Poetry Month Continues

I've been reading about Poetry Month on Twitter, so I have chosen to celebrate all month long. My students seem to be enjoying poetry more, and many are either writing their own poems (unassigned--which I love!) or they're checking out poetry collections to read (again, unassigned)! So, I thought I'd introduce spine poetry to them on Friday.

After a quick mini-lesson on the concept/idea, we took our iTouches to the library and started to work. Here are three versions:

My students really were engaged in the activity, and I saw them "revise" their titles many times. Here's another:

And another:

My students all loved the activity, and many of them said "This is fun!"  
They were comparing their poems, helping each other find/substitute titles, and uploading pictures. We will finish up on Tuesday!

My principal asked that I help out with the morning announcements on Friday. We have a great team of student newscasters that put on a wonderful announcement show, so I just stepped in to be a sort of guest anchor. I took the opportunity to mention that April was National Poetry Month and to share a poem. I hope someone who was listening was inspired to read/write poetry. I was a little nervous at first, but I did okay! It was a great learning experience, and it gave me an idea for another school project, too.

One lesson I learned about being a teacher leader: if your principal asks you to fill a needed role, it's a good idea to say yes! You never know what you will learn!

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I'm currently reading The Magic Cake Shop by Meika Hashimoto.