Kindergarten Poetry Journals

Poetry has become a lot of my students favorite time of the day! They love getting the opportunity to stand up and lead the class in our poem of the week.  They take turns pointing to the words while the class sings the poem. I also let them choose who sings while they point-girls, boys, or everyone, and how they are going to sing-in normal voices, quiet voices, girl voices, boy voices, like monsters, etc.  They have a blast!

Each student gets the poem of the week to add into their poetry journals.  We usually have a focus word that they have to highlight; however, in this case, they had to highlight all of their word wall words.

Then, I give them an image that correlates with the poem to color and glue into their poetry journals as well.

When they are done gluing in their poem and image, they have to create a setting! This is usually my favorite part haha. I love to see the details they add!

When they are finished they place their poetry journals into their book bins for the week.  During the Daily 5, when they go to Read to Someone or Read to Self, they have the opportunity to choose their poetry notebooks as one of the books they can read.  This is definitely their favorite book to read and even your non-readers can feel extremely successful with this poetry book!  

On Fridays they place their poetry notebooks into their backpacks to take home and share with their family over the weekend. I have parents sign each poem to show that they read it over with their child.

To grab your poems, just click on the image below!

Enjoy!

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!

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!

Poetry Notebooks

My kids this year absolutely LOVE poetry and I LOVE that they LOVE it!!! :) We do one poem every week.  I have the poem written out on chart paper and I introduce it to the class on Monday.  On Tuesday/Wednesday (depending on when they go to the poetry center) they will glue the poem into their poetry notebooks.  They have to illustrate the poem and highlight/circle our sight words.  

 Then Thursday and Friday we continue to practice our poems whole group.  I usually have the students bring their notebooks to the carpet.  I hang the chart paper with the poem on it in front of the class.  The children love to come up front and use a pointer or a echo microphone to guide the other students in reading the poem.  They also love to sing the poem, read it in 'girlie' voices, read it like a monster, etc.  We have a blast! 

You can find my poetry book HERE

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