Tip #1: Twice Is Nice When you introduce a poem, read it twice. Poems are dense with language and images, and they often hold way too much info to absorb in a single hearing. Generally, read the poem through one time without any direction to your students. THEN, if you
Happy Poetry Friday! Usually, when I recommend poetry books–whether it’s to educators, kids, or aspiring poets–I recommend focusing on very current books. But Barbara Juster Esbensen is one of my favorites, and her poems always feel like they could have been written just this morning. In honor of the northeastern
Happy Poetry Friday! I’m back with another why-ku–I’ve shared a few of these pairs over the past week, and it’s fun to look at them and remember just how much fun I had writing them! These are from my latest 30 Painless Classroom Poems book,?Why-ku: Poems of Wonder About the
This wonderful nonfiction picture book by Miranda Paul just came out–don’t miss it! It really made me think about the power of a single person. This book is about a woman who makes a tremendous difference in an environmental way.? I took a single line from it (the one about
Howdy! Today, I’m sharing (late, since I woke up and thought–Ack, did I do a post for this morning?) another pair of why-ku from Why-ku: Poems of Wonder About the World. A Note from the Poet: [Carnival] Sometimes you just have to let your weird brain take over when you
Happy Poetry Friday! It’s been a busy week, and I’ve been under the weather. Sniffle, sneeze. Cough-cough-cough. But I’m pleased to share a pair of why-ku from my latest 30 Painless Classroom Poems book, Why-ku: Poems of Wonder About the World. Mary Lee Hahn wrote the activity guide for this
This is one of the best biographies I’ve read in a while. I really loved it. And I connected to it personally because my dad worked at NASA for most of his career. I find star stuff fascinating. We watched shuttle launches in person, and I saw the Challenger
Happy Monday! In making this list poem poetryaction, I realized there’s really nothing like listing things that cheer me up to put me in a good mood:>) Check out my Pinterest boards of poetryactions and bookalikes if you’d like to see more:>)
I often don’t like picture books that teach overt lessons. But this one was lovely, and I wanted to work the main point, the lesson, into my poetryaction. Check out my Pinterest boards of poetryactions and bookalikes if you’d like to see more:>)
I was excited to share on Wednesday about Water Can Be… making it onto the Charlotte Zolotow Award Highly Commended list. And one of the reasons it’s such an honor is because of the OTHER books loved by the award committee. Katherine Applegate’s Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of
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