Kindergarten/First Grade Buddy Haiku Collaboration #SOL

During two afternoons last week, my Kindergarten poets met with their First Grade Buddies to learn about haiku. The First Graders have been learning about Japanese culture and were excited to share some of their new knowledge. They also know we are enthusiastic poetry readers and writers in Room 1!

It all began with this lovely invitation that by one of our buddies the week before. She read it to the class and then gave a quick review of what syllables were and why they are important to haiku.

During our first session together, we practiced quietly tapping the syllables in our names with a finger on our palm.

Next, my First Grade colleague showed us this funny picture of a dog with a ball in his mouth swimming in the water. As you can imagine, there was lots of excitement and chatter when they saw it!

We brainstormed words as a whole group and then wove them together into:

Chasing a red ball

Crazy dog under water

Stop, crazy dog, stop!

Next it was time to pair up with our Buddies. Each Buddy team selected an image to work with — a rainbow after a storm, an inchworm crawling on a leaf, a garden path in full bloom, a delicious looking slice of pizza. Then we got to work.

It was fun to see Kindergarteners and First Graders collaborating, choosing words, checking syllable counts, and having fun together.

What wonderful writing mentors Buddies can be! And it’s fun to have a teaching colleague to share the experience with.

Two proud poets and a sampling of their poetic creations from our two sessions. (Click on the individual images to read their work.)

For fun, I am going to return to visit with the First Graders and teach them how to extend haiku into tanka. Stay tuned!

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Many thanks to the crew at  Two Writing Teachers, and the extended SOL community, for giving us the time, space, and encouragement to live the writerly life each Tuesday. Won’t you join us?