Since April is Poetry Month, I will be writing several posts on ideas for language and classroom activities as well as ideas for parents to use at home.
Today I was in a classroom where the kids have been studying different forms of poetry and trying their hand at it! The teacher read several “show but don’t tell” poems where she read the poem and the kids had to guess what the words were describing–marbles, a paper clip or a compass. The teacher read several poems by Valerie Worth, on simple objects described through poetry. The kids loved the mystery, as they soaked in the words and inviting vocabulary.
Then they went to their tables and found a basket of objects to write about–a scallop shell, a compass, an eraser, a cork, a paper clip and so on. Here is a masterpiece written by one of my kids working on language goals:
“Shell”
You find it at the beach
Ridges like a chip
You can scoop the sand
It looks like a Uganda dress!
I loved the last line because the pattern on the shell DID look like a dress from Uganda. I was excited to see some feedback from all of the picture books that I have shared with this girl, working on vocabulary, inference, prediction and re-telling stories. Good children’s literature does build language skills!
