The Magic of Dada Poetry

Teaching poetry is my passion and my love. Watching what students can do with words is amazing. Even those students who are struggling with how to write a complete sentence can somehow magically string together words to create the most beautiful poems.

 

One of my favorites is dada poetry. Here's how I do it:

 

1. Give students a stack of magazines.

2. Give them a time limit to cut out words that appeal to their senses. Be sure to require that they find different parts of speech.

3. Have the class compile a box of "found words." You could categorize them by parts of speech if you want to.

4. Give each student a chance to take a handful (or a specific number) of words without looking.

5. Have each student construct a poem with the found words. I also allow my students to write in articles, prepositions, and conjunctions as well as punctuation as needed.

Behold the magic that is created!

Stop by to see my poetry resources and ideas at TpT by clicking HERE.

Easy New Year Planning- Part Two



I hope your students will enjoy learning about New Year's customs and traditions with this ready to use "web search" resource! After your students have completed the web search (featuring twenty questions), they could then complete the graphic organizers to show facts they have learned in a decorative way.

On these organizers (both boy and girl version provided), students could:
a. record facts they learned in their web search
b. record facts NOT on the question sheet (other facts)
c. record facts they found most interesting
d. record facts from a different website provided by you

The graphic organizers can be colored and make a great holiday bulletin board display when done!

Easy New Year Planning- Part One

The first days back from winter break can be rough on kids. Getting back into a routine is not easy…especially when all the students want to do is talk about their break!

Why not give them an opportunity to do just that while using reading skills, writing, and art? This activity is a great way to ease back into school after a long vacation.

★ Special Note: The pages in the student packet are not holiday-themed. Students may opt to write about Christmas if they celebrated it over break, but none of the pages have a holiday theme. The samples provided are Christmas-themed, but the actual student pages are not.

Each page features reading/writing skill practice using the student's own winter break as the topic. You can use just a few sheets or all of them according to your preference.

When the packets are finished, they would be great for sharing with partners, small groups, or as a whole class.

These pages could be easily adapted for various grade levels depending upon your requirements. For upper grades, you might require students to include additional information. These organizers are a perfect starting point for some great personal narratives!

Pages included are:
• Setting
• Characters, Character Traits & Evidence
• Plot- important events
• Visualization/ Illustration
• Conflict
• Compare/Contrast- Venn Diagram
• Setting Goals

 

 

Leafy Zoo Animals



 

We created a whole zoo of animals made from leaves! We used a combination of leaves traced on construction paper and silk leaves. We tried some with real leaves, but they didn't hold up for display very long!

 

Offer students a variety of shapes and sizes of patterns (or silk leaves) and watch their imagination take over! It would be great to accompany your creations with writing pieces as well.

 

Happy teaching, friends!

Research a City or Country



 

If you're looking for a fun and ready to use template to use with your students in social studies, then give this a try! Students can research a city or country and incorporate some creative writing as well!

 





Click HERE to check it out in my TpT store.

 

Happy teaching, friends!

 

Research & Poetry Boxes

 

If you're looking for a fun project to display that incorporates both research and poetry, why not try a box project? Each of my students selected a famous person to research. Each student then decorated a box of his/her choice with decorations that suited the person (based on research).

 

Students then wrote poems on their boxes as well about their research subject. This accompanies a written piece and is a great project to display at Open House or Parent Night. You may even want the students to place something inside the boxes such as index cards with notes, etc.

 

Happy teaching, friends!

Here's the Scoop!

If you're looking for a sweet new way for kids to practice and display grammar or punctuation rules, why not try this? We made giant ice cream cones to display comma rules AND write research facts at the same time. Every student chose a famous person to research. He/she then had to write facts learned from the research using the comma rules we had studied in class.

 

I cut out patterns for the scoops and the cones. The students then traced the patterns onto colorful paper and used corrugated brown paper for the cones. We did use poster  board for backing so that our cones would have some support when students decorated the scoops.

 

These made a cute bulletin board display when finished!