Educators: Here are several ideas, lessons, and resources which I hope help you to invite music and poetry into your classroom.
PUBLISHING OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUR STUDENTS
PRINTABLE MUSIC & POETRY ACTIVITY PAGES
POOR PLANET PLUTO - Here is a reading comprehension worksheet to go along with my song "Poor Planet Pluto" from the album "When You Smile." Designed for grades three to five, have your students listen to the song before reading the paragraph and responding to the questions.
MULLIGAN MARTINSON MARLEY MCGRAW CROSSWORD PUZZLE - Here is a crossword puzzle to go along with the tall tale poem from my book Tall Tales of the Wild West (And a Few Short Ones). (pdf format)
POEMS AND SONGS CROSSWORD PUZZLE - Here is a crossword puzzle for intermediate grades using various terms related to poems and songs. (pdf format)
DESIGN A SHOE - When I'm sharing music at schools, I always include my song "I Love My Shoes." And when we're diving into the writing process, I share a story about how that song was written. Here is a simple art activity worksheet I leave with schools after a visit. (primary or intermediate)
HAND MOTION and MOVEMENT SONGS - Many of my songs were meant to be shared using hand motions or other movement. Here are some ideas, but feel free to come up with your own.
POETRY ACTIVITIES (READING)
for PRIMARY and INTERMEDIATE GRADES
END RHYME CLOZE - This is a very simple but terrific activity for encouraging active listening and for strengthening the use of context clues. It also reinforces the concept of rhyme, develops vocabulary, and can lead to discussions about concepts such as word choice and the tools of poetry such as alliteration, assonance, internal rhymes, and imagery. Begin by selecting a poem with an AABB rhyme pattern. (When visiting schools, I frequently use "The Great Chili Cook-Off" from my book Tall Tales of the Wild West.) As you read the poem out loud to the students, stop at the last word (the rhyming word) of every other line and wait for the students to call it out. As a written activity, use a typed copy of the poem but leave a blank for each rhyming word. Have the students write in the missing word.
Example:
I wonder if she'd like me if I stood a little taller.
I wonder if she'd like me if my ears were only __________.
Or maybe if I brushed my hair and gave her a red rose,
or if I changed my underwear and didn't pick my __________.
(From "I Wonder If She'd Like Me" - Eric Ode, If Kids Ruled the School, Meadowbrook Press.)
After the students have finished, share answers as a class and discuss why they selected the words they did.
BULLETIN BOARDS AND CLASSROOM DOORS - Share a favorite poem by decorating the outside of your classroom door or a bulletin board. To get you started, here are several photos which I've collected during author visits.
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION POETRY - Here's a classroom activity designed to get students enthused about poetry. (Click here for a pdf of the lesson plan.)
FOLDABLE MINI BOOKS make a wonderful tool for students to present shorter poems. Here are directions for turning a standard 8 1/2 x 11 (or larger) sheet of white paper into a blank mini book. Have your students copy their poems onto the pages of their own book and illustrate. (pdf format) (If your students would benefit from manuscript lines to keep their words in place, first build your own blank book, draw in the lines on the pages, unfold your book, and run copies for the kids.)
THEMED ANTHOLOGIES - Here's an activity which encourages reading, penmanship, and researching (with a healthy chunk of art thrown in) while exposing students to any number of poets and poetry styles. Have the students collect poems for their own anthologies. Allow the students to choose their own themes, to gather a set number of poems that fit that theme, and to copy and illustrate each into a nicely bound collection. Depending on student ability, those themes could be fairly broad (i.e. weather, animals, clothes) or more specific (rain, mice, shoes). Make sure to raid the library shelves first (Dewey Decimal #811) and have plenty of good poetry books on hand.
POETRY BREAK - This activity makes for a fun respite from the regular work day. Make a good sized picket sign with the words "Poetry Break" written in bold, colorful letters. (Glitter looks fantastic on these signs, and we all know how much your custodian loves glitter!) At any time during the day - when you feel like your students could use a short break - pick up the sign, announce "Poetry break!" and walk to the designated poetry recitation spot with the sign and a poem in hand. This might be a poem the students have already heard or maybe a piece which is new to them. When finished, the students respond with the traditional beat poetry applause - finger snaps! A few days into this activity (and this can be used throughout the year), hand the poetry break over as a student responsibility.
GROUP RECITATION - Where do you pause? Where is the beat? IS there a beat? Copying and displaying a poem on butcher paper or poster board large enough for the entire class to see clearly and reciting as a class several times throughout the week is a good way for students to learn to feel meter. Use the poem as a transition throughout the school day or as a way of getting full class attention by beginning the recitation on your own and allowing the students to join in. It makes for a great "ticket out the door" when the class is in line and waiting to go to music or recess or lunch or... Introduce a new poem every week or so.
POETRY RAP - Here's another good exercise for working on meter. Have the students form groups of 2 to 4 and select a poem to memorize and recite in rap fashion. Depending on the personalities of your students, they may want to go all out with caps and shades and fun clothes. Obviously some poems work better for this exercise than others. Look for poems which scan easily and have strong meter. Candidates can include poems like:
The Aliens Have Landed (Meadowbrook Press, Kenn Nesbitt): The Aliens Have Landed; What to Remember in School; Don't Bring Camels in the Classroom; My Personal Slave; My Senses Are All Backward; I Stuck My Finger Up My Nose
If Kids Ruled the School (Meadowbrook Press, Selected by Bruce Lansky): The Bus (Pottle); Gym Class (Levin); Cafeteria Food (Crawley); Sleep Tricks (Scheu); Class Pest (Kenney-Marshall)
Miles of Smiles (Meadowbrook Press, Lansky): Mother's Chocolate Valentine (Prelutsky); My Brother Built a Robot (Prelutsky); My New Pet (Lansky)
Rolling in the Aisles (Meadowbrook Press, Selected by Lansky): Watermelon Bird (Ode); Hide-and-Seek (Crawley); Rules for the Bus (Ode); My Dog Likes to Disco (Nesbitt)
Dinner with Dracula (Meadowbrook Press, Selected by Lansky): Advice from Dracula (Nesbitt); My Gramps and I are Werewolves (Kenney-Marshall); The Fall-Apart Monster (Ode) Vampire Brat (Levin)
Tall Tales of the Wild West (And a Few Short Ones) (Meadowbrook Press, Eric Ode): The Barrel Race; Rusty Rose Takes a Bath; Mulligan Martinson Marley McGraw; The Great Chili Cook-Off; Bad Baxter Barton
SING-ALONGS - Invite a little music into your classroom! No guitar needed, and a sense of pitch is purely optional. (Enthusiasm, on the other hand, is mandatory.) Meadowbrook Press has published several silly sing-along books and books which contain silly sing-along songs. Consider picking up my own Tall Tales of the Wild West (And a Few Short Ones) which contains four silly wild west songs written to familiar tunes, Oh My Darling, Porcupine, an anthology of silly camp sing-alongs, and I've Been Burping in the Classroom, a collection of silly school songs.
POETRY ACTIVITIES (WRITING)
for PRIMARY and INTERMEDIATE GRADES
COLORS OF THE SEASON - This poetry writing project makes a terrific kick-off as you roll into each new season. Its format is easily taught, and the activity offers plenty of room for individual expression and a high degree of student success. (Click here for a pdf of the lesson plan.)
PHOTO POEMS and CENTER ACROSTIC POEMS - These poem activities, which I frequently share during education workshops, come from Jane Heitman's wonderful resource "Rhymes and Reasons: Librarians & Teachers Using Poetry to Foster Literacy." This book is filled with dozens and dozens of easily implemented ideas and activities and would be a great addition to your resource shelf. Published by Linworth Publishing, Inc.
THE WRITING PROCESS - One of the best ways for students to understand the importance of the writing process is to allow them to see adults write. Choose a topic ahead of time, preferably tied to something you saw or heard or read that day. Let the students know what you want your poem to be about and why you chose that theme. Will this be a poem with tight meter or free form? And then...start writing. As you write and as you revise, talk out loud, as if talking to yourself. ("Hmmm... I don't like the way those two words sound together. Maybe there's a stronger adjective to use here. Maybe I should think about how I want the poem to end and work backward for awhile.") - You can find examples of my own early stages of writing below. Feel free to share them with your students.
LYRIC REWRITE - One writing activity which can be less intimidating than poetry writing from scratch is to allow the students to rewrite lyrics to familiar songs. Brainstorm as a class a long list of popular, traditional songs (Baa Baa Black Sheep, Bear Went Over the Mountain, Eensy Weensy Spider, I've Been Working on the Railroad, Home on the Range, I'm a Little Teapot, London Bridge, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Oh Susanna, Old MacDonald, On Top of Old Smoky, Over the River and Through the Woods, Rock-a-Bye Baby, She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain' Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star). Students can rewrite as a small group or independently. Some will want to sing their new creations to the class.
WRITING FUN WITH TURKEY ON THE RUN - Often a good story poem offers opportunities for students to add their own stanzas. Have your students create a new verse for "Turkey on the Run," the turkey dinner misadventure found in my book of cowboy poetry for kids, Tall Tales of the Wild West (And a Few Short Ones). During school visits, Bruce Lansky and I have each had students expand on the story with some wacky results. Here's a verse written by a group of third graders as guided by Lansky during a recent school visit.
Next I grabbed a female turkey decoy, pretty as a rose;
And I dressed her really nicely, and she made a pretty pose.
She attracted the male turkey with her pretty little toes.
When I tried to shoot the turkey--hit the decoy on the nose.
You may wish to begin with a brainstorming prewrite, creating a list of possible "turkey escapes." Notice that the above third graders' verse came out as an AAAA rhyme pattern. An AABB rhyme pattern may be easier for many students to create. Dig in!
THE WRITING PROCESS
(Some very sloppy copy from my notebooks)
Your student opens her favorite book, and the pages look...PERFECT! But getting the words just right takes time and work. It's important for students to understand that the writing process is not just an exercise for the classroom. It's something that every author goes through in his or her own way.
When I am visiting schools, I often share pages from my notebooks to help students understand that the songs and poems I write rarely - if ever - come out just right the first time. From time to time, I've had teachers ask me if I could post some of those notes on my web site. Well, here you are! Both poems were written for my book, Tall Tales of the Wild West (And a Few Short Ones) published by Meadowbrook Press, but only the first poem, "Mulligan Martinson Marley McGraw," made the cut.
Some things to look for...
Notice the story outline I sketched for "Mulligan Martinson" in the upper-right corner. That ending changed quite a bit by the final version, but the process of outlining still gave me a direction in which to travel. In the left column, note the list of obstacles I considered for the story of "Polly and Bess." Some were used in the final version. Some weren't. That's how it is with brainstorming.
These are fairly large files, so downloading may take a minute. Feel free to run copies of these for your students or to turn them into overhead transparencies. (Please click here for information on school visits.)
MUSIC ACTIVITIES FOR YOUNG CHILDREN
Are you trying to remember the words or melody to a music activity we did in a primary or ECE teacher workshop? Here are a handful I enjoy sharing, very simply recorded for your reference. Not all of the lyrics are here, and I haven't included the actions, but you hopefully have those in your notes. Except for the winter movement activities, each of these are, as far as I've been able to tell, traditional songs in the public domain and therefore not copyright protected. The winter activities are under my copyright protection, but you are welcome to duplicate them for classroom use.
Please contact Eric Ode (www.ericode.com) for permission to duplicate and/or distribute this information
Poetry Resource Links:
Tall Tale Poems - Here's a resource site designed especially for teachers looking to invite tall tale poems into their classroom.
Giggle Poetry - A very fun and funny site for fans of children's poetry.
Poetry4Kids - Web site of amazing children's poet Kenn Nesbitt, author of "The Aliens Have Landed" and "When the Teacher Isn't Looking"
PoetryTeachers.com - A tremendous web site developed by Meadowbrook Press. Lesson plans galore!
Linworth Publishing, Inc. - Jane Heitman wrote a wonderful teaching guide titled "Rhymes and Reasons: Librarians & Teachers Using Poetry to Foster Literacy." Excellent resource!
CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS:
Here is a bit of information regarding Eric's workshop and keynote presentations.
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