Playing with Poetry

April is National Poetry Month and that makes it the perfect time to play with words!  

Here are a few books we've used to guide our play:

A Kick in the Head- An Every Day Guide to Poetic Forms by Paul Janeczko

Where I Live by Eileen Spinelli

I am the Book by Lee Bennett Hopkins

Here are a few projects that we've used to enjoy playing with words:

1.  

SPINE POETRY

This was our first attempt at spine poetry and we had a blast.  In this free verse style poem, anything goes.  Simply gather a selection of books whose titles convey your message of choice and then stack them so their spines spell out your poem.  This one, by a 2nd grader, reads:

"What do you do with a tail like this

  The President is Stuck in the Bathtub

   Wackiest White House Pets

    Taking a Bath with the Dog and Other Things that Make Me Happy

      Puppies Count."

You can stack them up like this and take a picture, or write out the titles and illustrate your poem.  The possibilities are endless and you may just discover some books you can't wait to read as you hunt for the perfect title to form the next line of your spine poem!

2.  

Found, Push Pin Poetry

We let our imaginations run wild with these little poems!  First you'll need to cut cardboard squares to serve as the base for your poem art.  (You could also use cork board if it is available).  Then let kids cover their square with whatever you have on hand, we used paint and let it dry while we searched for words, but you could use paper or colored pencils or markers....The poem is created by finding words in magazines or old books, highlighting them by outlining them in a fun way, see the picture above, and then cutting them out and pinning them to your square (we used push pins but tacks would work too).  We finished our squares by attaching a ribbon so it could be hung as poetry art.  I sent each child home with extra pins and extra words they had chosen so they could "find" and pin a new poem as often as they wanted.  We had some kids write a couplet, some a list of facts, some a rhyming quote or lyric, and some who did true found poetry and used the words found on one page to create an original found poem.  I found that giving them lots of choice in how they would use the words made them crazy excited and they worked hard at finding words and using them to create poems for as long as I let them!

3.

Book Poetry, Narrative

This project was inspired by the I am the Book collection of poetry.  We so enjoyed reading the book and looking at the illustrations inspired by each poem.  When we finished enjoying the poetry I asked the kids to choose one type of poem to reflect their feelings about books or reading.  Most students chose to do a list of participles describing books, but this fifth grader wrote a narrative and added her own illustrations.  It was interesting to see the kinds of words kids used to describe reading or books and to watch them illustrate to add meaning.  This was a fun and free kind of activity that led to some great thinking and writing.  The above poem reads:

Books

Books, spinning, swiriling, running, flying, everywhere, anywhere, anytime

Seeing, singing, reading, writing, over and over again.

Dancing, the images dance, bubbling, bouncing, boiling over

all over the place, like frosting on a cake

and colors on a cupcake.

Yummy, nummy, intriguing, like a kite in the sky 

carrying you away to entertain your imagination.

Showing the way from boredom, books RESCUE!

It's not too late!  Pick a poem or a project and get busy playing with words today!

Teaching Kids How to Deal With Bullying: A Book and a Project to Help you Start the Conversation

Hand in Hand We Can STOP Bullying

Source: thebookmom

When Should I Use This Lesson?

When siblings are treating each other unkindly
When a new student is entering your classroom and you are wanting to create a safe atmosphere for them
When you notice a student with bullying tendencies
When you notice a student who is being bullied
When you want to remind kids what good friends (the opposite of bullies) look and sound like

What exactly is a bully?

Websters Collegiate Dictionary defines a bully as, "A blustering browbeating person." My girls answer the question, "A bully is a mean person mom, a kid that hurts people on purpose." Both definitions are exactly right, whether it is an elementary kid yelling or hurting others physically or a middle school kid heaping shame on another with his words, bullying is treating another unkindly because you want to. President Obama said this about bullies, "...no one deserves to be bullied." I couldn't agree more. Below you will find a book and a project to help you talk with kids about bullies, both what it means to be a bully and how to handle a bully. Let's get the conversation started and help stop bullying among our children.

The Book

Little Smudge by Lionel Le Neouanic

Source: thebookmom

How to Use The Book

Read the book Little Smudge by Lionel Le Neouanic with your children. I read it all the way through enjoying the story. Then ask these questions. I included our answers in pharenthesis so you can get an idea of how a conversation could go.

1. What was this story about? (being nice, friends, solving a problem, not judging, helping new people) Me: "Those are great ideas, yes, I think the story was about all of those things.

2. What do you think the author wanted us to learn from reading this story? (how to be nice, to not be scared or mean to mean kids, to let everyone play) Me: "Wow, good thinking"

3. Tell me about the kids in this story. (There was one nice kid, he was shy and kids were mean to him. There were mean kids that got nice but they forgot to say sorry) Me: Yes, it is important to say you are sorry when you are mean.

4. Do you think the mean kids were mean on purpose? How do you know?(Yeah, they totally were, they were teasing and everything and they even wanted to fight!"

5. Do you know what it is called when you are mean on purpose, when you choose to do or say something you know will hurt somebody else? (a naughty kid) Me: "Well, it is a naughty thing to do, but you call a person who does that a bully. A bully chooses to be mean on purpose."

6. Do you think Little Smudge did a good job of handling the bully kids in the story? (yes, he solved the problem and he wasn't even mean). Me: I think so too. Let's see if we can make a chart of how he handled bullies so we can use it if we need to handle a bully.

Our "How to Handle a Bully" Chart

Source: thebookmom

How to Handle a Bully

1. Walk Away
2. Go find and adult who cares about you to talk about the problem with you
3. Cry if you need to, it's ok to cry when you are sad
4. Make a plan with a grown up who loves you
5. Have courage and try your plan
6. If your plan doesn't work, don't freak out just walk away and talk to your grown up again

Working out our Understanding

Source: thebookmom

Project Supplies

3 different kinds of ribbon cut into smaller sized pieces
You will need enough for each child to have a set of all 3 ribbons
construction paper
tape

Our Project

Each Shape is unique.

Source: thebookmom

Each shape is important.

Source: thebookmom

When we work together, we can make a beautiful picture!

Source: thebookmom

The Project

Once you have read and talked through the book and made your own "How to Handle a Bully" poster, you are ready for the project. You will be using three different kinds of ribbon to think again about the lesson this book is trying to teach.

Step One: Give each child 3 different kinds of ribbon cut into smaller sized pieces. In a classroom I would have them pre-cut and placed in baggies to pass out quickly.

Step Two: Instruct your children to choose one ribbon to represent themselves and then put the pieces together to make any shape they want. It can be a square, rectangle, an animal or something they like, anything.

Step Three: Instruct the kids to take the other two kinds of ribbons and make two more shapes. All 3 shapes need to be different but made with the same kind of ribbon (if you have a heart it should only have one kind of ribbon in it.)

Step Four: Ask the kids what part of the story these three shapes represent. (This is the part where all the shapes are apart and looking at how they are different, so there's a good chance someone could choose to be a bully.)

Step Five: Now ask the kids to think about how they could change the picture they made to look like the pages at the end, where the shapes realized they are all important and had something fun to offer. Encourage your children to make lots of different shapes that include some of all the ribbons.

Step Six: Challenge your children to see if they can use all the ribbon to create a shape or picture that shows the author's point, that we all have unique and important things to offer a group or that we are better when we choose to be kind and include instead of be mean and bully. We came up with a house and a hand, a circle or heart might be good. I would leave it really open ended and let your children explain their picture to you.

Step Seven: If you want to have a concrete reminder of this project, have the children rebuild their final shape on a piece of construction paper and tape it on. Then hang them up near your "How to Handle a Bully" poster.

When you are done with the project, remind your students again that they can choose to not bully by seeing that everyone is important and should be treated with respect. Also remind them that they have the power to stop a bully by using the steps on your "How to handle a Bully" chart. I would hang your chart in a place where it can be seen often. I'm sorry to say this won't solve the problem forever, but it will give your kids a good working knowledge of what a bully is and how to handle a bully. It will also begin a conversation that will help you when you need to deal with a child who is bullying or one who has been bullied. By educating and engaging with our kids we can make our homes, neighborhoods, and learning environments safer places. Start your conversation today.