Today I'm thankful for my library. It's not only the place where I get dozens of books for our learning each week. It's also a really fun destination for learning activities that I didn't have to plan!
This Saturday the kids and I participated in a poetry-writing workshop led by a children's book author. It was fun and both kids did really well with their poetry. The author gave many brainstorming ideas for poetry and writing. I included one poem from each child.
The pre-writing activity for this poem was to close our eyes and picture our name. The author asked several questions about what we saw. What color is it? Let it fall. Where did it land? Now try to fill in details about where your name landed. Is there an animal coming to visit your name? What is it? What other objects are around? Then we opened our eyes and drew the things in our mind-picture. They could be used to fill in details of our poems.
Ds8 drew a picture of his name on top of a crater-filled moon. There was a fox visiting his name.
My name is a fox with a bushy tail.
My name is a flower which withstands hail.
My name is the moon, with crater's deep.
My name is a vehicle, like a Ford or a Jeep.
Dd6 made a mental picture of her middle name. She drew a large red square, the beginning of the day. Inside the square was a blue tulip. There was a yellow sun in an orange box and a cloud with an angel. When asked to put the details into a poem, this is what she wrote.
K. is a cat saying purr all day long.
K. is a tulip burning in the sun.
K. is the angel that holds love in its hands.
K. is the sun burning so bright.
K. is love.
