We started by reading the picture book I Know Two Who Said Moo by Judi Barrett.


B broke out the uke and we sang "Miss Mary Mack" with the kids joining in on the repeated parts. They like to be silly about it and I think they got really into it. We sang it normally twice and then we sang it superfast.
Then it was time for our craft. We have wonderful volunteers who cut out hundreds of typed words and we made a kind of "magnetic" poetry activity. Each kid had a piece of construction paper and could choose words to glue to their paper to make a nonsensical poem. We stressed that it didn't have to rhyme and it didn't have to make sense... in fact, the sillier the better! We realized that we didn't know if all the kids could read yet, so we also cut out pictures from discarded magazines so the kids could collage and decorate their poems.
The kids came up with great poems, very funny and silly, and they looked great all decorated with the magazine pictures. The kids at our program were grades K-2nd, but I think this craft would be great for older kids, too. Last year we hung a magnetic board in our Teen Zone and provided magnetic poetry for the middle schoolers to play with, which was also a big hit. We certainly had fun celebrating National Poetry Month and I hope you do, too!
3 comments:
We are reading poems every day in class, and one day we'll have popcorn and poetry day. I will make popcorn and each student will read a selected poem aloud to the class.
Your book and craft idea is fantastic! I just may "borrow" it for my afterschool cafes next week. They are usually about 7-10 and I think that they would really get a kick out of this idea.
Amanda, please do! I think it would be great for that age... some of our kids were too young to be reading and I think the kids that could already read maybe had a little more fun with it. If you do it, let me know how it goes! :D
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