Students first analyze Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing," then use Whitman's poem as a model as they create their own list poems.
Walt Whitman as a Model Poet: "I Hear My School Singing"
Alliteration in Headline Poems
Students will be introduced to the term alliteration and create a headline poem consisting of 25 words that contain at least three examples of alliteration.
Composing Cinquain Poems with Basic Parts of Speech
Reinforce student understanding of parts of speech through the analysis of sample cinquain poems followed by the creation of original cinquains.
Seasonal Haiku: Writing Poems to Celebrate Any Season
After listening to haiku poetry, students use seasonal descriptive words to write their own haiku, following the traditional format. They then publish their poems by mounting them on illustrated backgrounds.
Found Poems/Parallel Poems
Students compose found and parallel poems based on a descriptive passage they have chosen from a piece of literature they are reading.
Polishing Preposition Skills through Poetry and Publication
Students deepen and refine their understanding of prepositions by reading Ruth Heller's Behind the Mask. They write preposition poetry and create a study guide using an online tool.
Semicolons and Swift: Analyzing Punctuation and Meaning
This lesson will help punctuation make a mark on students as they read Jonathan Swift's work and analyze his use of punctuation.
To, Too, or Two: Developing an Understanding of Homophones
The classroom becomes a stage in this interactive lesson in which students sing, act, and design comic strips to learn the meanings and spellings of common homophones.
Rooting Out Meaning: Morpheme Match-Ups in the Primary Grades
In this lesson, students use morphemesEnglish words that have been formed by combining common word partsto explore word meanings.
Delicious, Tasty, Yummy: Enriching Writing with Adjectives and Synonyms
Students thoroughly explore identifying synonyms and adjectives before using them to add variety and interest to their own writing.
Dynamite Diamante Poetry
Introduce gerunds and review nouns, adjectives, and verbs through engaging read-alouds; then apply these concepts through collaborative word-sorting and poetry-writing activities.
Reading, Writing, Haiku Hiking! A Class Book of Picturesque Poems
Students learn haiku
write descriptive poems
and share with the class.
The Magnetism of Language: Parts of Speech, Poetry, and Word Play
What wonderful ways words work! The parts of speech are the highlight of this lesson in which students identify parts of speech in a nonsensical poem and then create their own wild and wacky rhymes.
Phonic Generalizations in Chrysanthemum
Students learn about word families by reading Kevin Henkes's book Chrysanthemum, identifying words with certain vowel pair endings, and reading words with similar endings.
Whole-to-Parts Phonics Instruction: Teaching Letter-Sound Correspondences
Students will find that learning onset and rime is a handy skill when they read the Jack and Jill rhyme.
Poetry Portfolios: Using Poetry to Teach Reading
Teach your students about sentence structure, rhyming words, sight words, vocabulary, and print concepts using a weekly poem.
Slipping, Sliding, Tumbling: Reinforcing Cause and Effect Through Diamante Poems
Writing, revising, and publishing are just a few of the tasks students will complete in order to take their cause-and-effect diamante poems from an idea to a reality.
Make a Magnetic Poetry Set
Let children practice using different types of words in a fill-in-the-blank-story game before making their own word list for a magnetic poetry set.
It's Raining Cats and Dogs! Make a Children's Book about the Weather
Kids learn about weather sayings throughout history while writing and illustrating a book for younger children.
Send a Smile: Make a Card for a Special Occasion
Everyone loves getting a greeting card, especially if it's homemade. Make a funny or thoughtful greeting card or invitation with pictures and a poem, joke, or riddle.