For Other Professionals
Blogs About Reading
Sound It Out
Along with her background as a researcher, writer, and teacher, Joanne Meier is a mom. Join Joanne every week as she shares her experiences raising her own young readers, and guides parents and teachers on the best practices in reading.
Goodbye poetry month
What fun we had with poetry month this year! At home we resurrected our copy of Joyful Noise and had fun sharing poems about insects. Anna loved the Grasshoppers one the best, mostly because we had a long talk about autumn-laid eggs and the interesting words and images within the poem, including grasshoppers 'vaulting from leaf to leaf and stem to stem' and being grass bounders and grass soarers. I doubt she'll ever look at a grasshopper the same way again!
We also had another favorite out this month, You Read To Me, I'll Read To You. The short texts and colorful pages were just right to lure our older daughter into poetry when she was younger. It was a trip down memory lane for us to read. Each. One. Before. Bed.
Our school has an annual Poetry Jam, which gives them a chance to share poems with other kids at their grade level. Parents are invited to attend the event. Most kids participate, although it's not required. Some read alone, others choose pairs or small groups. Molly and her best friend read a poem that wrote called Imaginary Animals. I'll post the poem if I can get a copy. Anna and two of her friends choral read a poem.
After all the second graders finished sharing, they launched into one last choral reading together. Led by our school's former reading specialist, the kids had fun with the Bubblegum poem. Watch video >
Poetry is so great it's worth sharing all year long, but I love the special attention it gets every April. See you next year, poetry month!
