It’s Poetry Friday! Laura Purdie Salas is our hostess this week. You’ll find our poetic celebration on her blog, Small Reads for Brighter Days. (Love the new site name, Laura!) Laura has an update on her #20for20 project, writing in 20 different places. I can’t wait to see where she’s writing next!
This week I want to introduce you to a new poet. His name is Hunter and he is in my Kindergarten class. Hunter has what I believe is an old soul, the soul of a poet. In addition to loving all things nature, he adores writing. (We are soul mates!) As you can imagine, I am nurturing the writer and poet in him. He loves to write stories, including a 30-page version of the Ninjabread Man, and is beginning to get a real feel for poetry.
Today I gave my whole class a writing challenge. We had finished up our current unit of study and weren’t quite ready to launch the next. It’s a dreary rainy day here, so I gave each child a copy of this photo.
I was curious where each child would go with it. They were told they could either write about the photo, literally, or see where the image or mood took their imagination. Here’s where Hunter’s went.
To honor his work, I chose an image which I think is the perfect accompaniment to his final words. Here is my take on his poem, Rainy Day.
I can hardly wait to see what he writes next!
Many thanks for hosting this week, Laura. Now let’s bring on the poetry!
My #NaPoWriMo Poem-A-Day project is Playing With Poetry. I am tagging along with Margaret Simon, Jone MacCulloch, Molly Hogan, and Mary Lee Hahn. We will be playing with Haikubes, Magnetic Poetry, Metaphor Dice, and Paint Chip Poetry (I raided Home Depot). I’m even throwing in nail polish color names as inspiration, just for fun! Play along, if you’d like! We are using the Twitter hashtag #playwithpoetryNPM to see what poetic mischief everyone is getting into.
wood frog eggs + warm weather = backstroke
A peek into my poem and process:
Today’s poem is an equation poem. We’ve been enjoying Laura Purdie Salas’ new book, Snowman – Cold = Puddle: Spring Equations in our classroom this spring. We’ve even been trying our hand at our own equation poems. You can read more about Laura, her book, and this fun form here. (P.S. I’m excited to present at NCTE in Baltimore with Laura at a Wonderopolis-sponsored poetry roundtable! I hope you’ll come and see us!)
Last week we were on April Vacation. Our biologist-in-residence delayed giving us the wood frog eggs we are to head-start in our classroom, because she didn’t want them to hatch while we were away. She kept them in a safe trap in the vernal pool on our campus until we returned.
Last night our science coordinator sent us an UH-OH email saying it was so warm last week and over the weekend, that the eggs hatched! Our poor biologist had to gather up tadpoles from the vernal pool in her gorgeous hip waders. That must have been like herding cats! The subject line in the email read: “Warm Weather Plus Wood Frog Eggs Equals…” I couldn’t resist using it in an equation poem!
On April 1, the Poetry Friday family launched the 7th annual Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem organized by author/poet, Irene Latham. (Click here to learn more.) Many of us have signed up to provide a line for the 2019 poem. Author/poet Matt Forrest Esenwine kicked things off with some familiar “found” phrases merged to get us going. Today’s line comes from Catherine at Reading to the Core. You may find her line here on her blog. Participants are having fun song lyrics. I was excited to provide the 14th line on April 14th. You can read it here. I hope you’ll join us to see what happens next! Here’s the itinerary for the rest of the poem.
Happy Poetry Friday, all! Poetess and author Laura Purdie Salas is hosting this week’s gathering on her blog, Writing the World for Kids. Won’t you join us there?
Related to her new book, Snowman – Cold = Puddle: Spring Equations, Laura has a fun, quick writing challenge for us this week: write an equation poem. What fun! She’s even set up a Padlet to collect them. My class’ participation in Global School Play Day 2019 on Wednesday inspired my offering.
On Tuesday morning, the most magnificent rainbow appeared in the sky just as families in cars and buses filled with excited children were making their way to school. Cars pulled over, parents and staff snapped pictures as children squealed with joy. What a way to start another day of learning and growing together!
With this image still vivid in my memory, I scrambled for pen and paper when my students were safely delivered to PE class. I scribbled down words, thoughts, and feelings that came to mind, knowing that there was a poem amongst those faded pastel hues. Later that day, I curled up with a cup of tea and my scribbles. Wondering what more I might add to my ideas, I searched Wonderopolis (a great source for poetic inspiration) for a wonder about rainbows. I found Wonder of the Day #116: Why Do Rainbows Appear? and mined a few more descriptors and facts from the text. After some gentle nudges, a rainbow appeared.
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Thanks for wondering and wandering a bit with me today. I hope you’ll join us on this Poetry Friday by posting a bit of poetry — your’s or someone else’s — and leaving a comment here or there. Thank you for hosting, Laura!
Wondering and Wandering 