start playing! :)

Poetry Friday: The Inaugural Poem

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 02:05:00 GMT

Poetry Friday is hosted by Tabatha Yeatts: The Opposite of Indifference

On Inauguration Monday, I could not wait to hear what President Obama would say. And, he did not disappoint. I also could not wait to her what Richard Blanco would recite. And, I was not disappointed in that, either. I loved the message, of course, the call to all of us, as Americans, to recognize our collective journey under one sky:

"One Today"

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,

peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces

of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth

across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.

One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story

told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors,

each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:

pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,

fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows

begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—

bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,

on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—

to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did

for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,

the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:

equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,

the "I have a dream" we keep dreaming,

or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain

the empty desks of twenty children marked absent

today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light

breathing color into stained glass windows,

life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth

onto the steps of our museums and park benches

as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk

of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat

and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills

in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands

digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands

as worn as my father's cutting sugarcane

so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains

mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it

through the day's gorgeous din of honking cabs,

buses launching down avenues, the symphony

of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,

the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,

or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open

for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,

buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días

in the language my mother taught me—in every language

spoken into one wind carrying our lives

without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed

their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked

their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:

weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report

for the boss on time, stitching another wound

or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,

or the last floor on the Freedom Tower

jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes

tired from work: some days guessing at the weather

of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love

that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother

who knew how to give, or forgiving a father

who couldn't give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight

of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,

always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon

like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop

and every window, of one country—all of us—

facing the stars

hope—a new constellation

waiting for us to map it,

waiting for us to name it—together.