Today we learned a new type of poem--an acrostic! Students had fun writing an acrostic about summer! There were some excellent poems about wonderful summer activities! I am so proud of how much your poets have grown!

Today we were poetry paleontologists! We were excavating and digging for the bones of our poem we learned last week. Students had to hunt for each individual bone (line) of the poem and then put it all together in our poem model. This was very fun and a great way to review our poem!

Today we read what will be our last poem of the year! It's about summer! We had fun brainstorming all the fun things we like to do in the summer. We also spent some time working on our rhyming, which is such an important skill. Being able to identify and add on rhymes is essential for learning how to spell words and it adds on to the vocabulary we have available to us as well.

Today, we made the cutest little bunnies to go with our poem for the past few weeks. We made him hop by applying pressure to a cup with elastic bands. We experimented a bit with if using more force created a higher jump or if body positioning made a difference in our forward motion or not. We also raced our bunnies and had an opportunity to work on our sportsmanship skills.

Today we played puzzle with our poem and were challenged to try and put our poem back together again when the lines were jumbled up! We also practiced building words out of longer spring words, such as RAINBOW.

Today we worked on identifying vowels and consonants in the words of our rabbit poem. We colored our vowels in blue and consonants in red. Some kiddos struggles with coloring in the shape of the letters. This is a fine motor activity that gets everyone ready to write for extended periods of time, so I encourage you to have your kiddos practice coloring at home, especially in smaller sized shapes. We also started building words from our spring time word list. We'll use these words to make poems in the upcoming weeks!

Today we read a new poem about rabbits (Perfect for spring!). We visualized what images we made in our mind while we read the poem and drew those in our poetry notebook. We also identified the rhyming words in the poem and added our own rhyming words to that list.

Today we finished up our Earthworm poem and played a very fun earthworm movement game. Everyone had to hold hands and move a hula hoop through the line without breaking the chain! This was very fun and everyone was able to figure it out rather quickly! I was proud. After that, we made "earthworm" paintings with yarn. These turned out beautifully! I'm excited for the next poems we will learn. I hope you have a wonderful spring break!

Today, students had to put our Hey Little Earthworm poem back in order when given the lines out of order. Then we observed the format of the poem to write our own spring critter poem. We ended the class with a sweet, gummy worm treat!

Today, we worked on identifying vowels and consonants in our poem. This was a great exercise for our youngest poets and a nice review for our more proficient poets. Then we had to determine the missing words left out of our poem.

Today we learned a new poem about the Earthworm! We decided we were all ready for spring and ready to read some "springy" poems! We also drew what we visualized while reading the poem AND we found the rhyming pair and adding more rhyming words. We had a lot of literacy fun today!

Today we finished up our watercolor Valentines and wrote metaphorical sensory poems about LOVE! This was tough, because just exactly what does love look like or smell like? This type of poem challenged our thinking! Happy Heart Day to you all!

It's love month, so we've started working on a poetry/art project! So far, they look beautiful. Hopefully, these will come home next week!

We have been out due to sickness, but here is a fun activity you can do at home! Watch and listen to our poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. If you have a few art supplies at home, you can make a neat water color resist project. Here are the directions:

1. On a white piece of paper, use a white crayon to make snowflake designs. You probably have a hard time seeing the designs, right?
2. Using watercolors, paint over the white crayon on the paper until the snowflakes "pop" out!

Here's the science behind this project:
The crayons are made of wax and the watercolors are made of water and pigment (colors). The water and the wax resist one another, so when you paint over the wax snowflakes, the watercolor paint does not stick to the wax. I would love to see what you create! You can email your pictures to me or bring them in next week (hopefully) to share!

Welcome back! Today we shared all our break adventures, especially those in the snow. That was especially fun since our poem today was Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. Today we read the poem and discussed each of the stanzas. We also drew the pictures that appeared in our mind as Dr. Rowe was reading the poem.

Today, we finished up our Visit From St. Nicholas puppets. Everyone should have a set that they brought home with them. We had great fun acting out the parts while Dr. Rowe read the poem. I heard lots of littles saying would make some backgrounds and then act it out for their families. How fun! If anyone does that, I would love to see a video. I'm looking forward to learning more poems with all of you in the New Year!

Happiest of Holidays to all!

Today we worked on making stick puppets to act out our poem A Visit From St. Nicholas. We'll keep working on these next week, and we'll hopefully get to act out the poem next week! If you would like to act out the poem at home, here are a few recordings!

Version 1
Version 2
Version 3

Today we added a new poem to our collection--A Visit from St. Nicholas--probably more known as The Night Before Christmas. Today we read the poem and identified the rhyming words. We also illustrated the images we had in our mind while we listened to the poem. We'll be working on this poem for the next few weeks!

Here's a great reading of the poem if you'd like to listen this week!

We used our sensory list poem from last week to make November Haikus. We also listened to the book In November by Cynthia Rylant. This book has great sensory details, so we were able to get some wonderful ideas from this book as well!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and are blessed beyond measure!

We played a very fun poetry game today that allowed us to make a random sensory poem. Everyone wrote an amazing poem! Those will come home next week. We reviewed the five senses and how to make a list poem.

Today we learned about sensory writing and how to write descriptive lines based upon what we see, smell, hear, taste, and touch. Everyone made a chart in their notebooks about the sensory details for November. This was a wonderful conversation about traditions each family has for the holidays. Many of the students made their own lists as well! We will use this brainstorming information to create list poems and haikus next week.

Today in class we made a list poem on a pumpkin. This came home, so you can display your little poet's work proudly! They were fantastic and I'm so proud of how much your poets have learned! We also worked on our notebook and added the poem "In October" to our book collection. I hope everyone has a fun & safe Halloween!

Today, we learned about a new type of poem called a List Poem. List Poems are created when you simply make a list of related words. We practiced categorizing words and then we made our own list of Fall Words and Halloween Words. After that, we selected five from each list and wrote words to describe them. In the end, everyone wrote two wonderful List Poems about Fall and Halloween!

Today, we had poetry stations (rhyming puzzles, biopoem work, and book poetry). We also learned the poetry term stanza and counted the stanzas in our poems from last week. We also identified all the rhyming pairs in our poems from last week. When we return from break, we'll work on a variety of fall poetry, especially focusing on using our sensory details!

Today, we read two new poems--Catnap and The Cow. We drew the images we made in our mind when we listened to the poem. Then, we learned how to do the cat/cow pose to stretch out our backs!

Today, we played a fun game called Syllable Scramble. We had to move around the room according to the number of syllables in a word that someone called out. Everyone in this class is a syllable genius! After that, we made origami puppies to coordinate with our reading of Dogku. We learned that origami has four syllables and is a Japanese art form of paper folding. We also learned that haikus are from Japan. After making our origami puppies, we wrote haikus about our puppies on the inside of our origami. Everyone is doing really well with writing haikus.

Today, we learned about the Japanese poetic form of Haiku. We've been practicing our counting of syllables, and today we learned that haikus have three lines and each line has a certain number of syllables. The first line has five, the second has seven, and the last has five again. We read a very fun book called Dogku by Andrew Clements. Then, we practiced writing haikus about Mooch, the dog in Dogku!

Today we reread our Hey Diddle Diddle poem and found all the rhyming pairs. We also learned about syllables. Some poets finished up their biopoems, while others are still working on theirs! They are looking beautiful. Have a great week!

This week, we started a series of animal poems. We read and listened to the Nursery Rhyme "Hey Diddle, Diddle!" Some of the students knew this one, but some did not. We had fun laughing at the funny images the poem brought to mind. We added these to our poetry notebook and drew pictures. Then, we worked on our free verse biopoem project! These are going to be truly beautiful!

Today, we reviewed our poem from last week (The Poet's Tree) and identified all the rhyming words and all the alliteration. Your smarties know a lot about word play. We also make up movements for our poem and performed them for one another, which was great fun! Lastly, we begin working on our biopoem project. Can't wait to see you all next week!

We had a great first day of class! We reviewed classroom rules (See below) and we read the poem The Poet's Tree by Shel Silverstein. We also glued it into our poetry notebook and drew the pictures we made in our mind while listening to the poem.

Classroom Rules
1. Listen Carefully
2. Follow Directions
3. Respect Others and Self