Poetry in the Classroom: Poetry Chests

OK, here’s one of the ways I fail at social media. I thought I had blogged about both the poetry suitcase variation I do and about my recent terrific school visit with some 3rd graders in Monticello, MN. Apparently, I shared about them on Facebook but have never blogged about them. Drives me crazy.

So, poetry suitcases. This is Janet Wong’s brainchild. You’ll see I link to her webpage about it in my right sidebar under Poetry Activities for Teachers. It is so much fun! Go on. Go read about it. I’ll wait.

Good, you’re back. Now, here is my version of a poetry suitcase.

Mine is contained in an old Harry Potter promo wizard’s box. I have all sorts of odds and ends in there, each one attached by ribbon to a plastic test tube. Inside each test tube is a poem that connects, somehow, to the odd thing it’s attached to. Don’t you wonder about the poem attached to the little green jar of spit?

At the school visit last month with 3rd graders, I shared a few poems from my treasure chest in one or two of the classrooms. It’s a great way to fill just a few minutes.

Here’s a short video of a slideshow I made after my visit:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuA9bC8zbgs&w=560&h=315]

The other day, I got this lovely card from teacher Sharon Stoick.

Leave it to a teacher to be crafty!

And in the card was a note and some pictures. She did a poetry suitcase project with her class, and then her students shared their suitcases and poems with a class of kindergartners. How fantastic is that? With her permission, here are some photos from that event.

Rena explains the project to the kindergartners. 1 2 3 4 5

I love how focused they all are! And creating a poetry suitcase was not part of what I did with them. Mrs. Stoick just saw her class was engaged by it and built a classroom project out of it. And then she used it to spread some poetry love. What could be better?