Tracie Vaughn Zimmer’s “Moonlit Race”

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: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

Next up: TRACIE VAUGHN ZIMMER

Setting the Stage: Invite the kids to share their knowledge of ocean animals. Make a list of the marine animals they know. Is the leatherback turtle on the list? Research facts about the leatherback turtle together.

Poetry Performance: Try reading aloud Tracie Vaughn Zimmer’s “Moonlit Race” with three groups, one for each stanza. The first group reads the first stanza, setting the stage. The second group reads the action-packed second stanza. The third group reads the satisfying final stanza.

Just for Fun: Several key “characters” populate this vivid poem. Use various colors of felt to create the sun, moon, ocean waves, turtle(s), cookie, gull, and crab. Invite the kids to place each figure on a flannel storyboard or hang on a short "clothesline" as you read the poem aloud.

Poem Links: Here are key words that connect this poem with other poems in the PoetryTagTime collection:
Moon 

Night
Sun
Sea
Turtles
Food
Birds
Fear

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

Next up for PoetryTagTime: Pat Mora


Image credit: PoetryTagTime

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

Avis Harley’s “All Aflutter”

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 free downloadable Kindle platform for your computer, cell phone, etc.

Previously: J. Patrick Lewis

Next up: AVIS HARLEY

Setting the Stage: Ask the kids if they ever feel nervous. At school? At night? Playing sports? Have they heard or used the expression “butterflies in the stomach” to describe a nervous feeling? Is being nervous ever a GOOD thing?

Poetry Performance: For Avis Harley’s poem, “All Aflutter,” she employs the same line to begin each of her five stanzas: “Butterflies in your stomach” (with one additional word in the final stanza). This is the perfect opportunity for all the kids to join in on the repeated line, jump-starting each stanza of the poem while the teacher/librarian reads the rest of each stanza out loud.

Just for Fun: Work together to create a unique poem display by writing each stanza of the poem on a butterfly-shaped piece of paper and then attaching it to an outline of a person (one of the kids outlined on butcher paper perhaps?) placing the butterfly stanzas in the stomach area.

Poem Links: Here are key words that connect this poem with other poems in the PoetryTagTime collection:
Body
Fear
Repeated lines
Butterflies
Night

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

Next up for PoetryTagTime: Joan Bransfield Graham


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

J. Patrick Lewis’s “Edgar Allan Poe’s Apple Pie”

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: Leslie Bulion

Next up: J. PATRICK LEWIS

Setting the Stage: Ask the kids if they have ever had to share a yummy treat with someone else—like a sandwich, pizza, candy, apple, etc? How did they decide on dividing the portions?

Poetry Performance: For reading aloud J. Patrick Lewis’s poem, “Edgar Allan Poe’s Apple Pie” invite 2 volunteers to read the lines of dialogue (“How many cuts give me ten pieces?” and “Never four!” as they occur in the poem) while you read the rest of the poem in a very melodramatic voice.

Just for Fun: Find a recording of a reading of the classic Edgar Allan Poe poem, “The Raven,” and play it for the kids. Compare it to the parody that Lewis has created here. What other parodies of classic poems can you find? And of course you have to demonstrate the math in the poem, dividing a paper (or real) apple pie into 10 pieces with 5 cuts.

Poem Links: Here are key words that connect this poem with other poems in the PoetryTagTime collection:
Onomatopoeia
Night
Food
Parody
Dialogue
Riddle
Questions
Sleep
Fear

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

Next up for PoetryTagTime: Avis Harley


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

Lee Bennett Hopkins’ “Summer Fear”

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: Alice Schertle

Next up: LEE BENNETT HOPKINS

Setting the Stage: Lead a discussion of weather worries. Does thunder make you nervous? Lightning? Invite the kids to consider whether flowers might fear stormy weather, too.

Poetry Performance: Read Lee Bennett Hopkins’s poem, “Summer Fear,” aloud to the group first. Then divide the group into three smaller groups. One will read the three-line stanza about roses, one will read the three-line stanza about pansies, and one will read the three-line stanza about sunflowers. Then everyone joins together to read the final stanza. Practice, read, repeat.

Just for Fun: Not everyone is familiar with the varieties of flowers mentioned in the poem. Research together what roses, pansies, and sunflowers, (and yews) look like. Create a collage of these images adding facial expressions on the flowers, a backdrop of fence posts and a window box, and aluminum foil bolts of thunder to create a scene to accompany the poem.

Poem Links: Here are key words that connect this poem with other poems in the PoetryTagTime collection:
Summer
Flowers
Storm
Fear

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

Next up for PoetryTagTime: Betsy Franco



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