Week 1: School-themed poetry

Here is a sample entry from The Poetry Friday Anthology to whet your appetite.

This is the first poem for SECOND GRADE (Week 1).

Here is the first of the five Take 5 activities that accompany this poem:

1. Arrange a quick visit to the library or bring a pile, bin, or cart of library books on a variety of topics. Show students your public library card and have applications available. Then read this poem aloud; slow down to enunciate each item in lines 5-16.

The Library 

by Sara Holbrook

Take the walk
to the open door,
this is where you
find out more
about the stars,
oceans, quakes,
dragons, cars,
cheetahs, snakes,
unicorns, and
jumping beans,
horses, bugs,
and time machines.
From killer whales,
and free tail bats,
to hammer heads
and kitty cats,
the library has got a book.
Come on in,
take a look.
Learn how to cook
or write a poem.
Read it here
or take it home.
What do you want to learn about?
It’s free!
It’s here!
Check it out!

[Copyright Sara Holbrook, 2012; all rights reserved.]

Then follow up with these additional Take 5 activities.

2. Read the poem aloud again and invite students to read the last three lines in unison.

3. For discussion: What is your favorite book you’ve read (so far)?

4. Select one skill: Help students find the rhyming pairs of “words that sound alike.” Ask students: What are the words that rhyme? (These include: door/more; quakes/snakes; beans/machines; bats/cats; book/look/cook; poem/home; about/out.) Read the poem aloud again, but pause before the second word in each rhyming pair and wait for the students to chime in with the correct response (more, snakes, machines, cats, look, home, out).

5. Follow up with more poetry-- for example, look for another poem in The Poetry Friday Anthology--  “Poems are Out of this World!” by Charles Ghigna (Kindergarten, Week 29) or a poem from Please Bury Me in the Library by J. Patrick Lewis.


If you haven't purchased it yet, get your own copy of The Poetry Friday Anthology here.