HIT: Primary Poetry Lesson Ideas

["<Sally Siemoens>" <SSiemoens@AOL.COM>]

Thank you to all who responded with poetry lesson ideas. These are the ideas I
received:

When I introduce poetry, I give each member of the class a copy of Keep a Poem
in Your Pocket by B. DeRegniers.  Each student has to keep the poem in his/her
pocket, shoe, sock, etc. (on his/her person) until the following week's
library class.  If his/her teacher or I "catch" him/her with the poem, he/she
is rewarded (with a lollipop).  It can be in the hall, at lunch, on the
playground.  I try to "catch" every student.  After a booktalk about popular
poetry collections, each student has to sign one out, practice reading one of
their favorites so he/she can read it aloud to the class.
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I read T.S. Elliot's "Mr. Mistoffelees" and play "Magical Mister Mistoffelees"
from Cats.  It's on The Premiere Collection: The Best of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
My sophisticated little Long Islanders say "Oh,yeah! I saw that on TV!"
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In my own classroom, I displayed a large tree (actually a branch stuck in a
bucket of dirt) for the students to hang poems on.  We called it our Poetree
(get it- poetry!) They loved it and it really got them into poetry.

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They will love any of the Jack Prelutsky books or Shel Silverstein.  My
personal favorite is The Random House Book of Poetry for Children
(ed.Prelutsky) which divides poems into catagories: animals, family, food,
etc.
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--------------------------------------------I like to get kids writing poetry.
Maybe you could work with second grade teachers on a poetry writing unit -
haiku, shaped, cinquain, or even metered lines.  Rhyming couplets are fun too.
My ninth grade son had to write a class poem the other day. The teacher gave
them a topic and each student wrote a couplet.  They then arranged them into
one longer poem.
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---------------------------------------------I'm planning to use poetry as the
library theme for March.  I've been doing a theme a month and asking students
to fill out a form for each book they read that fits the theme.  At the end of
the month we do a draw and give away posters (left over from book fairs).
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How about taking some of the poetry and rewriting them into "Readers Theatre".
Poetry works great for this and kids like "performing" them. You can then
"challenge" the students to find other poems that they can rewrite as a
Readers Theatre.  I do it every year with my intermediate students and they
love it.  Also have them listen to famous poets reading some of their poems.
Caroline Feller Bauer has some great poetry ideas in her books, too.
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--------------------------------------------Do you sing?  I sang Down By the
Bay by Raffi with my 2nd graders and they all wanted to check out the 800
section when we finished.  If you don't sing, play a song that would interest
them, and discuss songs as poetry being put into music.  They loved it.
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I start with reading my favorites from Where the Sidewalk Ends, then A Light
in the Attic, the New Kid on the Block, then I go to more serious poetry.
That seems to work for me and for the kids.  The poetry books get checked out
a lot after I do this.
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Here's something that I've tried with 2nd-5th grades, and it works equally
well with all. I call it the "Hot Cocoa Cafe". Based on the old 1950's coffee
houses, kids select a poem, copy, and practice it for a week or two, then they
perform it in the library's "Hot CC". After their performance they earn a
sample-size cup of hot cocoa!
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Caroline Feller Bauer, Presenting Readers' Theater. Wilson, 1987
A great resource.  One poem that started me on readers' theater which I found
in there is WHAT IS PURPLE by Mary O'Neill.  I used that as the framework for
doing all of the colors:  What is red. What is orange.  I divided the poems
into parts. The kids love it.  The Bauer book has great ideas for involving
the students.
    I also use Alvin Schwartz, The Green Grass Grows All Around. Great poems
and Americana.


Thanks to all for the GREAT ideas.   Sally Siemoens, SSiemoens@aol.com
                                                      Media Specialist
                                                      Lanigan Elem
                                                      Fulton, N.Y.

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