It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

In honor of poetry month, this April I have been reading poems to my students.

The first week I asked:

"Raise your hand if you LOVE poems."

"Raise your hand if you HATE poems."

"Raise you hand if you just like them."  At this point I raise my hand.  

I tell the students how I've LEARNED to like poetry.  I still don't like to sit down with a thick poetry book (I got shivers just thinking about it!) and read.  But I do like to read 1-5 poems at a time.

I read Bow Wow Meow Meow by Douglas Florian to Pk-2nd.  All the poems are about different dogs and cats.  I think the students like the poems about the wild cats the best.  The cheetah and black panther got a lot of "Ohhhhhs".

To 3rd-5th I read Rutherford B., Who Was He? Poems About Ours Presidents by Marilyn Singer (it's on our 2015-2016 Texas Bluebonnet list)  I really liked these poems because they taught you about each president in an unusual way, through poetry.  We laughed that out of the four years William Taft was president all Singer chose to write about was how he got stuck in a tub.

Before I dismissed students from the rug I asked if they liked these poems.  Every single students said yes.  I reminded them that poetry can be fun, even I need that reminder.