Twelve is the Magic Number & Positive Thinking Thursday {12-04-14}

Happy Thursday, everyone!  I'm so glad you stopped by today.  I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving!

Before I get to this week's positive thought, I wanted to share a very quick, easy & fun writing activity that you can do today -- The Twelve Word Poem.

Why do you need to do it TODAY?  Because December is the 12th month and there are 12 days of school left before winter break.  (Really, you could do this any time, I just thought it would be fun to try to make as many connections as possible!)

Here are the guidelines:

• Your poem can only have twelve words.
• It must be about December.
• It must make sense.

That's it!

Here is the poem my students and I wrote together to get warmed up:

It's hard to see, but I wrote twelve lines on the board so we were sure to only use twelve words.

We have been studying a mentor poem each week, so the students thought it would be a good idea to put in some line breaks for emphasis:

After they wrote their poem, they typed them up, added a graphic if they wanted, and printed them out for their writing treasure chests.  Here are a few of their poems:

This was a great quick writing activity that even reluctant writers enjoyed because they only had to come up with twelve words.  I hope you will give it a try today!  (I'd love to hear how it goes if you do!)

And now for this week's Positive Thinking Thursday thought:

Life is crazy, crazy, crazy, isn't it?  I hope you will take a few minutes to stop and take in the beauty that surrounds you today and every day.

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Wishing you an amazing day!

Poetry as Mentor Texts for Writing

When I first started talking with my students about poetry, the response I got was not exactly what I had hoped for.  To say there were moans and groans when I announced that we would become poets is an understatement.

In the Common Core for fourth grade, students study poetry as a text, but nothing is stated about students having to write poetry.  As a writing teacher, I know that writing poetry is a excellent vehicle for growing students as writers, as well as working in many grammar and reading standards.

Last year, I came across this wonderful resource for introducing poetry using one poem per week:

You can read more about how I incorporated the lessons from this book here.

This year, I decided to add a writing component to our weekly poetry study.  Now, on Fridays we take the week's poem and use it as a mentor text to inspire us to try our hand at poetry.

Here is one of our recent Poems of the Week (from the Poetry Friday Anthology).

(The red papers you see are from our analysis lesson on using specific word choice.)

To use this poem as a mentor text, we first began by writing a class poem together.  Here is the poem we wrote.  Hopefully, you can see some of the inspiration we pulled from our mentor poem.

Next, students paired up and went to work.

It was exciting to see my students use resources like rhyming dictionaries and the online thesaurus.  There was a definite hum around the room as the teams worked together to write their poem.

Finally, it was time to share.  This can be one of the most powerful parts of the writing workshop, but I never force students to share.

However...these same students who previously grumbled about having to write poetry ALL shared their poem.  And let me tell you...they were pretty good!

Some poems make better mentor texts for writing inspiration than others, I will admit.  But if you make poetry a regular part of your classroom, you will come across some wonderful poems that can inspire your students to take chances and stretch in their writing routines.

How do you use poetry in your classroom to teach writing?

A Peek at My Week {4-20-14}

Happy Easter!!  I am posting this week's A Peek at My Week linky party a day early because I will be spending Sunday enjoying the day with my family.  Feel free to link up any time!

I'm also going to link up with the very talented Joanne at Head Over Heels for Teaching for her Spark Saturday Student Motivation linky because we are having fun, fun, fun with poetry.

Right now, we are in the middle of Poetry Month and my students are loving it! I have discovered a fun way to teach fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and critical thinking skills in just 10 minutes a day using poetry and have put my ideas together into a a new product, Pausing for Poetry.

Each week, I choose a new poem for the class, which students add to their fluency folders so they can practice it throughout the week. I also put a copy on our "Poetry Posts" bulletin board.

Each day of the week, we spend about 10 minutes reading and discussing the week's poem.  Each day has a different focus -- meaning, vocabulary, structure, figurative language, etc. -- so students really get to understand the poem by Friday.  Students then complete the day's response which is photocopied to the back of the week's poem.   As you can see, the responses are short yet very targeted to a specific element.

Our Poetry Posts bulletin board is very interactive.  One day a week, usually toward the end of the week, I have students complete a Poetry Think-Shot to add to our Poetry Posts board.  This is where they get to publicly respond to the poem and rate the poem--thumbs up or thumbs down.  (It is interesting to have students discuss why they like or dislike a poem too!)  They love reading each other's responses and it's very interesting to see which poems are most popular based on their rating.  I was very surprised by last week's poem -- I thought the kids would love it, but most gave it a "thumbs down."  Hmmm....

To get extra fluency practice throughout the week, students read their poems to others and ask for their autograph on a Poetry Pals page.  The student with the most signatures wins a small prize like a pencil or a piece of chocolate from my secret stash.

I have found that teaching poetry this way has helped my students realize a few things:

1. Not all poetry has to rhyme or be silly.  We can learn from poetry too!
2. We can use elements of poetry (imagery, personification, similes, metaphors, etc.) in our own writing to make it stronger.
3. Close reading of a poem reveals more and more meaning each time we read it.  We love to put on certain reading lenses to look for particular elements in a poem as we read it.
4. Reading all kinds of poetry helps us improve our fluency.
5. Poetry can be fun!

If you are interested in seeing more of my new  Pausing for Poetry unit, you can find it ON SALE through Monday in my TPT store.

So, what does your week look like?

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Don't forget to stop back on Thursday for my other linky party, Positive Thinking Thursday.  Lots of fun inspiration and positive thoughts to carry you through the week are shared by some wonderful bloggers. Start getting your positive thoughts ready!

See you then if not sooner!  

A Peek at My Week {4-06-14}

Welcome to another edition of A Peek at My Week, my weekly linky party where you can share your plans for the upcoming week!

My spring break is over and that really is OK with me...Fourth quarter is my absolute favorite quarter to teach.  We have some very fun units ahead and the students have come so far this year.  This is their time to shine!

This week, we are beginning our Titanic Unit.  My students are always fascinated with this unit and it is a lot of fun to teach.  Here are some of the resources we will be using. (I'm including links to these products because I want to be helpful, not because I'm receiving any compensation :):

Great informational text!

Who doesn't love a good question book?

AMAZING cut-away pictures!

Whole class read aloud

Guided Reading

There are some fun resources from Teachers Pay Teachers too!

LOVE this product from Teaching with a Mountain View!

I just found this resource from Erin at Lovin' Lit -- Can't wait to use it!!

I love to integrate the subjects whenever possible! 

Here's a fun math FREEBIE from Teaching with a Mountain View!

Also, this week we will begin our salute to Poetry Month.  Last week, I learned of a great resource for teaching poetry throughout the year.  

Boy, I wish I had found this sooner!  There is one poem for every week of the school year.  The poems run from being silly (Jack Prelutsky) to more serious.  Talk about making my life easier!  I'll share more about our poetry activities later this week.

If you missed my post yesterday, I shared a great fundraiser that is going on to help our friend, Tori, from Tori's Teacher Tips.  If you get a chance, I hope you will check it out.  I picked up an amazing clip art package for only $12 which also helped Tori with the mounting medical bills from her son Mason's early arrival into this world.

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