Mentor Monday: Teaching Resources for Teaching Poetry

Twitter!  I know, some of you are thinking, not another social media plug!  No, no.  I'm talking about Twitter because it's where I find a lot of my resources, personal professional development, and advice in my professional world.  To be honest, I don't use Twitter as a social media outlet, but as a professional media outlet.  The only things I post or retweet are related to professional development or current books I'm reading.

So to kick off my post about Teaching Resources for Teaching Poetry, it's only appropriate to share a great resource I've gathered from following ReadWriteThink on Twitter.  First, I love this website.  Second, they tweet great things throughout the day.  Third, they have a LOVELY poetry calendar to help with poetry!

This is the tweet I saw last week, and I instantly favorited the tweet so I could go back to it as a reference.

So, onto the calendar that they shared.  It has a different type of poem for each day.  Once you click on the day it pulls up resources for you!  Wahoo!  Why recreate the wheel when there are already resources for you?!  Click on the calendar below

Also, I have a resource that I originally created for a Poetry Club at my elementary school (can you believe students wanted to do a poetry club!?).  However, it is a great resource for any Poetry Unit taught in the classroom. It highlights 7 different poems and coordinating lesson ideas with mentor text ideas, classroom posters to help students remember them, as well as differentiated writing paper.  At the end, students create their very own Poetry Journal.

Alrighty, well happy poetry to all.  For those of you returning to school this week, make the best of every day!  Gotta run. 

Mentor Monday: Memoirs and Motherhood!

Thanks to a friend of mine, Krista at Teaching Momster, I am back on the blogging bandwagon and couldn't be more excited!  For one reason, I will be home for the next few months on maternity leave and for another, I have lots of ideas I've been wanting to share and discuss!

I am joining up with the Mentor Monday Linky highlighting books that focus on the teaching of memoirs.  Krista is actually guest hosting it this week from Emily's blog, and I love the organizer she created to get started with memoirs.  I think the best way to get started with a memoir is to use mentor texts and to model it through your own writing.  Actually, I believe this is the best way to get started with any unit: mentor texts and modeling.

What picture would I use for my small moment right now?  Well, this one of course!  Our baby will be 3 weeks old tomorrow.  I can already think of many different moments to write about.  And memoirs were a perfect topic for me to brag and share about our absolutely perfect little guy!

Okay, back to the classroom application.  My go-to texts for memoirs is always Patricia Polacco - and maybe to a fault - but I just love her style of writing and the messages in her stories.  I love how she depicts a moment so vividly and can pull a reader into her life so quickly.  I think Polacco is best used for the older grade levels since the text complexity is a bit higher.  With so many picture books, she has many options to choose from, too, which is why I like to have a collection in the room that students can read independently if they choose.

Two of my favorites are My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother and The Junkyard Wonders.  I like these because one is about family and siblings which a lot of students can relate.  The Junkyard Wonders is an amazing story about a group of "special" students or misfits, who realize they are truly genius-level thinkers and creators.

One Big Teaching Tip for Successful Memoirs by your Students:

- Give them many opportunities to discover their topic.  The topic(s) they choose to write about needs to be memorable, special, important, or hit home.  They need to be passionate about it and want to write about it.  Students will spend a lot of writing time with this moment, so don't force something for the sake of time.  Give them several mini lessons with mentor texts depicting various moments to spark their own memories and find something they just can't wait to talk about, write about, revise, and share.

Gotta run, well actually walk right now, but soon enough!  The baby and I are going to head out for a walk despite the 40 degree temps here in Indy!  At least it's sunny.   

Mentor Texts for Black History Month

Happy Super Bowl Sunday to all of you!!  I must say that February has always been a fun month of teaching for me.  It was a jam-packed month of all types of special events with Groundhog's Day, Valentine's Day, President's Day, sometimes the Olympics, and one of my favorite's - Black History Month!  I think part of the reason I like it so much is that I learn so much about myself and my students during this time.  Here are a few mentor texts that are my go-tos!

1. Papa's Mark
    Summary: This story is a sweet tale of a father and his son.  His son teaches him to write his name so that he can vote for the first time that African Americans were allowed to vote.

2. Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad
    Summary:  A story that captures the trials and tribulations people went through to escape to the North, this book shares about a man who literally shipped himself in a box.  I always did a follow-up activity with the students in a taped off area the size of Henry's box so they could very temporarily feel what it was like to be boxed up.

3. The Other Side
    Summary:  Jacqueline Woodson crushes it again with this great book.  With symbolism at the forefront, a fence segregates the whites from the blacks.  More specifically, it separates two girls who decide the fence won't stop them from becoming friends.

4. The Patchwork Quilt
    Summary: A classic story with great themes that shows how a Quilt can tell a story.  What kind of quilt would your class create?

These are just a few of my favorites that highlight a wonderful month!  What other books do you use for Black History Month?  I love to find new ones!

Gotta run, but have a wonderful week!  We're anticipating another snow storm this week in Indiana, so who knows what school will look like!

Mentor Text Monday (from Sunday)

Good morning!  I must say that this is officially my first week of summer, and I am loving it!  I might be loving it only because I've been productive. Remember, it's just the first day. The dogs and I went on a 3 mile walk (they are wiped out!-see below), the kitchen has been tidied, and now I'm blogging!

But for the real stuff that you all actually care about!  I'm linking up with Collaboration Cuties to share about a mentor text for math.  

 

I love integrating picture books and texts into math.  Not only does it add another read aloud into the day, but it gives students context for what they are learning.  It's not always easy to explain why concepts are important in the real world, and using books can certainly help.  With part of my job working with ELL students, books give students visuals alongside the content language.  So glad to be linking up and finding all of these great new resources! 

  

This book, by Bill Grossman, is a hilarious tale that will make your kids laugh and learn about counting.  The little sister eats one hare, and continues eating until she's eaten 10 peas.  In between though she eats snakes, bats, worms, lizards, etc.  It has a repetitive tone, and many students can relate to either their own little sister or a friend's little sister.  The book is fairly primary as far as the counting skills go, but the illustrations provide visuals too.  This book would be great to pair at a counting math center so that students could match the numbers with what they see in the book.  They could also continue the story by saying that she has eaten 11 of something, and then drawing a picture that corresponds with that number.  What a fun, and hilarious, class book to have!

My intro question based on the cover of the book, is why they think I would pick this book for a math lesson.  Some students mention the number one, but nearly all are quite puzzled.  It certainly draws them into the lesson, and keeps them on their toes.  We revisit the same question at the end of the book.

As a follow up to the book, I like to read it aloud and pay attention to the story structure.  It is a great mentor text for creating a similar story.  The students quickly catch onto the pattern, and I've never heard so many giggles during writer's workshop.  That whole line of, "wait until the end of writing time to talk with your neighbor about your story" doesn't quite work for this one!  

Shout Out to Miss V!
Miss V is celebrating her 1 Year Blogiversary and is having an amazing giveaway!!  Each day, for 6 days she is giving away 20, YES 20, items to one winner.  You can enter each day and do as many entries as you see fit.  I'm excited to be a part of her Day 1 Giveaway (which ends in 2 days!), and I'm giving away my Weather Unit to one lucky winner!  Click on the button below to enter!  For those of you joining me here from her giveaway, thanks for following me and joining in on the fun!

Alrighty, gotta run!  The pool (and my pale skin) is calling my name!