Poetry Continued (with a freebie)

After my last poetry post, I received a couple of questions that I wanted to answer :) 

 First, I write (or type and glue) my poems onto chart paper. 

I purchase the chart paper at a local teacher store, but you can also find it here on Amazon.

Then, I tape the poems to a hanger. The poem we are using for the week gets hung in the front of the classroom on the whiteboard. Poems that I have already used are hung on hooks as seen in the image below.

 I keep about 10 poems out at a time. On Fridays, the students will get to go to the poetry center. They will glue and illustrate their new poems in their poetry notebook. 

Then, if they finish before their center is over, they can use pointers and microphones to practice reading their old poems.

 Here are the poems that my class uses:

My Five Senses Unit is totally updated. Don't forget to head over to TPT and download the unit again if you have already purchased it!

Five Senses

We have been learning all about the five senses for the past two weeks! Even though this week I am focusing on apples--I am still tying it into our five senses unit. 

We started off with an anchor chart. I laminated the chart before putting the senses on. This way I was able to add velcro and make it interactive. 

The kids loved labeling the senses. After reading about each sense, I also had the kids write what they use for each sense on the anchor chart. They wrote with a dry erase marker so I can easily erase it and reuse the chart next year :) Here is the final result...

In the pocket chart center, the students sorted different pictures of the five senses. 

 The following day, they chose their favorite picture from each sense and recorded it. We glued these recording sheets into their science journals.

When we learned about sight, we played a classroom version of 'I Spy'. One person chose a card from the jar and had to tell the class what they 'spied' (they were all objects from the classroom). If another student thought they knew where it was, then they would raise their hand. If they were called on, they had to locate the object in the class. This was a hit! And a great way to show them some items around the classroom that they may not have known yet! Here they are below finding the computers...

We added a couple other 'fun' pages into our science journals as well.

 My students just LOVE dice games and I love watching them play together.  This five senses race is free HERE or by clicking on the image below. 

You can find other five senses activities in my unit below.

Enjoy!!

Poetry

My kids REALLY love poetry. They feel so confident reading their poems and they are always so excited to take their notebooks home and share their new poem(s) with their moms and dads.

I usually do one poem a week, but occasionally I will have two.  I hang the poem on my front board and we usually practice reading it after calendar math when we have a few minutes of down time.  The first day I usually read the poem a couple times to the class. I point out sight words, punctuation, etc. Then I have them practice the poem with me.

 The next couple of days, I call students up to the board to lead the class in practicing our poem. I will also let them choose if they want to read it by themselves, have only the girls read, only the boys, read it in a whisper voice, etc.

I also call students to the board to practice writing the sight word that we are focusing on. I try to choose one word in each poem as our focus word. 

 On Fridays the students glue the poem into their poetry notebook. 

 They illustrate the poem and highlight the focus word. I add a little 'sign and return' sticker and then I let the kids put their notebook in their backpacks to take home for the weekend. I love giving them the opportunity to share their poems with their family!

 The second week of school we did the 'Red' poem which is by Frog Street Press. Occasionally I will give them little graphics to color in and glue into their journals instead of having them illustrate a picture.

And last week, the third week, we did the 'Blue' poem which is also by Frog Street Press. This week I had them draw their own scenery, but I gave them little ocean images to use :)

This week we are actually doing two poems. We are learning the 'Yellow' poem and a super cute poem called 'I Am Me' that focuses on the sight word 'I'. 

I would love to hear how you teach poetry in your class!