April 2020

Introducing Poetry

As modeled after Routman () and Heard (1999)

  1. READ all types of poems and poetry
  2. Make it available to students starting day one.
  3. Show variations and how it is okay to borrow.
  4. Write poems with your students
  5. Introduce mentor text or poems that students can analyze
  6. Discuss poems
  7. Embed across content areas
  8. Enjoy the experience
  9. Take in the world with a magnifying lens
  10. Stop and ponder

Instagram Experience

This week I posted about this book on Instagram and the author, Charles Waters, responded. I told my students about it the next day and they were so excited! They were very proud and eager to read more of the book.

I told them that we could make write poems inspired by some of the pages of A Dictionary for a Better World, and then post them to Instagram and they were eager to do this!

Integrating Poetry

"The real lessons poetry can teach are what I call life lessons"

-Georgia Heard, Awakening the Heart, (p xvii)

Over the last four weeks I have been visiting a family's house and have been working with their sons. I have become like a kind of homeschool teacher and it has been quite an invigorating and fulfilling experience. It makes me itch to have my own classroom! I have discovered what I would like to do and activities that I would like to integrate which I talk more about on the "Future Classroom Practices" Page.

Integrating Poetry Throughout Instruction

Over the course of the last two weeks I have been reading A Dictionary for a Better World by Irene Latham and Charles Waters. We have been choosing a new word to read and practice each day. What I like about this book is that it has introduces poetry by providing an example that is related to the word and then at the poem talks about what kind of poem it is. So far we have talked about epistle, pantoum, acrostic, ghazal types of poems. I have not had them recreate any of these kind of poems but after our morning meeting I have started inviting them to practice these kinds of poetry.

I have really appreciated this book so much! Everything about it is AMAZING. This will definitely be a book that is integrated into my classroom once I obtain one of my own!

Enjoy a Book today!

"Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while."

-Malorie Blackman

These books on the left are very current and are on my to do list to finish over the next couple of weeks! Take some time to pick up a book that you would like to finish! I highly recommend Go With The Flow and before you read it, check out this podcast by Timothy Winner who talks with authors,Lily Williams and Karen Schneemann, about their most recent book, Go With the Flow

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Need some more book inspiration? Check out this page of podcasts: Read Brightly- 8 of the Best Kids' Lit Podcasts (and a Few for Grown-Ups too)

Also: Buzzfeed: Book Recommendations ; Modern Mrs. Darcy


Books in this post:

  • Go With the Flow by Lily Willams and Karen Schneemann
  • Strange Birds by Celia C. Perez
  • This Book is Anti Racist by Tiffany Jewell
  • Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed
  • The Willoughby's by Lois Lowry

This New Normal

"Find something you are passionate about and keep with it"

-Julia Child

Wow! The last couple of weeks have been extremely new but monotonous. My neighbor told me it felt like the movie Ground Hog's Day which I completely agree with.

I have had the opportunity to home school two middle school boys over the last month and I have learned so much about teaching. I know home schooling is a completely different experience than working in the public school system. What I have learned the most about

Exploring your passion

A belly hike is when you lay on your stomach and a deeper look at your surroundings and the ground beneath you!

-Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life (2016)

Progress in the Classroom and Exploring New Opportunities

"To practice mindfulness is poetry and poetry is the practice of mindfulness"

- Irene Latham

This week in our little classroom we are exploring writing with nature!

Today, Monday April 27, I read the "Mindfulness" page in A Dictionary for a Better World. We talked about mindfulness and how we have practiced using it in the past, especially when we listened and wrote our Sound Observation Poem. Tomorrow we are going on a hike and we are going to engage in a photo scavenger hunt and conduct a belly hike (Louv, 2016).

We are taking our notebooks with us on the hike and my idea for tomorrow is that they will take observational notes about our photo scavenger hunt and what we find on our belly hike.

On Wednesday when we get back to the classroom, we look at the pictures we took and the notes in our journal.




Heard, G. (1999). Awakening the Heart. Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH.

Latham, I., & Waters, C. (2020). A Dictionary for a Better World. Carllrhoda Books: Minneapolis, MN.

Louv, R. (2016). Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life. Algonquin Books: Chapel Hill, NC.