Poetry Cafe

To conclude our Poetry unit and celebrate our publications we hosted a Poetry Cafe today in our classroom! 

Of course to get an authentic feel we had to have some "coffee".

I borrowed an amp and microphone from our music teacher so that we could be sure to hear every word!

And away we went...

We had so much fun! 

Here are a few of my students published pieces in English and Spanish :)

I love the diversity in their writing. They created such a variety of types of poems and used such a great variety of tools! So proud of my poets!

Spring Open House!

Tonight we had our Spring Open House....whoosh I am super exhausted! But I love Open House - it is always so much fun for the kids to be able to show their parents all that they have been learning! So here is a little glimpse into the tour that my kiddos gave their parents tonight- they were the "super" tour guides! 

Okay...this first one is a little off the "tour" path, but I just had to post it. Each one of the staff members created a flower to put on the office window thanking out secretaries on Secretary's Day. Aren't they springy!

Okay now really...on with the tour...

When each student arrived, they had to pick up their Open House Checklist to help guide them through their tour! (We practiced using it today in class- always a good idea!)

The table with the checklists, some photos of events from our year, and our "Super Recycle Hero" bulletin board!

Welcome to our room! I have the most well behaved students...they are such good listeners ;).

The students created a picture of themselves and we wrote acrostic poems as part of our poetry unit with their names and words describing them! 

(Some got quite creative with it.... haha)

You can click on the image for a copy of the activity page I used for the acrostic poems in English and Spanish. Note: The Spanish one you do need to add an accent in "acróstico". The font I used was anti accent!

(Clipart: Scrappin Doodles, The Digital Bake Shop)

We set out our writing portfolios and poetry books that we have been working on for our parents to see!

Our "Rainforest Haikus" from our visit to South America, and our "Green Kids".

This is a glimpse into our pod. (You can see our "Earth Day Collages" and "Super Gallon Man".) Our school was built in the 70's. Apparently the pod thing was big. 

A treat for my super tour guides after finishing their tour!

Alright so that may have been an abbreviated version...my students did much better...but you get the just. Off to bed! Tomorrow is Friday!

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 ;)