April is National Poetry Month!

Our students have been reading poetry! Here are some poetry reading activities we've enjoyed:

• finding poems that represent our inner and outer selves

• choosing poems to perform in pairs and trios

• reading poems aloud

• finding kinds of poems we like

• identifying the characteristics of poems, and then finding poems that are good examples of those characteristics (for example, poems that use repetition, have rhythm, include comparisons, etc.)

• recording favorite lines of poems

We are now reading poems closely in small groups. We talk about the ideas, images, language, and feelings of the poems we read. We find evidence in the poem to support our interpretations.

Heart Goals

Our class has been talking about what it means to bring "our best selves" to our interactions with each other. Here is a sample of the goals they set:

I want to be patient with others.

I want to accept hard things, like a baseball glove accepts a baseball.

I want to put myself in others' shoes.

I want to be able to control when to let out my energy.

I want to make people feel good about themselves.

I want to be nicer to my sister.

Tell the truth but in a nice way.

Stand up for your rights.

Talk to people to get ideas to say.

I am going to let the other person do some too, so I don't do it all for them.

After setting our goals, we represented them using words and images (as seen on the bulletin board shone above).