I started off the program by playing the dvd Out of Wonder:Poems Celebrating Poets by Kwame Alexander. This was the perfect dvd to
play in the background while they were eating their pizza and having their
lemonade because it is a collection of beautiful poems by famous authors
celebrating other famous authors by incorporating their different poetry
styles. The music and animated illustrations were a nice touch too.
Once the kids ate their pizza and mingled a bit, they were
comfortable enough to read their poems out loud. They could choose from the
variety of poetry books I had on display to read from (including Shel Silverstein), a poem they wrote, or
from printouts of poems I had available from the library's collection of books.
A poetry contest winner read her poem that won the poetry contest to the
group and everyone else read poems from library books or from the printouts
from library books. The group of girls were very comfortable and welcoming towards each
other and I seen great teamwork with reading their poems together if one was
shy.
I seen a lot of learning going on, whether it was reading
practice, presenting to a group, teamwork, encouragement, or realizing the
different types of poems and the emotions they presented. They read serious
poems, silly poems, and even sang their poems to the group, showing that they
knew the connection between song lyrics being poetry as well.
Overall, this was a nice group size for this type of
environment and made them feel comfortable enough to read poems to each other.
