Beyond Acrostics & Haiku: Teaching Poetry

We are quickly approaching the month of April, which means that a lot of us are gearing up for our poetry unit. Me? I've actually already taught it! My poetry writing unit is my scope & sequence to be taught in January, and I'd love to share what worked for me... and what didn't.

Poetry is SO much more than rhyming verse, acrostics & haiku! I love teaching students the beauty and power of words and language, and I feel like forcing students to write certain types of poems can actually hinder the creative process. So instead of starting my unit teaching the different types of poetry, I focus on teaching students to write thoughtful, meaningful poems. Here are some of the things I do!

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Cooperative Learning Peep Project

A few days ago, I was perusing Pinterest, and I found this pin which led to this blog post. She used classroom supplies to build a Peep catapult! It was meant to be a STEM activity, except I'm not a STEM expert by any means. However, I love cooperative learning activities, so I decided to take that approach and and bring this gem of an idea into my classroom. And the day before Spring Break was the perfect time to do it!

Since my focus was on cooperative learning, I told them they were to use the supplies to create a "launcher." Here's what I had available.

I also told my students that if there was anything else they wanted, I could see if I had it in my storage cabinet. They all wanted craft sticks, but unfortunately I was out. Note to Self: Get craft sticks for next year!

I randomly put my students into groups of 2-3. They had to first plan the supplies they would use and to draw a design on this planning sheet. This process took groups anywhere from 5-10 minutes. Then they came to me to get their supplies. I gave my class about 30 minutes to work on their designs.

We did need a few a ton of reminders to fill out their planning sheet along the way; they were VERY engrossed in the building of the launchers!!

After the time was up, we all sat in a line and each group took a turn to launch their Peep. Most launchers were successful, although two Peeps did end up flying backwards! HAHA!! I wish I would have had the chance to snap a photo of all the Peeps scattered on my floor, but my kiddos were super speedy in cleaning up when we were finished. I suppose I can't really complain about that! Here is a photo, though, of all our launchers:

I hope you are able to find some time to give this a try in your classroom! And if you do, leave me a comment and let me know how it went!

These girls were SO proud of their creation!

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