Poetry resources for grades 4-5

http://schools.nyc.gov/documents/teachandlearn/Poems_to_Play_With_in_Class_final.pdf
Thank you, Kathe D. for this wonderful resource! Christine

Baseball poetry

The 4th graders have been reading Lou Gehrig The Luckiest Man  by Alder this week. Its one of my favorite stories in the 4th gradeTrophies anthology. I like to practice the visualizing strategy with this baseball poem after reading the story. It is called Before the Game by Paul Janeczko.The children pick out three different colored highlighters. We then make a key: what can you see, hear, smell or taste while reading  the poem. I typed the poem up on my Smartboard and made a key as well. We also discussed the theme, tone or mood of the poem. Its so evident in that line:                              Joy,                                                                       thick as perfume 

fills the air 

Makes you want to go to a ballgame! Christine

inferring with poetry

This is a great poem for inferencing written by Gary Soto. Its a poem from his book: Fearless Fernie. It was used on the 5th grade MCAS test a few years back. You can see that I typed it for display on my Smartboard. You can easily infer the speaker's feelings:

• His hair jumped from his head..infer: excited
• It was his lucky day!...infer: happy
• He dug till his fingers were bleeding...infer: he is working hard!

I love that the poem ends with this message: When you leave something sweet behind, others come and get it. Try to get the children to explain what Fernie learned and apply it to other situations.Christine



Haiku

Jack Prelutsky wrote this wonderful picture book filed with who am I? haikus. I read it to the children without sharing the illustrations. Here is my favorite haiku in the book:

If not for the cat,

and the scarcity of cheese

I would be content.

Who am I? a mouse, of course. After reading together and inferring who the animals are we begin to write our own who am I? haikus. I have a great collection of class sets of National Geographic For Kids magazines which we use to gather facts about our chosen animal. Using nonfiction to create poetry riddles is fun! Christine

January poem

Here is another John Updike poem from Poems For All Seasons to share during the snowy month of January.Christine

The new way vs. the old way



The NEW way (Smartboard)




The OLD way (poster and tape)

 I'm finding that a lot of my posters have become obsolete because of the Smartboard. I love the tools, especially the highlight option (so much easier than my highlighting tape!) We have been working on poetry quite a bit recently. I have found it is just so easy to quickly type a poem into Notebook and then use the tools to teach the lesson. Christine

symbols in poetry and stories

Sometimes authors and poets use symbols to deepen the story for the reader. Here is a poster of a lesson I do on Langston Hughes.(He is a recommended poet from our 4/5th grade state standards.) The poem is Mother to Son. Hughes uses a staircase as a symbol in his poem. Eve Bunting uses lots of symbols in her stories. The feather is a symbol in Train To Somewhere.I think it represents Marianne's longing to find her mother. The bird is a symbol of freedom in Fly Away Home. The suitcase is a symbol in Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. It stands for everything that is precious to Bud. Caution: Once you introduce the concept of symbols in literature (something that actually represents something else) kids start seeing them everywhere. Christine

I also use this picture book biography on L.H. while we study his poetry. Learning about his childhood helps you understand his poetry. Christine

inferring with poetry

Eraser and the School Clock is a poem by Gary Soto. It was on the 5th grade MCAS reading comprehension test a few years ago. The poem is about a child struggling through a math test. During the test he/she starts daydreaming about time stopping. Teachers are frozen in time, but not him. He dreams of going out to the schoolyard to hit homeruns. Children need to have strong inferencing skills to tackle this poem. As you can see from the poster I wrote key phrases from the poem in which the student would have to infer.Student responses could be put on the right side.Christine

Inference lesson/poetry

This poem, Buying a Puppy, was in the 4th grade state standardized test (MCAS) one year. The open response question asked "What feelings does the speaker have throughout the poem?" In order to thoroughly answer that, the student would need to have the ability to infer characters feelings by identifying clues in the text .The poet does not come right out and tell us how the speaker feels. You are expected to infer.The students would also have to use their background knowledge about what it would be like to get a puppy. As you can see from the poster, I had the students locate the text based evidence. For example, the speaker (child in the poem) doesn't know why Pa wants a scrap of meat and an old towel. The leap is that the student has to understand that the poet is showing us the speaker (child in poem) is confused. Many fourth graders have a difficult time understanding that being confused is a feeling. Text based evidence for other feelings like feeling loved, happy or excited are also in the poem. This poem has many good example of show don't tell, a technique I try to get my students to use in their writing (personal narratives). Christine

Visualizing

I read recently that visualizing could be considered the "most important" reading strategy. I've been thinking about how heavily I rely on it as a reader. If you can't visualize, can you really comprehend? I believe that picture painting in your mind is essential for enjoyment of text. Are some people just naturally better able to visualize while reading? I have worked with children who find the concept difficult to grasp and others who take to it like a duck to water. Why? Its an interesting topic to research...... In class I begin visualizing lessons early in the year.(Late Sept, early Oct.) I particularly like Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and The Seashore Book as anchor texts. Most poetry is highly visual. I love the poem: November by John Updike. Its easy to do a compare/contrast lesson involving visualizing with that poem and the picture book In November by Cynthia Rylant. I put a picture under each stanza in the poem, (see photograph) and I like to have the children guess what my picture is. In order to guess you would need to visualize. Simple lesson. Good practice. But you have to wait till November.

Christine