Focus Lessons: A Review and Giveaway!
Reading Ralph Fletcher’s newest book, Focus Lessons, revealed memories of my childhood much the way photos can be revealed in a pan of solution. Slowly, vividly, and magically.
Category Archive: poetry
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Finding Interdisciplinary Opportunities in Writing Workshop
What happens when the next unit in third grade writing workshop is poetry and the classroom teacher stumbles across an anthology of bilingual poetry? This post describes how a third-grade homeroom teacher and a Spanish teacher collaborated to implement an interdisciplinary, bilingual poetry unit.
Food Writing, Community Building, and a Book Giveaway
Writing workshop thrives when a community of children come together as writers who know each other. The first six weeks of school is when we build community. Here’s one way to build relationships and encourage kids to write about one of their favorite things simultaneously.
Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win a copy of Eric Carle and Friends’ newest book, What’s Your Favorite Food?
The Big Book of Poems
Big, blank spaces means big possibilities for a poetry unit!
Stepping Toward Poetry
Did you experiment with some poetry now that the school year is in full swing? If not, here are a few more ideas to convince you poetry can be woven into your day. It starts with you.
Poetry Every Day in 5 Minutes or Less
For some, this might be your last evening before school begins. For others, you might be on your third week! Tonight I’m sharing five, five-minute ideas that might just help you fit poetry into your day, each day. I needed to find a solution to the lack of poetry in my day for my students and I’m hoping these ideas might just inspire some of your own as you begin a new year.
Before You Go…
It’s that time of year when we start to think about all the things we didn’t get to do with our students! Here are five writing exercises I am going to make sure students don’t leave without!
A Breakthrough In Poetry: How To Bring Playfulness to Every Genre
Kids are inundated by rules. If the gift of writing is freedom of expression, are we imposing too many “rules” on writers? What if the rules of every genre, like poetry, were limited to just two or three?
Immersion into Poetry with Centers
Third grade poetry centers are one way to immerse students in the different literary devices and figurative language we find in poems.
Poems Are Teachers: Interview & Giveaway
Poems Are Teachers, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s newest book, is grounded in the idea of writing workshop. It contains practical lessons teachers can use the very next day, as well as mentor texts written by published and student poets. Learn more about it in an interview with Amy. Then, leave a comment for a chance to win two of Amy’s books.
Building a Community of Writers: Creating the Emotional Space
Building a community of writers is likely a goal for all writing workshop teachers. But what are some ways to be intentional about bringing such a goal to fruition?
Writing “Things to Do” Poems: It’s All About the Action Words!
Today’s Author Spotlight includes some poetry with Elaine Magliaro, author of the new book, THINGS TO DO.
What Trouper (The Three-Legged Black Lab) Has to Teach About Poetry
Meg Kearney provides us with some ways to teach poetry in the elementary school in today’s Author Spotlight post.
Poetry Begins with Play
Learning to play with words is an important step for young writers who are learning to create poems.
See Something Where There is Nothing: A Poetry Lesson
Need a fresh idea for poetry? Try this lesson!
Finding Time: With Craft Moves on The Poem Farm
Poetry month in my opinion (and my students’) is a celebration of writing! It’s a time when we writers welcome new beginnings and hone the art and crafting of our writing skills. I watch my students take wings and write with grace and confidence during poetry month.
The Rising Writers Club
My school offered a before school writing club and it was a hit! Here is a quick glimpse and a little tip on teaching poetry as April approaches.
Making Connections with Poetry
I am on a technology roll lately! First Evernote and now Padlet. Check out the start of a new tool to inspire my students.
Have Charts, Will Travel. Mentor texts? Even better!
My last post was about some of the reflections that I want to remember when I teach any genre of writing, but I also wanted to share more of our poetry workshop and… Continue reading
Respect, React, and Write–My Three Reflections
Three important reflections inspired by teaching poetry to fifth-grade writers