All posts in Leslie Reese

Dubois Students Warm Up for Poetry

This Tuesday, I met with some third, fourth and fifth grade students at Dubois Elementary School for the first time. Their ideas and energy were infectious! Some students made an impression on me when […]

Rainbows and Crayons, Part One

For our 12 sessions each class engaged poetry uniquely. I brought in books of poems and Swift students and teachers took turns reading aloud in both English and Spanish. In one classroom students danced […]

Shoesmith 4th graders 2024: Let us Introduce Ourselves

The 1st session in my 4th year of being invited to engage Shoesmith 4th graders in poetry was 🔥! It included sweet reunions with staff, teachers, and former students at the front desk, in […]

Swift Students String Letter Sounds

Last Friday Swift students tried their hands at using alliteration in their poems. It was challenging! Ms Urquiza2nd Grade A Baby Bee and Birdby Breanna V. On one beautiful day it wasWednesday and it […]

Does a Pencil Go on Spring Break?

Our 10th sessions at Swift landed on the last Friday before spring break, and everyone seemed to be counting down the hours before it began. 2nd graders had been on a field trip to […]

What’s Cooking?

Swift students continued with more out-of-the-box thinking, turning to cooking-up recipes for everything but food! Despite being tired from testing and being ready for the weekend to begin, students still managed to read and […]

More “Swan of Bees” Part 2

When we worked on thinking out-of-the-box and “Swan of Bees” poems a few weeks ago, I was so impressed by how students worked that it was difficult to choose only a few poems to […]

Honey, We Love

For our 8th sessions at Swift, we read “Honey, I Love” by Eloise Greenfield. We counted the poem’s stanzas, looked for all of the rhymes, and talked about our favorite sections. We brainstormed lists […]

Maybe you will see…fanciful imagery

For our most recent sessions, Swift 2nd and 3rd graders generated ideas that inspire us to see fun images with our mind’s eye. We talked about out-of-the-box thinking, before students brainstormed lists for “Swan […]

Illustrated Poetry

During our 6th sessions, Swift students took turns reading – in both Spanish and English – the poem “Same Green Fate” by Francisco X. Alarcón. It begins: “let’s listen to/ the green voice of […]

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