Poetry Friday -- Play

©Amy LV, 2011

Today many (all?) of the classrooms at my school are participating in a Global School Play Day. It's very simple, but most every simple thing turns out to be incredibly powerful. Here are the rules:

• No Screens: Students are encouraged to bring toys, but electronic toys or any devices with screens should be avoided.

• No Structure: Adults should not attempt to organize or structure student play in any way.

• Stay Out of the Way: Adults should let students manage their own play and should not interfere except in situations where someone could get hurt or fired.

Because we're doing this so early in the year, I will be explicit about this being a time when the class, who named themselves Ohahna (the Hawaiian word for family is ohana), can become even more of a family by making sure every member of our family is included and welcomed. We will learn so much about each other, about ourselves, and about our community. I can't wait!

Kathryn Apel has the Poetry Friday roundup this week. Looking ahead, please note that Cheriee and Carol V. have switched roundup weeks (September 27 and October 4).  Our sidebar is updated, as is the schedule at KidLitosphere Central.

Poetry Friday -- Playing With Poetry

I picked up a few poetry toys at nErDCampMI last week.

With Instant Poetry, poetry forms meet multiple choice. You might want to try a nursery rhyme, a poem in the style of William Carlos Williams or Emily Dickinson, an ode, free verse, or more.

 

click image to enlarge

I've been wanting to try writing a sonnet, so I chose the Shakespearean Sonnet (bottom left in the collage above).

Before the Fates (b) cut in this checkout line
Let all who (a) brought some queso dip please stay
And find our (c) kids out back making green slime.
Neither king nor fool (a) returns their lunch tray.
Though time (b) cares not when chickens come to roost,
We hear the (a) band at least will take the stage.

Ok. I'm going to stop there. There are others that have options that string together with more sense. Let's try the Nursery Rhyme (top right).

Mary, Mary, quite contrary
(a) loved sarcastic commentary.

scribble-out poetry (aka blackout poetry) has a lot more poet-ential. This spiral-bound book has 45 bits of text ready for you to modify by scribbling-out the words you don't want with your permanent marker and leaving behind your poem. The text comes in different shapes (see top of collage) and amounts (see bottom of collage). Sources for the text bits include Frankenstein, The Count of Monte Cristo, War and Peace, and Pride and Prejudice, just to name a few. Each page is perforated and includes "to" and "from" lines and the attribution for the original text on the back so that you can gift your poetic creations!

click image to enlarge

I scribbled-out a bit from Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (top right in the collage). This poem goes out to all the teachers who are enjoying their last weeks of living-and-learning-at-a-relaxing-pace.

Great 

fortune 

if you teach.

You contribute to the happiness of

life,

consume the

daily

pleasure of being

a good

instrument.

Scribbled-out by Mary Lee Hahn, 2019

Carol, at Carol's Corner, is just one of those teachers for whom this poem was written! She's got the Poetry Friday roundup this week.

Broadening Horizons, Part Three & Poetry Friday Edition

Let's Clap, Jump, Sing & Shout; Dance, Spin & Turn It Out!: Games, Songs, and Stories from an African American Childhood

by Patricia McKissack

illustrated by Brian Pinkney

Schwartz & Wade, 2017

review copy purchased for my classroom collection

First of all, Patricia McKissack. Second of all, Brian Pinkney. Third of all, two girls in my classroom last year who struggled to define themselves (and others) in terms of race. I was often the enemy because I am white, so I did my best to fuel their passion to understand on their own terms what race means and doesn't mean with my choices for read aloud and #classroombookaday. They gravitated toward My People and Ashley Bryan's ABC of African American Poetry for Poetry Friday. I fed them a steady diet of Kwame Alexander, Rita Garcia Williams, Sharon Draper, and gave them the copies of Maniac Magee they hadn't finished at the end of the year.

This book came too late for them to discover, but I'll make sure it's among the first I feature next school year. There are songs and chants in this that I remember (or know some version of), but the message of a culture passed down through games, songs, and chants...the celebration of a culture through the window of childhood (rather than the Civil Rights Movement, as is so often the case)...the joy that exudes from every page of this book...this one's for you, girls. May you find a way to be comfortable in your own skin, and recognize that the world is not always against you...some of us want to dance right along with you, if only you'll teach us the moves!

If you're interested, the other two parts of this Broadening Horizons series are here and here.


Buffy has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at Buffy's Blog.

Check out this post to grab a Poetry Friday Roundup slot on the July-December calendar.

Broadening Horizons With Play, Part Two

The Banana-Leaf Ball
by Katie Smith Milway
illustrated by Shane W. Evans
CitizenKid, 2017
review copy from the public library, on order for my classroom library

Another great CitizenKid book. The story of Deo is based on the true story of Benjamin Nzobonankira, who, at the age of 10, was a child refugee from Burundi. While in the refugee camp featured in the book, Lukole, Benjamin's life was impacted by a Right to Play volunteer and he went on to also become involved with Right to Play.

This is one of those rare books where the back matter is just as engaging as the story. I plan to incorporate the games (and information about the international organizations) listed in the back as team-builders and ice-breakers at the beginning of the year next fall!

Broadening Horizons, Part One

This is How We Do It
by Matt Lamothe
Chronicle Books, 2017
review copy from the public library, on order for my classroom library

First of all, props to Columbus Metropolitan Library for not pasting down the flaps on the cover so that the reader can study and appreciate the endpapers!

Readers of all ages will want to pore over every inch of this book! By showing how families from seven countries around the world in such common ways as where they live, how they get to school, how they play, and how they eat dinner, we can find the things that connect us to others, and the things that make us unique. In the back of the book, the photographs of the actual families the book is based on add to its authenticity. Wouldn't it be fun to have your students share photos of their meals, their families, their bedrooms...discovering the ways they are the same along with all the ways they are unique?

I briefly previewed this book in my 5th grade classroom, and it was positively magnetic the next time students had a chance to get their hands on it.