Hullo! Gary here from ScrappyGuy Designs. I get to write today's post for the Primary Peach. Good times, good times.
When I heard that it was for National Poetry Month, I started scratching my head. My brain is so full of stress Standardized Testing that it took me a bit to wrap my brain around turning to poetry. Then it hit me. Why not create poems for test review?
Fun, right? A perfect way to get the students to think back to material we've covered this year, especially in Social Studies and Science. It would require them to look carefully through their notes and come up with pertinent information to create a poetry piece.
I love using Margaret Wise Brown's book, The Important Book, as a mentor text in my poetry unit. Her poems use a simple structure that the students can recreate with almost any topic. She starts off with a main idea sentence :
The important thing about a daisy is that it is white.
Then she lists a few details about the flower, or spoon, or rain. Then she repeats the main idea sentence again:
But the important thing about a daisy is that is it white.
Students love using this format and apply it to the various topics we've studied this year.
Here's one I use with them about grass:
You can let them get crazy with the fonts, color, sizing, and stuff to really show off their creativity.
Here is one of the poems past students have created using our academic content:
The Important Thing about Ferdinand
Magellan By: Mike Lagat
The important thing about Ferdinand Magellan
is that he discovered the Philippine Islands.
He went to Spain to get boats.
He named an ocean the Pacific [Peaceful].
His crew traveled around the world.
So, the important thing about Ferdinand Magellan is that
he discovered the Philippines Islands.
