April is National Poetry month and I always love squeezing in some poetry fun while I can. Amy Lemons and Katie King have made this possible by incorporating it into their amazing Rooted in Reading April edition! If you teach 2nd grade and you haven't scooped up one of the R&R units...you are MISSING out! This unit highlights an amazing book, Old Elm Speaks, and it is FLIPPIN' amazing in how it opens the door to the world of poetry. My students learned about the following poetic devices....all in 1 week!
- Personification
- Onomatopoeia
- Similes
- Repetition
- Alliteration
Here is a snap shot of some of their student work! They kicked booty and learned a ton too!
To top it off we decided to incorporate poetry into our Tech Tuesday learning! We used two FREE iPad apps: Draw Free and Chatterpix Kids to create Alphabet Alliterations.
Now...this is not my idea! SHOCKER! I stole, well borrowed, the idea from a colleague of mine, April Requard. She is a FABULOUS technology leader in my district and highlighted this on her own blog Appsolutley April. She used a paid app called Drawing Pad, where we used a free one :). I was thrilled that my 2nd graders were able to do this and they had fun too!
The best part about being an educator is working with so many amazing teachers! There is no shame in gathering inspiration from others, as long as you give credit where it is due! Thank you Amy Lemons, Katie King, and April Requard for inspiring Poetry Week in my classroom, we had a BLAST!
