Have You Ever Considered Poetry Friday?

I have to tell you there have been many times in my teaching career that I have been surprised but most of my surprises come from Poetry Friday.  No matter what and I mean no matter what I commit to at least 30 minutes every Friday for students to share poetry.  I start in the beginning of the year just singing poems along with my class and then sharing some fun poems that I tab to allow my students learn about our different poetry books in our classroom. We just enjoy poetry.  Once we have established that Poetry can be fun-which is sometimes hard to prove to 5th graders.  We then begin to have mini focus lessons on Poetry Friday.

*What is Poetry?
*Sounds of  Poetry
*Forms of Poetry

When I first started Poetry Friday, I was really unsure about how to make the shift in my teaching.  I heard of an amazing book by Georgia Heard:  Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School.  The ideas for the classroom really changed my teaching especially the heart mapping activity (p. 108).  I typically do that the first three weeks of school, and I leave my heart map up as a model for the class for quite a while. We have had some great conversations from my heart map.  We use these heart maps all year not only in Poetry Friday but also writing workshop. If you haven't read this book I would suggest you move it to your To Be Read pile..my favorite chapter is Making a Poetry Environment.  Poetry Friday round up is at A Year of Reading-thanks Mary Lee.