Poetry Month

Poetry is part of every day at Parish, but we find special ways to celebrate our poetry love during Poetry Month in April.  Poems were shared and enjoyed all around the campus on Poem in Your Pocket Day.

J. Patrick Lewis at Parish!

It's not everyday that the Children's Poet Laureate visits your school! Our first and second graders had the pleasure of visiting with Dr. J. Patrick Lewis (Pat) who is also the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) 2011 recipient of the Excellence in Poetry Award. We began the day in our library before he traveled to Midway to meet with third through eighth grades. He is the author of over 70 books for children, and he had a lot to say about how important it is to be a reader in order to be a writer. He talked about the need for a writer to observe and remember. He amused and entertained with some of his popular poetry riddles and he created laughter with his clever word play. After school we celebrated Parish's first Literary Festival where student writing was celebrated and Pat met with students, teachers, parents, and guests. Exciting things are happening in the Parish libraries!



Second graders shared some highlights of the visit with classmates who might have been absent and missed the excitement.

J. Patrick Lewis is Coming!

An author visit is always exciting, but in just two weeks we will welcome the U.S. Children's Poet Laureate to our library! J. Patrick Lewis will begin the day with our first and second graders. Getting ready for his visit is so much fun. We are exploring his poetry and books in the library and in the classrooms. Our fabulous art teacher is in on the fun, too. Students in many of the art classes are creating delightfully detailed illustrations to accompany some of the poetry in An Underwear Salesman, Spot the Plot and The World's Greatest: Poems. Here's a sneak peak at some of their work. I hope that you will join the fun at "Expressions," our first literary festival, on Tuesday, February 21 from 4:00 - 6:00 in the Midway library. You'll have the opportunity to hear and meet an amazing author and poet and support the literary accomplishments of our own Parish students.

Poetry Love - slideshow with music

Poetry Picnic

I learn so much from reading other librarians' blogs and tweets. Franki, at A Year of Reading, had the terrific idea of having a poetry picnic in the library. The idea was to create a place for the kids to explore and get their hands on different types of poetry. I thought that sounded like a fun way to celebrate Poetry Month, so I tried out some of the activities that she described and added a few of my own. Here's what we enjoyed at our picnic:

Poetry TagTime was on my Kindle. It is an e-book only collection of 30 poems by 30 of the best children's poets. I love reading the connections that they make with each other's poems. This was a great way to try out the Kindle.



Poetry for two voices is so much fun! MESSING AROUND ON THE MONKEYBARS was a favorite on our Panther Paw list. The YOU READ TO ME, I'LL READ TO YOU books are also great fun. I loved listening to the giggles as friends read with friends.




The REAL giggling happened with the "Sing a Poem" takers. I'M STILL HERE IN THE BATHTUB had some very talented singers!





POETRY SPLATTER on RIF's website was enormously popular (Thanks, Franki!) Everyone had fun dragging over words to create and print their own poems. These were terrific collaborative efforts.
I put a shortcut to GIGGLE POETRY on our library computers. This was another picnic favorite!


Everyone still remembers A SOCK IS A POCKET FOR YOUR TOES and our visit with poet/author Liz Scanlon Garton earlier this year. We used some library pockets to experiment with making "pocket poems" We had long skinny paper available for list poems like those in Georgia Heard's book FALLING DOWN THE PAGE. Paper and markers were out for those who explored DOODLE DANDIES and other collections of shape poetry. Second graders examined AFRICAN ACROSTICS and SPRING and then made their own name acrostic poem.



One first grade girl said emphatically, "We should do this Poetry Picnic EVERY year!" I think she's right.

Recipe for Writing an Autumn Poem

I was so lucky to see Georgia Heard, a gifted poet and poetry lover, two years ago at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) annual conference in San Antonio. Her new collection of list poetry, Falling Down the Page, was just about to be released, and she talked about the making of it. I knew that this was a book that we needed in our library. It's great for read aloud, and it is a wonderful mentor text for the writing workshop as students create list poems. This is one of Georgia's poems that appears in this collection.


RECIPE
FOR WRITING AN
AUTUMN POEM
by Georgia Heard

One teaspoon wild geese.
One tablespoon red kite.
One cup wind song.
One pint trembling leaves.
One quart darkening sky.
One gallon north wind.

We used Vocaroo to record the poem read by the second grader who also created the illustration.

Poetry Month

Our Children's Poet Laureate, Mary Ann Hoberman, has loved and written poetry for most of her life. She writes about everything...the simplest things...in fun ways. She emphasizes that poetry is really about thinking about words and playing with words and how they sound. Her poems are full of rhyme and rhythm, but she tells children to focus on the kind of poetry that they like, and poetry doesn't need to rhyme. She believes that when children memorize poems that they will have them for all of their lives and never lose them. We spent the week looking at this wonderful poetry ambassador's books and poems. We even got to watch parts of videos of her reading some of her poems. What a treat! Our students and teachers are sharing some of their favorite poems with each other on our bulletin board. Be sure to pick a poem for your pocket as you pass through the library this month.