Poetry

We have been having fun with poetry! I have read many poems to the kids. I have a big book of Jack Prelutsky's work which we all just love. Today the students nominated and voted for their favorite poem. I incorporated math into the lesson by having the students vote with tally marks. (They are pretty good about remembering that the fifth tally goes across the other four.) Sometimes when kids vote they see what everyone else is voting for and change their vote. Today, however, I was very impressed with how the kids were uninfluenced by their classmates' votes. The following poem won the vote:

The Creature in the Classroom

By: Jack Prelutsky

It appeared inside our classroom

at a quarter after ten,

it gobbled up the blackboard,

three erasers, and a pen.

It gobbled teacher's apple

and it bopped her with the core.

"How dare you!" she responded.

"You must leave us...there's the door."

The creature didn't listen

but described an arabesque

as it gobbled all her pencils,

seven notebooks, and her desk.

Teacher stated very calmly,

"Sir! you simply cannot stay.

I'll report you to the principal

unless you go away!"

But the thing continued eating,

it ate paper, swallowed ink.

As it gobbled up our homework,

I believe I saw it wink.

Teacher finally lost her temper.

"OUT!" she shouted at the creature.

The creature hopped beside her

and GLOPP... it gobbled teacher.

In addition to reading poetry we are also writing poetry. In fact, we finished our first poems today! The kids were surprised to learn that they could write their own poems. They were pretty proud of the list poems that they wrote. We will be writing other types of poems this week and next.