Rainforest Haiku Poems

This week on our trip around the world, we visited our first continent- South America. While in South America we learned all about the rainforest and the animals that live there. To tie in our poetry unit, we created "Who am I?" Haiku poems, related to the rainforest animals we studied.

The students wrote their Haiku and glued it to the flap of their "rainforest" tree. Then beneath the flap they had another sheet in which they revealed the name of their animal along with a drawing.

Here is what the finished product looks like. You could def. have them add animals in the trees! We were just runnin on a time crunch! (Shocking I know- we usually have plenty of that! haha)

Alright- so are you ready to do a little guessing...here are some examples of my student's Haikus. Don't cheat and look ahead- you have to give your best guess first ;).

I will be nice and translate (althrough let it be stated that this is not best practice ;))!

I eat leaves

I walk slowly

I have three fingers

(the syllables may be a little off in English...)

I am a sloth!

I have four feet

I am a little long

I am yellow

I am a jaguar!

I run on water

I am green

I am very small

An iguana that runs on water! (I am thinking he couldn't remember the exact name...and neither can I at the moment- but he worked that description!)

After we finished our poems, the kids set their poems at their table spot and had the chance to walk around and guess the animals that their peers poems were describing.

Also, you will notice my kiddos in deep concentration writing on little yellow post-its. This is because they not only had to read and guess, but also at the same time I asked them to carry a post-it and pencil with them to jot down any plural words they saw in their friends' poems. We are studying plural suffixes this week- thus I thought what a perfect and quick way to tie in to spelling. (Isn't it amazing what we teachers can come up with to squeeze all we need into each day!)

This activity is part of my upcoming "Pack Your Bags" (Bilingual Continent Study Unit) that is currently in the works. I leave you with a little cover teaser ;)