National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month. I love teaching my students about reading and writing poetry. Here's a quick round up of poetry activities I look forward to using with my class every year.

This blog post is geared toward the K-2 classroom, but for great poetry resources for all grade levels check out Read Write Think.
Here are some of my must have read alouds/picture books for National Poetry Month. Click on my Amazon affiliate links to take a closer look at these books.
            
One of the first things I do when teaching poetry is break down the parts of a poem with this anchor chart. It's not my fanciest work but it gets the job done. Check out our old school pencil sharpener! All classrooms in my school still have one. I wonder if we'll ever get them removed? 

One of the first poems I do with my class is a biography poem. Every year when we take pictures, Lifetouch always sends a strip of picture stickers for each student. I love reading the three adjectives students use to describe themselves the most!

Another favorite of mine is the rainbow name acrostic poem. I first saw the idea on Pinterest, but can't pin point who originally posted the idea. One of the reasons I love this acrostic poem is how it can easily be part of an adjectives lesson. This year I might switch things up by having students also do an acrostic poem about spring. 

One of the last poems we write is a formula poem. Each student writes a formula poem about a favorite thing. Of course one of my favorite things is a cupcake! First we study each of the five lines while we create a class example. Students create their own poem after our class example is finished. This poem I usually save as part of a writing station in April. 

What are you favorite ways to teach poetry in your classroom? Have a wonderful week! 

Welcome Spring!

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you're all enjoying your day, and have had a great weekend. I think the cooler weather in my part of Texas is finally over for the year which means plenty of sunshine and sandals ahead!
In honor of Easter, a few teacher friends and I are throwing a TpT sale! Stop by our stores and check out all the amazing resources we have for you.

Here's a sneak peek of what we're learning in my class.
Tuesday and Thursday of this week is STAAR testing. We don't take the test in second grade, but we're going to spread some encouragement to our class of fourth grade buddies. I just posted Treat Tag Freebies in my store. Simply fill a baggie with cereal or cookies and you're done!

We're also tackling the skill of telling time on an analog clock. Telling time is one math skill that certainly takes practice and patience to master for students. One way the minis are practicing time on an analog clock is with Time Task Cards.

In addition to tackling the basics, we're digging deeper and learning about elapsed time as well. Spring Forward can be used during any time of year to teach or review elapsed time skills. 

Check out two of my minis working in small groups. They LOVE using the iPad to self check their answers.

I hope you have a wonderful week ahead! 

April Currently

Oh em gee y'all I'm so glad to have a three day weekend The minis were on a roll this week! It's time for another month of Currently hosted by Farley.
Before I get to the currently fun, check out some of the amazing landmark projects from my class this week.

Pearl Harbor

Grand Ole Opray

Niagara Falls

Listening- GDFR stands for Going Down for Real. It's a song by Flo Rida and it's so catchy I can't get it out of my head. Whenever I hear it on the radio I turn up the volume!

Loving- Hooray for three day weekends!

Thinking- I do have some things I'd like to accomplish today, but I also need to relax. Sometimes we as teachers volunteer and do so much that we forget about ourselves.

Wanting- A quirky fact about me; I don't drink coffee but I love Starbucks! My favorite drink for warm weather and sunny days is the passion tea lemonade.

Needing- I'm going to Disney World in June! I'll be there for five days and I'm wearing a different Disney themed shirt each day. Here are two finished shirts I shared on Facebook a couple of days ago.

I'm waiting on my last order or shirt transfers from Etsy so I can finish. All my shirt transfers came from the amazing BananaBelle23 on Etsy. If you need any Disney shirts I highly recommend her. She's great to work with and keeps communication open with her customers.

Eggs-plain- I originally was going to name my blog Will Teach for Cupcakes, but found that name taken after a Google search. I then started playing around with other names involving teaching and cupcakes then my blog name was born.

Don't forget to link up and share your currently!