Poetry Fridays

My district started a big reading/writing workshop push this year. I myself have used reading/writing workshop for over 15 years, so the approach is anything but new to me.

Anyway, one of the requirements in this "new" reading workshop is Poetry Friday. You see, our new state test  is more heavily into genres than our last one. And our kiddos did pretty poorly on the questions over poetry selections.

I am comfortable teaching poetry to my kids, but I'm always looking for something to help with my lessons. I found this:



This book has a poem a week for grades K-5. Many of the poets are famous - Jane Yolen, Kenn Nesbitt among them. Others are not familiar to me, but I like to meet new authors.

What I like about it is that it is aligned with the TEKS, our Texas standards. The authors give ideas for introducing each poem and provide suggestions for other poems that connect. I have used several of the poems so far, and the kids are really enjoying them.

This week we read some haiku about sports equipment. Then we wrote some haiku in writing workshop. Fun times.

And for the rest of you who follow Common Core Standards, there's a book for you, too.