My students need grade level appropriate poetry books! These books will make us laugh as we practice our reading fluency.
$451 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
"A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language." W.H. Auden. With students who are learning English as a second language, I want them to fall in love with the English language.
I teach 21, second grade students.
Over half of my students every year are ELLs (English Language Learners). As a whole, 3/4 of the my school's population are on free or reduced lunch. Young children, especially those from at-risk communities, need broad and deep exposure to rich text in order to develop more complex thinking skills. Because poems defy rules, poetry can be made accessible for ELLs -- poems can be easily scaffolded and students can find ways of expressing their voices while being limited in their vocabulary. I want to use poems from poets like Jack Prelutsky and Douglas Florian to get my students interested in reading (and writing) poetry. After reading many examples of poems, students will be able to write their own poetry, expressing themselves in new ways they can't do through informational writing.
My Project
When read aloud, poetry is rhythm and music and sounds and beats. Young children may not understand all the words or meaning, but they'll feel the rhythms, get curious about what the sounds mean and perhaps want to create their own. Rhyme is an excellent way for young children to develop an awareness of language, phonic patterns, and rhythms. Contrary to popular belief, kids, even boys, get really into poetry when brought in through rhythm and rhyme. It's the most kinesthetic of all literature, it's physical and full-bodied which activates the heart and soul and sometimes bypasses the traps of minds and the outcome is that poetry moves us. Boys, too.
One of the tasks that a good poet is trying to accomplish is that they want you to see some aspect of the world in a new light.
They can give you an unusual turn of phrase or image that focuses your attention on something in a completely new way. Commonplace objects and events take on a new meaning when tackled by poets. I would like my students to be able to see the world in a different way through reading age-appropriate poems.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Santy and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
