This is How We Do It: Poetry Journals!

 

Poetry journals are a great way encourage and model fluent reading in your classroom, as well as provide your students with a notebook full of age-appropriate text to add to and read throughout the school year.   Naturally, it introduces the poetry genre, as well.

My students start out the year by decorating their poetry journals with lots and lots of stickers.  Of course, the more the better!

We read one poem a week, usually taken from this Scholastic resource.   I *love it* and have had a lot of success using it!   I also add other seasonal poems, as well, but I mainly stick to poems that incorporate one of their weekly sight words so that they can practice reading the sight word in context.  {I realize these poems aren’t necessarily “authentic,”  but they’re perfect for my firsties!  I used it when I taught K,too.}

We read the poem during our morning meeting, which I’ve rewritten on a large chart tablet that hangs from a rolling chart rack.  Each day I read the poem (modeling), followed by an echo read and choral read.  Towards the end of the week, the students get to come up and read the poem to their classmates with a pointer finger.   The same poem is displayed all week and is visible at all times throughout the day so that the students can read it whenever it catches their eye.

On Friday, I give the students a copy of the poem and they fill in the sight word.  They cut around the text so that it will fit in their notebook, and then glue it in.  They’re allowed to color the poem and add drawings too it, also.  If students finish early, I tell them to go back and reread the previous poems while they wait for everyone to finish.

So, there you have it!  That’s how we do poetry journals in our room!

Do you have a great resource for poetry journals?  I’d love to hear how you do it, too!

Have a great Monday, friends…9 teaching days until Fall Break for me!  YAY!!!!!