Laurie Purdie Salas’s “After the Storm”

Reminder: PoetryTagTime is the first ever electronic-only poetry anthology of new poems by top poets for children. You can purchase the book for 99 cents at Amazon and read it on your Kindle or through the downloadable Kindle platform for your computer, cell phone, etc.

Previously: Paul B. Janeczko

Next up: LAURA PURDIE SALAS

Setting the Stage: Ask the kids if they know what an acrostic is. Show an example, if possible.

Poetry Performance: To perform Laurie Purdie Salas’s “After the Storm," write each line of the poem on the back of a colored piece of paper—using 7 colors of the rainbow. Write the capital letter (the first letter of the line) on one side of the colored paper, and write the single line of the poem on the other side of the colored paper. Ask for 7 volunteers to participate. Each holds a sheet of colored paper showing the poem line to the audience and lined up in order (to spell the poem subject). Students read their lines and then turn the colored paper around to show their letter, one at a time, gradually spelling the poem's subject.

Just for Fun: Collaborate with the gym teacher or physical education instructor to introduce or demonstrate backbends. Compare other phenomena of nature to gymnastic exercises and activities, e.g., cartwheel = tornado. Work as a group to create a new acrostic poem for a new nature + gymnastics connection.

Poem Links: Here are key words that connect this poem with other poems in the PoetryTagTime collection:
Storm
Acrostic
Body
Rainbow
Color
Summer
World

Buy the book now, so you can share each poem along with the ideas and activities that follow here.

Next up for PoetryTagTime: Robert Weinstock


Image credit: PoetryTagTime

Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2011. All rights reserved.