I was thinking about starting poetry notebooks next year. I was wondering if you did them, how much time do you use each day and what procedures do you use to make them effective and fun? And types of poems to use.
I do a poetry notebook as one of my workstation rotations. First time at the station, he children paste the poem into their notebook, then illustrate it. I use a spiral notebook. Some teachers at my school copy the poem on a sheet of paper then put it into a three prong folder. But the same procedure is used. Second time at the poetry station, the children read poetry books that I have at the station or use my pointer to read the poem of the week together.
I gather poems from the internet and books that I have trying to match them to the theme we are studying in class that week. We read the poem together each day.
I use a three prong folder. I insert a title page, a table of contents with about 50 blank entry lines, a blank page, and the first four poems with pages numbered 1-4. (I have already entered the first four poems on the table of contents page.)
After the first four poems, I copy and hole-punch each poem. The students enter the poem title and page in the table of contents and put the page number on the new poem page before inserting it into the folder. (This initiates my work on the skills related to tables of contents.)
I have used the folder for choral reading, guided reading, and shared reading. The poem I add depends upon what I want to teach. I have used the poems for phonics work, vocabulary development, structural analysis, concept development, comprehension skills, etc.
When the lesson is completed, the children get a chance to illustrate the poem on the blank facing page. It gives me another opportunity to check understanding. (BTW, don't let the students use markers to illustrate the poems. The illustration bleeds through to the poem side.)
I have found this to be the easiest way to maintain a poetry "notebook."
I hope this is the info you were looking for.
P.S. I use to use the notebook, but got tired of pages sticking together and glue oozing over the sides.
I love using poetry notebooks with first grade. I have my children bring a 1 inch 3 ring binder. By the end of the year, we have well over 100 poems in the notebook. I use a scholastic publication that uses sight words in poems and use these as the words come up in our reading material. I use thematic poems for every subject and some classics. I get my poems on line by googling mostly.
It takes a bit of work to train the kids how to number and insert the poems in the notebook, but they do get proficient.
I read it line by line and they repeat. I then read it and leave out words for them to fill in. I emphasize one to one correspondence as we read along for those who are struggling with it. I introduce the poem and we read and reread it during the day. The children illustrate them and place into their notebook. The notebook stays in their desk but goes home every Friday as their weekend homework.
When we have reading buddies with the 6th graders, the children often choose to read from their notebook. Some of those 6th graders will say, "Oh I remember this one from when I was in first grade!" The best thing was when I got to write a dedication page for a poetry notebook that a parent was having professionally bound for her daughter! She had read and reread it so much that the pages were coming out of the notebook. So it became a Christmas gift one year.
Gail
i do a poetry notebook as well. my students loved them so much this year, that i made them nice ones to take home for their end of the year gift. i did three pronged folders this year, but next year i think i will use small binders. many of their folders tore up and had to be replaced sometime during the year.
each week i have a special poem that we read every morning for a shared reading activitiy. i have a big copy on sentence strips in my pocket chart poem. on mondays i give them a copy of the poem for them to put in their notebooks. each day we do something special with the poem. reallygoodstuff.com has awesome pocket chart highlighter strips that we use each morning. this is what we do:
on mondays- i introduce the poem, we use our strategies to read it, discuss it, etc. then we have special sight words for the week that we highlight in green (on the pocket chart, and they also use a marker or crayon to do it in their notebooks). then we choral read the poem.
on tuesdays- we highlight the rhyming words with orange. then we read the poem with the rhythm and clap it out.
on wednesdays- we highlight the nouns in blue, and then we echo read the poem by teams, gender, etc.
on thursdays- we highlight verbs in pink, and echo read. then they have a little bit of time to illustrate the poem in their books.
on fridays- we buddy read the poem.
also, during station time all throughout the week there is a station they use the notebooks at. they can read it together at the buddy reading station. there is also a pocket chart station where it has all of the previous poems on sentence strips and they put them together in the pocket chart, with a partner and then they can read it and highlight the different parts of the poem.
there is so much you can do with these notebooks, i think they're so much fun. you can also add songs or other favorite things to make it even more meaningful. have fun!!!
This year I moved from a folder to using the black/white composition books. They worked out so much better. There were lines that we could write on if we were looking for certain word families, etc. Also, I let the kids illustrate the poem. They kept their books in their bookshelf baskets that each child used during RW independent reading. They loved them!
Mrs. Baird has some wonderful ideas that I will incorporate also.
Last edited by liketeaching1; 05-26-2008 at 04:18 PM..
It seems like everytime I am thinking about doing something next year, there is post on here about it! We are ending the year with a Poetry unit, and I have been thinking about doing poetry notebooks next year. I came across this website that has poems for every month already laid out, it was great, I got a lot of cute poems from there!
I have been doing poetry folders for a couple of years now and I prefer the 1 inch 3 ring notebook. It's easy for the students to put the poems in as long as you demonstrate how to not pinch their fingers.
The students really love reading them - during the daily 5 when they read to a partner they get their poetry notebooks before their book bags. My daughter who is now in second grade still gets her poetry notebook out and enjoys reading them to me.
I love the table of contents idea and finding the different parts of speech. Can't wait to use them next year.
I've done poetry binders for years, but when I discovered Moose Binders (or as I call them: FROG folders - For Really Organized Guys/Gals) a few years ago, I decided to merge the two. I have a poetry anthology section in the binder where we keep our weekly poetry. I like the fact that it goes home daily, and the kids can work on fluency as they read their poems at home to parents.
The nice thing about what goes into these folders is that you can put in as much or as little as you'd like in order to meet your classroom's needs. Personally, mine have a money pouch, a pocket portfolio for papers that go home and papers that come back, a reading log to fill in nightly, and my poetry anthology that we add to weekly. Check out the link, and you'll see that the options are endless. By the way, I love using them and my parents do too.
I used composition notebooks this year for mine and found them to be very durable. I waited until the week before school started and got them at Wal Mart for fifty cents each.
We glued in a new poem each week, colored our mental images on the page across from it, and each day we looked for something in our poem (chunks, compound words, contractions, rhyming words) and colored it a specific color. They loved it! Each day we would switch the groups that read the poem. For instance it might be whole group, then boys and girls, each seat group, girls and boys alternating lines. It makes it more fun to switch it up I think.
I think part of the success is to use poems that are enjoyable for a first grader to read and relate to. I used a few academic poems, but mostly I tried to use fun ones that they would enjoy reading, and would want to read again and again.
Canteach.com is a great website to use for poems. They have many and they are organized very well.
I prefer using the composition notebooks. The kids decorate the cover and then I put contact paper over it. These are really durable. They use scotch tape on the four corners of the poem and put it on the left side. Then on the right side, they can draw. Later in the year, they can write a response, or do their own version of the poem. They keep these in their reading boxes, along with their leveled books, Time for Kids/Scholastic News, "look books", reading folder/binder, etc.
I use spiral notebooks and they've worked fine for us. I have tons of poems typed with frames for their free choice. They must practice the poem before they share it with me. I give them the go-ahead to glue it in their notebook and add a visualization. We also add our poems that we've used for themes or phonics. By the end of the year, they have a notebook full of poems to keep them going during the summer.
We also have performances on Friday afternoon. When they feel they are ready to perform, they add their name to the schedule. We have time for about 12 performances each time. They love it!!
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05-26-2008, 02:01 PM
