All posts in Swift

Whisking and Mixing Recipe Poems

For our 14 sessions, I showed up on Tuesday instead of our usual Thursday – a fact that did not go unnoticed by Swift 2nd graders! I brought with me a few kitchen items, […]

Monster Class

For our 13th sessions, Swift 2nd graders had fun with Dennis Lee’s poems, “I Eat Kids, Yum Yum.” They played with voices and imagined long lists of monsters and their characteristics, before writing their […]

“Nature Happiness”

In the days returning to school after spring break, Swift 2nd graders had a touch of spring fever! In addition to looking forward to playing in the sun and warm temperatures for recess, they […]

Ticklish Tuesday

For our 11th sessions, Swift 2nd graders met on Tuesday, rather than Thursday, when a special program is planned for the time we usually meet. We read Pat Mora’s poem, “Writing Secrets,” before exploring […]

If They Were in Charge of the World

When I first created the “My World” poetry lesson, I used Gwendolyn Brooks’s “A Little Girl’s Poem,” – which I really love. This year I decided to use a different example poem. So, during […]

Cinquain!

I had planned a lesson on 2 kinds* of the five-line poetry form known as cinquain for my 9th sessions with Swift 2nd graders. Since they have been learning about poetry with their classroom […]

Inside, Under, and All Around

For our 8th sessions, Swift 2nd graders read the tiny poem “What’s Under the Sky” by Kathi Mitchell and “Inside My Shoe” written by yours truly. We talked about the things that are inside, […]

Be Creative!

For my 7th visit with Swift 2nd graders, we read and discussed the poems, “Finding a Poem” by Karla Kuskin, and “Word Builder” by Ann Whitford Paul. We also looked at Katey Howes’ book, […]

Imagination Required!

For our sixth sessions together, Swift 2nd graders explored out-of-the-box thinking with the “Swan of Bees” poetry exercise. That’s when we try to make uncommon combinations by joining things like food with furniture, or […]

Sweeter Dreams, Please!

My 5th sessions with at 2nd graders was filled with reading and storytelling around the subject of dreams, including: weird, funny, or magical sleeping dreams; nightmares, and daydreams. We also noticed a relationship between […]

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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