Week 22 and TLA Conference

This past week I traveled to San Antonio for the yearly TLA (Texas Library Association) Conference.

 I attended some great sessions and enjoyed exploring San Antonio as well! 

One session I went to was called "Speed Dating With the Texas Bluebonnets" and we got to hear  many of the authors speak from some of the nominated books on next year's Bluebonnet list. It was neat. At the end of the session I was also the lucky winner of some free books to bring back to the library so that was a fun treat!       

Here is my (not great) picture of James Ponti, author of Dead City, discussing his book. 

I also attended other sessions about how you can get your class or students to easily Skype with authors and how to turn your library into a maker space. The short definition of a maker space is basically creating a place where kids can come and make or create things. It is a really cool and new idea that libraries are trying these days. So many neat things to think about!

When I returned we hit the ground running and began our celebration of National Poetry Month in the library. 

National Poetry Month is a celebration of poetry that was first introduced in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. It is celebrated every April in the United States and Canada.   

With Primer through fourth grade we had a chance to read and study different types of poetry together. Here are some of the books we shared. 

Doodle Dandies: Poems that Take Shape by J. Patrick Lewis

A Poke in the I: A Collection of Concrete Poems by Paul B. Janeczko

With the Primer, 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders I decided to focus on one form of poetry this week and that was concrete poems or shape poems.  I shared how to write a concrete poem and read a few examples from each book. Then I encouraged the kids to try writing their own concrete poem.     

Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It by Gail Carson Levine 

This is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness by Joyce Sidman

With the 4th graders we focused on False Apology poems. Based off of the famous false apology poem by William Carlos Williams, Gail Carson Levine and Joyce Sidman, as well as others, have created two really fun poetry books filled with false apology poems. You could describe a false apology poem as a poem where you say you are sorry, but you don't really mean it! In This is Just to Say not only do they have false apology poems but they also have response poems so it is neat to see both points of view. Again with this lesson I encouraged the kids to try writing their own false apology poem and have a friend respond to them. 

After I was done sharing poetry with each of the classes, it was their turn to have some fun and participate in our Poetry Picnic! The poetry picnic included activities such as reading poetry on their  own or with a friend, writing poetry, and creating poetry with magnetic letters or cutting words out of a magazine. I really encouraged the kids to get creative and have fun!   

      Here was our set up. 

Students working hard as they write some poetry and enjoy the poetry picnic.

With the Pre-K and Kinder classes we didn't read actual poems out of a poetry book, but we read two stories that could count. 

Never Play Music Right Next to the Zoo by John Lithgow 

Never Play Music Right Next to the Zoo comes with a CD of John Lithgow reading it, so we enjoyed hearing him read along with the great music that accompanies the story.  

Yes, Yes, Yaul! by Jef Czekaj

Yes, Yes, Yaul is a story where the two characters, Hip and Hop, are rappers. They meet a porcupine named Yaul who never seems to like anything and he constantly says "No" to everything. However, through their rapping and other funny events they convince Yaul to say "Yes" and try new things. I shared this story because it has a great lesson, but also because the characters rap throughout the story. Together we talked about that rapping or singing songs could be a type of poetry, so we thought it was a perfect book to read during poetry month. 

We will continue to check out some great poetry as the month continues so stay tuned!