It’s hard to believe that National Poetry Month is right around the corner! The way our school calendar works, we typically miss the first week or so of April as we are on spring break. So…I’ve learned to get an early start!

The book, Daniel Finds a Poem by Misha Archer is a perfect way to get first graders thinking poetically. They love the way that Daniel learns about poetry from all the animals around the park–and crafts his poem from their remarks.

Then it was time for the students to start thinking about what poetry is. We started with the stem, Poetry is… As we began brainstorming ideas, we also considered how our senses might help us think beyond just things we can see. Students wrote, beginning their list of what poetry is. Today we returned to our writing, taking a look at where we started, considering the senses we hadn’t yet tapped into, and wrote for another ten minutes. Then we took out the highlighters. I asked students to pick their best (or favorite) three poetry is phrases and highlight them. Wow–there were some gems! Here is a small sampling…

Poetry is

• the hugs that my mom gives me
• moonlight skies with stars shimmering
• the feel of hot water from the bathtub
• the smell of salt in the sea when the waves hit the shore in the morning
• the rustle of newborn blossoms coming out for spring
• the bird tap dancing at the break of dawn

and…poetry is when you look at the sky to find your own dreams.

Oh…out of the minds and pencils of 6 and 7 year olds!

And of course, we had to do some art to create a display for our poetry. Tulips were our inspiration (see yesterday’s post). Using black oil pastel and liquid watercolor, we created vibrant tulip still life paintings.

So poetry month has been launched! How will you launch poetry month in your classroom? In your writing life?