Reading poetry to children can often be a challenge in keeping their attention and interest while sharing a poem. Integrating a familiar tune along with a poem will surely capture your audience and after repeating the poem through singing, many children will join in the singing or move to the beat.
Tyrannosaurus Was A Beast is a book of dinosaurs poems. Many of these poems can be read and sung to the beat of a familiar tune such as "Yankee Doodle Dandy" or "O Susanna" and more!
Inside this book on pages 26 and 27, a poem that I would like to share with you is titled "Iguanodon". An inserted photo and description tells that Iguanodon was a dinosaur that lived in the Early Cretaceous period which was approximately 135 million years ago. It lived on every continent except Antarctica. The creature (in my opinion looks like a huge iguana) measured 25' long and 15' tall whenever it stood up on its hind legs.
Sing along to the poem while keeping the beat of "O Tannebaum".
"Iguanodon"
by Jack Prelutsky and illustrated by Arnold Lobel
Iguanodon, Iguanodon,
whatever made you fade,
you've traveled on, Iguanodon,
we wish you could have stayed.
Iguanodon, Iguanodon,
we've sought you everywhere,
both here and yon, Iguanodon,
but failed to find you there.
Iguanodon, Iguanodon,
you were a gentle kind,
but now you've gone, Iguanodon,
and left your bones behind.
Prelutsky, Jack and Arnold Lobel (ill). 1988. "Tyrannosaurus Was a
Beast: Iguanodon". NY: Greenwillow Books. ISBN 0688064426
Extension: Have the children participate in singing the song. Then add movement and dance as you sing the poem aloud. Ask the children if they can think of any living creature today that is similar in features (except for size). Gather pictures of an Iguana or have a real Iguana as show and tell. Discuss and analyze the characteristics of the dinosaur pictures and today's Iguana. Children are very creative, encourage them to think of a poem that can be sung to a familiar tune. Keep a journal of the poems and name of the songs.
Do you think of another familiar song when you sing the above poem?? I also think of "O Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree".
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Poetry Book Review for Social Studies
Hesse, Karen. 1997. Out of the Dust. NY: Scholastic Press.
The Novel that I selected that would be suited for teens and the Social Studies curriculum is written as a journal in free-verse in narrative form by a 14 year old girl named Billie Jo. Out of the Dust received the John Newberry Medal awarded annually by the American Library Association.
According to the Notable Children's Social Studies and additional essential skills developed through poetry, this book assists in acquiring information: reading skills, acquiring information: vocabulary, organizing and using information through thinking skills, as well as interpersonal relationships and social participation skills.
The Curriculum Standards for Social Studies identifies ten strands for studying this discipline. Of these strands, Out of the Dust focuses on history, culture, identity, geography, economics, citizenship, government, technology, global connections, and institutions.
The setting is in the Oklahoma dust bowl during the Great Depression. The story timeline begins in the Winter of 1934 with a girl by the name of Billie Jo telling of her birth in August 1920. The story is an emotional rollercoaster of this young girl's pain, strength, mood swings, love and courage that keep her tied to the land and Oklahoma. She tells of her family as they are struggling to survive on their land with the terrible dust storms that are never-ending, rain seldom comes and grasshoppers destroy the plants that survive the storms. The townspeople, neighbors, crops and livestock have a slim chance to none of surviving. Billie Jo's struggle and heartbreak continues with the death of her mother and unborn brother. Billie Jo's hands are scarred and deformed in an attempt to save them. The hurt and pain of her hands as well as the pain and anger of unforgiveness and blame haunt Billie Jo on a daily basis.
A poem inside the book narrated by Billie Jo, gives a powerful descriptive account of the dust storms and pain associated with the storms. This is lengthy in text beginning on pages 142 to 146 but it definitely touches the readers senses and stirs emotions:
Dust Storm
I never would have gone to see the show
if I had known a storm like this would come.
I didn't know when going in,
but coming out,
a darker night I'd never seen.
I bumped into a box beside the Palace door
and scraped my shins,
then tripped on something in my path,
I don't know what,
and walked into a phone pole,
bruised my cheek.
The first car that I met was sideways in the road.
Bowed down, my eyes near shut,
trying to keep the dust out,
I saw his headlights just before I reached them.
The driver called me over and I felt my way,
following his voice.
He asked me how I kept the road.
"I feel it with my feet," I shouted over the
roaring wind,
"I walk along the edge.
One foot on the road, one on the shoulder."
And desperate to get home,
he straightened out his car,
and straddled tires on the road and off,
and slowly pulled away.
I kept along. I know that there were others
on the road,
from time to time I'd hear someone cry out,
their voices rose like ghosts on the howling wind;
no one could see. I stopped at neighbors'
just to catch my breath
and made my way from town
out to our farm.
Everyone said to stay
but I guessed
my father would
come out to find me
if I didn't show,
and get himself lost in the
raging dust and maybe die
and I
didn't want that burden on my soul.
Brown earth rained down
from sky.
I could not catch my breath
the way the dust pressed on my chest
and wouldn't stop.
The dirt blew down so thick
it scratched my eyes
and stung my tender skin,
it plugged my nose and filled inside my mouth.
No matter how I pressed my lips together,
the dust made muddy tracks
across my tongue.
But I kept on,
spitting out mud,
covering my mouth,
clamping my nose,
the dust stinging the raw and open
stripes of scarring on my hands,
and after some three hours I made it home.
Inside I found my father's note
that said he'd gone to find me
and if I should get home, to just stay put.
I hollered out the front door
and the back;
he didn't hear,
I didn't think he would.
The wind took my voice and busted it
into a thousand pieces,
so small
the sound
blew out over Ma and Franklin's grave,
thinner than a sigh.
I waited for my father through the night, coughing up
dust,
cleaning dust out of my ears,
rinsing my mouth, blowing mud out of my nose.
Joe De La Flor stopped by around four to tell me
they found one boy tangled in a barbed-wire fence,
another smothered in a drift of dust.
After Joe left I thought of the famous Lindberghs
and how their baby was killed and never came back
to them.
I wondered if my father would come back.
He blew in around six A.M.
It hurt,
the sight of him
brown with dirt,
his eyes as red as raw meat,
his feet bruised from walking in worn shoes
stepping where he couldn't see
on things that bit and cut into his flesh.
I tried to scare up something we could eat,
but couldn't keep the table clear of dust.
Everything I set
down for our breakfast
was covered before we took a bite,
and so we chewed the grit and swallowed
and I thought of the cattle
dead from mud in their lungs,
and I thought of the tractor
buried up to the steering wheel,
and Pete Guymon,
and I couldn't even recognize the man
sitting across from me,
sagging in his chair,
his red hair gray and stiff with dust,
his face deep lines of dust,
his teeth streaked brown with dust.
I turned the plates and glasses upside down,
crawled into bed, and slept.
March 1935
Hesse, Karen. 1997. Out of the Dust. NY: Scholastic Press. ISBN 0590360809
This book is an AR book for a 5.3 level reader. The reading level is ages 9 - 12 but I found many things in the book to be so powerful and tragic that they may upset a young reader. I would recommend the book for teen level social studies in discussing geographical locations, climates and weather, people, the president of that time, etc.
Reviews:
Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year: "Readers may find their own feelings swaying in beat with the heroine's shifting moods."
School Library Journal, Best Book of the Year: "Free-verse poems...allow the narrator to speak for herself much more eloquently than would be possible in standard prose."
Additional books that may be used along with the novel by Karen Hesse include:
Out of the Dust Study Guide by Judy Cook. It integrates vocabulary, activities, comprehension and analysis, and critical thinking into lessons.
A Guide for Using Out of the Dust in the Classroom by Sarah Clark offers a variety of lessons and extensions of the novel for cross-curricular activities.
The Novel that I selected that would be suited for teens and the Social Studies curriculum is written as a journal in free-verse in narrative form by a 14 year old girl named Billie Jo. Out of the Dust received the John Newberry Medal awarded annually by the American Library Association.
According to the Notable Children's Social Studies and additional essential skills developed through poetry, this book assists in acquiring information: reading skills, acquiring information: vocabulary, organizing and using information through thinking skills, as well as interpersonal relationships and social participation skills.
The Curriculum Standards for Social Studies identifies ten strands for studying this discipline. Of these strands, Out of the Dust focuses on history, culture, identity, geography, economics, citizenship, government, technology, global connections, and institutions.
The setting is in the Oklahoma dust bowl during the Great Depression. The story timeline begins in the Winter of 1934 with a girl by the name of Billie Jo telling of her birth in August 1920. The story is an emotional rollercoaster of this young girl's pain, strength, mood swings, love and courage that keep her tied to the land and Oklahoma. She tells of her family as they are struggling to survive on their land with the terrible dust storms that are never-ending, rain seldom comes and grasshoppers destroy the plants that survive the storms. The townspeople, neighbors, crops and livestock have a slim chance to none of surviving. Billie Jo's struggle and heartbreak continues with the death of her mother and unborn brother. Billie Jo's hands are scarred and deformed in an attempt to save them. The hurt and pain of her hands as well as the pain and anger of unforgiveness and blame haunt Billie Jo on a daily basis.
A poem inside the book narrated by Billie Jo, gives a powerful descriptive account of the dust storms and pain associated with the storms. This is lengthy in text beginning on pages 142 to 146 but it definitely touches the readers senses and stirs emotions:
Dust Storm
I never would have gone to see the show
if I had known a storm like this would come.
I didn't know when going in,
but coming out,
a darker night I'd never seen.
I bumped into a box beside the Palace door
and scraped my shins,
then tripped on something in my path,
I don't know what,
and walked into a phone pole,
bruised my cheek.
The first car that I met was sideways in the road.
Bowed down, my eyes near shut,
trying to keep the dust out,
I saw his headlights just before I reached them.
The driver called me over and I felt my way,
following his voice.
He asked me how I kept the road.
"I feel it with my feet," I shouted over the
roaring wind,
"I walk along the edge.
One foot on the road, one on the shoulder."
And desperate to get home,
he straightened out his car,
and straddled tires on the road and off,
and slowly pulled away.
I kept along. I know that there were others
on the road,
from time to time I'd hear someone cry out,
their voices rose like ghosts on the howling wind;
no one could see. I stopped at neighbors'
just to catch my breath
and made my way from town
out to our farm.
Everyone said to stay
but I guessed
my father would
come out to find me
if I didn't show,
and get himself lost in the
raging dust and maybe die
and I
didn't want that burden on my soul.
Brown earth rained down
from sky.
I could not catch my breath
the way the dust pressed on my chest
and wouldn't stop.
The dirt blew down so thick
it scratched my eyes
and stung my tender skin,
it plugged my nose and filled inside my mouth.
No matter how I pressed my lips together,
the dust made muddy tracks
across my tongue.
But I kept on,
spitting out mud,
covering my mouth,
clamping my nose,
the dust stinging the raw and open
stripes of scarring on my hands,
and after some three hours I made it home.
Inside I found my father's note
that said he'd gone to find me
and if I should get home, to just stay put.
I hollered out the front door
and the back;
he didn't hear,
I didn't think he would.
The wind took my voice and busted it
into a thousand pieces,
so small
the sound
blew out over Ma and Franklin's grave,
thinner than a sigh.
I waited for my father through the night, coughing up
dust,
cleaning dust out of my ears,
rinsing my mouth, blowing mud out of my nose.
Joe De La Flor stopped by around four to tell me
they found one boy tangled in a barbed-wire fence,
another smothered in a drift of dust.
After Joe left I thought of the famous Lindberghs
and how their baby was killed and never came back
to them.
I wondered if my father would come back.
He blew in around six A.M.
It hurt,
the sight of him
brown with dirt,
his eyes as red as raw meat,
his feet bruised from walking in worn shoes
stepping where he couldn't see
on things that bit and cut into his flesh.
I tried to scare up something we could eat,
but couldn't keep the table clear of dust.
Everything I set
down for our breakfast
was covered before we took a bite,
and so we chewed the grit and swallowed
and I thought of the cattle
dead from mud in their lungs,
and I thought of the tractor
buried up to the steering wheel,
and Pete Guymon,
and I couldn't even recognize the man
sitting across from me,
sagging in his chair,
his red hair gray and stiff with dust,
his face deep lines of dust,
his teeth streaked brown with dust.
I turned the plates and glasses upside down,
crawled into bed, and slept.
March 1935
Hesse, Karen. 1997. Out of the Dust. NY: Scholastic Press. ISBN 0590360809
This book is an AR book for a 5.3 level reader. The reading level is ages 9 - 12 but I found many things in the book to be so powerful and tragic that they may upset a young reader. I would recommend the book for teen level social studies in discussing geographical locations, climates and weather, people, the president of that time, etc.
Reviews:
Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year: "Readers may find their own feelings swaying in beat with the heroine's shifting moods."
School Library Journal, Best Book of the Year: "Free-verse poems...allow the narrator to speak for herself much more eloquently than would be possible in standard prose."
Additional books that may be used along with the novel by Karen Hesse include:
Out of the Dust Study Guide by Judy Cook. It integrates vocabulary, activities, comprehension and analysis, and critical thinking into lessons.
A Guide for Using Out of the Dust in the Classroom by Sarah Clark offers a variety of lessons and extensions of the novel for cross-curricular activities.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Spring Poetry Break
Pieces: A Year In Poems & Quilts
by Anna Grossnickle Hines
Introduction:
The season of spring, a time of beauty, growth, and delightful smells all around. On a beautiful spring day, I could sit for outdoors for hours listening to the sounds of birds chirping, feeling the cool breeze, breathing in the scented air, reading or daydreaming. Tucked inside the poetry book "Pieces" is a spring poem that focuses on the reader's senses. See what you think:
Nose Knows
by Anna Grossnickle Hines
Locusts line the walkway,
lilacs by the wall,
lilly of the valley,
the sweetest smell of all.
Put me in a blindfold
so I can't see a thing.
Even with my eyes closed
I'll still know it's spring.
Anna Grossnickle Hines
The illustrations are wonderfully created by the author who uses her technique of quilting to create beautiful pictures of each poem. She has selected fabrics to give the illustrations life and beauty.
Extension: Conduct the class outdoors. Have your students close their eyes as the poem is read aloud to them. Select poems from the book that are created for the current season. For spring, have the students with eyes closed, smell flowers, feel plants, smell freshly mowed grass, listen to the sounds around them. Then have them open their eyes and look around for signs of spring.
Indoors, the children can each draw a picture on paper. These could be combined to make a classroom "paper" quilt or cut into 1 inch squares, pieced back together and glued onto paper.
I would like to add another poem from the book in relation to spring:
Do You Know Green"
by Anna Grossnickle Hines
Green Sleeps in winter
waiting
quiet
still
beneath the snow
and last year's stems
and old dead leaves
resting up for spring
and then . . .
Green comes . . .
tickling the tips
of twiggy tree fingers
Psst!
Psst! Psst!
poking up as tiny
slips of baby grass
Ping!
Ping! Ping!
springing up as coiled
skunk cabbage leaves
Pop!
Pop! Pop!
bursting out on bare
brown branches
Pow!
Pow! Pow!
Brand New baby yellow green
bright gold biting busy green
until it seems
everywhere one goes
green grows.
Extension: During spring, take students on a nature walk to observe things that are green, discussing these along the walk. Point out shades of green, budding trees, flowers, weeds etc. Have students write a poem in a journal describing things they observed, the walk or demonstrate making a poem in the shape of a tree or flower. Encourage illustrations.
Bibliography:
Hines, Anna Grossnickle. 2001. "Pieces". NY: Harper Collins:
Greenwillow Books. ISBN 0688169635.
by Anna Grossnickle Hines
Introduction:
The season of spring, a time of beauty, growth, and delightful smells all around. On a beautiful spring day, I could sit for outdoors for hours listening to the sounds of birds chirping, feeling the cool breeze, breathing in the scented air, reading or daydreaming. Tucked inside the poetry book "Pieces" is a spring poem that focuses on the reader's senses. See what you think:
Nose Knows
by Anna Grossnickle Hines
Locusts line the walkway,
lilacs by the wall,
lilly of the valley,
the sweetest smell of all.
Put me in a blindfold
so I can't see a thing.
Even with my eyes closed
I'll still know it's spring.
Anna Grossnickle Hines
The illustrations are wonderfully created by the author who uses her technique of quilting to create beautiful pictures of each poem. She has selected fabrics to give the illustrations life and beauty.
Extension: Conduct the class outdoors. Have your students close their eyes as the poem is read aloud to them. Select poems from the book that are created for the current season. For spring, have the students with eyes closed, smell flowers, feel plants, smell freshly mowed grass, listen to the sounds around them. Then have them open their eyes and look around for signs of spring.
Indoors, the children can each draw a picture on paper. These could be combined to make a classroom "paper" quilt or cut into 1 inch squares, pieced back together and glued onto paper.
I would like to add another poem from the book in relation to spring:
Do You Know Green"
by Anna Grossnickle Hines
Green Sleeps in winter
waiting
quiet
still
beneath the snow
and last year's stems
and old dead leaves
resting up for spring
and then . . .
Green comes . . .
tickling the tips
of twiggy tree fingers
Psst!
Psst! Psst!
poking up as tiny
slips of baby grass
Ping!
Ping! Ping!
springing up as coiled
skunk cabbage leaves
Pop!
Pop! Pop!
bursting out on bare
brown branches
Pow!
Pow! Pow!
Brand New baby yellow green
bright gold biting busy green
until it seems
everywhere one goes
green grows.
Extension: During spring, take students on a nature walk to observe things that are green, discussing these along the walk. Point out shades of green, budding trees, flowers, weeds etc. Have students write a poem in a journal describing things they observed, the walk or demonstrate making a poem in the shape of a tree or flower. Encourage illustrations.
Bibliography:
Hines, Anna Grossnickle. 2001. "Pieces". NY: Harper Collins:
Greenwillow Books. ISBN 0688169635.
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