All posts in Smyser

Love Letters

For our final poem of the residency, the 4th graders at Smyser tackled love poems, but not your ordinary love poem. We read “Love Letter” by Nathalie Handal and analyzed the form she used […]

Visual Poems are Worth 1,000 Words

This week the 4th graders at Smyer wowed me with their visual poems. See for yourself! Ms. Erzumly’s Class:  Audrey, Raven, Santiago, Maya, Anonymous   Ms. Edward’s Class:  Samuel, Daniel, Erica, Tara, Grace   […]

Butterflies Cannot Lie

This week, Smyser’s 4th graders and I wondered how it might feel to step into someone or something else’s shoes for a day. We read Advice from a Raindrop by Kim Stafford and then wrote our […]

Ode to all the little things!

Our first week back after the break, the Smyser 4th graders and I took some time to be grateful for the little things, and practice more descriptive language with our odes! We read Ode […]

4th Graders and their 5 Senses

This week at Smyser Elementary the talented 4th graders take you on a journey of the senses! Enjoy their fantastical and realistic places of peace, and all the sights, smells, tastes, and sounds that […]

Words are the Clouds

Last week at Symyser, the 4th graders and I read Words are Birds by Francisco X Alarcón. In addition to finding the connections Alarcòn makes between words and birds, we identified how the poem is […]

Life is Full of Suprises!

This week at Smyser, just before the break, The 4th-graders looked at a poem that has a surprising ending, which is emphasized by the final line break. I reviewed what we’ve been learning about […]

Fourth Grade’s Favorite Furry Friends!

For our second session at Smyser, we started the day with a warm-up game where we introduced ourselves with an alliterative adjective to go along with our names. I was “Energetic Em!” The students […]

Smyser’s 4th Graders Face Their Fears!

For our first session at Smyser, we closed out the spooky season with a poem that shows bravery in the face of fear: Maya Angelou’s Life Doesn’t Scare Me at All. We looked at the […]

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I’M FROM THE CITY LIGHTS / STREAMING OUT IN THE NIGHT / AND HUGE SKYSCRAPERS / TOWERING OVER THE LAKE – MELISSA E., 7TH GRADE POET