Poem-folios

We finished up our poem-folios, and I hope to do this every spring! Even the students who were not as excited about poetry when we first started the unit were so proud of their finished product! After publishing our free verse, lyrical, and haiku poetry on Microsoft Word, students put all 3 of their pieces into a construction-paper-made folder, which I'd hole punched ahead of time. I had the students think of their own title, decorate their cover, then bind everything together with brads. I also encouraged them to "dedicate" their book to someone, as authors often do. Many kids dedicated their poem-folios to their mom and planned on giving it as a Mother's Day gift. Here are a few snapshots!

Here they are using brads to put everything together.

A free verse poem of apology, inspired by...

A book based on William Carlos Williams' "This is Just to Say" 

Fun stuff!

We're Poets, and We Know It!

Has it really been 3 months since my last post? I blame it all on "testing season!" Now that our big state assessment is over (phew!) and National Poetry Month is upon us, I can't wait to dive into my poetry unit! I can't help but to preface my introduction by reminding them, "Punctuation will STILL EXIST after we write our poems..." Once I get that little disclaimer out of the way, we will write poetry in three forms: lyrical, free verse, and haiku. My fourth graders always seem to appreciate poetry, yet many of them are intimidated to write it. This year, I want to make it simpler on them by using new anchor charts, doing lots of modeling, and reading aloud different works by some of my favorite poets: Basho, Robert Frost, Jack Prelutsky, and Shel Silverstein.

My oh-so-talented teammate and friend Holly Daley (be sure to check out her TpT store... especially if you teach reading!) also introduced me to Kenn Nesbitt, a modern author that writes hilarious kid-friendly poetry. His "funny poems" are perfect models of lyrical poetry. He also seems to update his website with new poems pretty often! If you teach haiku poetry (my personal favorite), be sure to check out Dogku by Andrew Clements. It's always a hit with my kids!

Just in time for National Poetry Month, I compiled my anchor charts and rubrics into a teacher-friendly six pack! It's easy to get carried away with writing poetry just for enjoyment, but rubrics are a necessary (and fair) way to grade our little poets' work. My students will then publish their own collection of poems into a "Poem-folio," which I will soon post photos of. In the meantime, I hope you can download and enjoy:

Click here to have it all!

What other forms of poetry do you enjoy with your students? Are there any elementary-friendly poetry websites or apps out there? Please leave a comment and share! I hope you can find time this month to dim the lights, throw on a beret, and get into the poetic spirit!