Choral Poetry

After sharing poems that each member brought to our meeting, we tried out some choral poetry using Paul Fleischman's Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices (1988). My favorite poem from the collection is called "Chrysalis Diary." It chronicles the thoughts and sensations of a caterpillar's transformation inside its chrysalis. The students enjoyed the challenge of performing the poems together. It is harder than one might think to keep the pace of a poem going when reading it and overlapping words with another person. Two of the students also added movement to their poetry reading.

Spooky Poetry Club

The Poetry Club met on Thursday, October 29, 2009, for some spooky fun. Several students brought Halloween-themed poetry to share. We focused on Edgar Allan Poe and his famous poem, "The Raven."



This site helps dissect the poetic language and difficult vocabulary.

We finished by exploring a website that has instant forms for poetry starters. Give it a try!

Poetry Club

September 24th was the first meeting for this year's after-school library club. We are focusing on poetry this year! Twelve students from fourth through sixth grade signed up to be in the club and nine of these students were able to come to our first meeting.

We started our meeting with snacks, of course. Then we each read a poem that we had found and prepared to share with the group. The students read from Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, William Carols Williams, and others. Some of the poem were easier to understand than others, but we worked our way through the language and structure.

For our writing exercise, we worked with a cinquain form from Read, Write, Think. I'll post these on a bulletin board in the main hallway so that you can see their work and creativity.

This was mine:

Butterfly
orange and black,
fluttering, sipping, floating,
once an egg, then a caterpillar
Monarch.

Winslow Emerged!

Winslow, the caterpillar I have been sharing with library classes since she was a baby caterpillar egg, emerged from her chrysalis during third grade's library class on Monday, May 4, at 10:05 am. I had just appointed an official "butterfly watcher" because I knew that it could happen at any time as the chrysalis was translucent and dark with a "bunched up" butterfly inside ready to get out. The chrysalis had started breaking apart at the golden ridge across the top.

As soon as my "butterfly watcher" reached the desk and started watching, she shouted, "Mrs. Owen, it's happening now!" We all rushed to see. AMAZING. There were "oohs and aahhs" all around.

The third grade had a butterfly in their classroom that emerged on Sunday. They were trying to feed it with an orange slice. Their classroom butterfly was a male. Winslow was a female. Female monarchs have thicker veins. Male monarchs have two black dots on their bottom wing along one of the veins.

We watched Winslow's wings grow and her body shrink. The photo above shows her prickly feet latching onto the wire of the container. She hung for most of the day to allow her wings to develop and dry.

These are Kindergarten students marveling at Winslow. The book is something new that I ordered for my family because we have loved raising these monarchs so much. It is by Joyce Sidman, one of my favorite children's poets. The illustrations by Beth Krommes, this year's Caldecott winning artist, are stunning.

My family, some friends, and I released Winslow late on Monday afternoon in the Fondren area of Jackson. She immediately flew up to the trees until we couldn't see her.