Mariam's+Page

=What I like to teach?=

I love teaching //poetry//! I believe teachers should have a passion for teaching poetry! It's fun, exiting and AWESOME! Below are some examples of poems that I had used last year when I was teaching a poetry unit for a year 5/6 class. The students loved it!

When you start to love poetry, and teach it in a fun and exciting way, students will in turn become more motivated and inspired. Towards the end of the unit, my students had enjoyed learning about poetry and as seen from the image below, it illustrates an example of a student's enjoyment and motivation. Kids love to be creative! As teachers, we should do everything we can to provide our students with the opportunity to become creative, more importantly we need to encourage their creativity!



So where can you start from? Well start from asking them...

//Some poems make us ** LAUGH **.// //Some poems make us ** THINK **.// //Some poems are ** SHORT & FUNNY **.// //Some poems are ** LONG & SERIOUS **.// //Some poems ** RHYME **.// //Some poems ** DO NOT RHYME **.// //What ** KINDS ** of poems have you read?// //What ** KINDS ** of poems have you written?// And If you get the kind of students that say, "Miss, but I CANT write a poem!", well now you have an answer to that statement!
 * What do you think about when you hear the word POETRY?**
 * There are many kinds of poems:**

by Bruce Lansky Forget it. You must be kidding. I’m still half asleep. My eyes keep closing. My brain isn’t working. I don’t have a pencil. I don’t have any paper. My desk is wobbly. I don’t know what to write about. And besides, I don’t even know how to write a poem. I’ve got a headache. I need to see the nurse. Time’s up? Uh oh! All I have is this dumb list of excuses. You like it? Really? No kidding. Thanks a lot. Would you like to see another one?
 * I Can’t Write a Poem**

 I went to a place that serves all you can eat. And now my new shoes do not fit on my feet. My hat is too small now to fit on my head. My legs are too long now to fit on my bed. So if you should visit the very same place, Take my advice, friend, and don’t stuff your face. ||
 * || **All You Can Eat**

by Bruce Lansky
 * What I Found in My Desk **

// A ripe peach with an ugly bruise, // // a pair of stinky tennis shoes, // // a day-old ham-and-cheese on rye, // // a swimsuit that I left to dry, // // a pencil that glows in the dark, // // some bubble gum found in the park, // // a paper bag with cookie crumbs, // // an old kazoo that barely hums, // // a spelling test I almost failed, // // a letter that I should have mailed, // // and one more thing, I must confess, // // a note from teacher: Clean This Mess!!!! //

by Bruce Lansky
 * __ My Bed is Like a Sailing Ship __**

My bed is like a sailing ship— when I’m tucked in, I take a trip. I leave behind my busy day and sail to places far away. I sail past beaches, gleaming white, with palm trees swaying in the night. I watch the waves break on the shore, and then I see my bedroom floor! I blink my eyes, I scratch my head— my ship is home, I’m back in bed. My ships goes sailing every night and sails home in the morning light.

After tossing and turning for what must have been an hour or so, I find myself lying on a tropical beach, the waves gently licking the sand. I gaze up at the sky and notice some pelicans soaring and swooping, looking for lunch. There’s a catamaran sailing offshore, swept by the wind that is cooling my brow.
 * __Tropical Dream__**

I’m cold. I pull my blanket over my head. That’s better. I find a comfortable position and start breathing slowly. I wonder what it would be like to be a bear and sleep all winter. I guess you’d have to have a pretty big last supper, or you’d have to wake up in January to find something to eat. I wonder what it would be like to be a fish and sleep at the bottom of a lake. I guess you’d have to have gills, or you’d have to come up to the surface every ten seconds or so to get a breath of air.
 * __Sleepy Thoughts on a Cold Winter Night__**

__My Dream__ Every kid needs help with homework. Well, most of us anyway. So I start an Internet company called "Homework Helper." I’ve lined up the smartest kids in school to explain math and science, edit papers, and correct homework before it’s turned in. Anyway, as soon as the kids at school find out, they flock to my Web site. When kids from schools around the country start logging on, I know I’m on to something. But my parents have no idea what I’m doing, until the day that a reporter from //People// magazine calls my mother and says he wants to interview her "brilliant" son for their next issue! __Heroes Are__ sometimes courageous collaborators, sometimes originators of opportunities, sometimes champions of coincidence or circumstance. Sometimes heroes act through intelligence and at other times through ignorance. __A Hero Could Be__ a main character in some work of literature, simply a person, or perhaps a mythological being of great courage and strength, someone with a cause, perhaps even a sandwich. . .   or, a hero could be you! __ Heroes May Be __ Boisterous, bold, brash, and loud – Yee Haw! Or swift, silent, and sly – Woosh, Or even filled with woes – Boo hoo. They may crave attention – Ta da! Or they may ask for no one to mention – Shhhh. . .     Just how they made a difference ** POETRY RACE ** ** by Bruce Lansky ** || You and your friends can try this at home. Simply get a stopwatch, practice the poem a few times, then see who can say it correctly the fastest! ||  ||
 * Want all children to enjoy poetry even more, why don't you try some tongue twisters?
 * || Its always fun to listen while some, poor, unsuspecting soul becomes totally unglued while trying to recite a tongue twister. Of course, reciting a tongue twister is not quite as fun for the performer -- unless he or she has practiced a few times.

Betty Botter bought some butter. "But," she said, "the butter's bitter. If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter. But a bit of better butter-- that would make my batter better." So she bought a bit of butter, better than her bitter butter. And she put it in her batter, and the batter was not bitter. So 'twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter!
 * ||  || **Betty Botter**

// By Anonymous // // (Poetry Race and Betty Botter poem © 1999 by Meadowbrook Press) //

Betty Botter bought a beaver. But the beastly beaver bit her. So she bought a biting badger. And the badger bit the beaver. Since the badger bit the beaver, now the beaver will not bite her. So 'twas better Betty Botter bought a beaver-biting badger. // (© 2002 by Bruce Lansky) // ||  ||
 * Betty Botter's Biting Beaver**

** Narrative Poem: ** A narrative poem is one that tells a story. It can be short or long. It can rhyme with a set pattern or without; it doesn't have to rhyme, though. It can have a set meter or be a little varied. Narrative poems don't follow too many rules, except that they must tell a story.

Jimmy was a happy ape Until some hunters caught him He liked the jungle better than The city where they brought him The city was louder The city was meaner Even the dirt in the jungle was cleaner So Jimmy made a daring escape! The hunters were suddenly minus one ape! He climbed the tallest building Because from there he'd see How far away the jungle was From the middle of the city. Jimmy jumped into a passing plane But the pilot didn't wait for him to explain Jimmy flew back to the jungle And told his ape friends in their lair "The city's okay for a visit But you couldn't make me live there."
 * __Jimmy Goes to the City by Arthur Read from PBS's "Arthur"__**

Writing a nonsense poem requires a sense of humor. All nonsense verse aims to amuse, though some modernist poets took a more wry, satiric attitude. There are various techniques to writing a poem that doesn't make sense. You could use nonsense words, as Lewis Carroll did, or perfectly recognizable words and syntax that, taken together, are meaningless, like Edward Lear.
 * Nonsense Poem **

**__JABBERWOCKY__** Lewis Carroll

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wade; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!  Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun  The frumious Bandersnatch!" He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought -- So rested he by the Tumtum tree. And stood awhile in thought. And as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came wiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. "And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy!  O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" He chortled in his joy. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

A cute "Kit Cat Kid Children's Poem" video I found! media type="youtube" key="_7ox95sBnf4?fs=1" height="385" width="480"