Book of the Month: Night Wishes

Night Wishes, poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins, was chosen as my December Book of the Month. This book has been on various poetry lists for children and I can see why with it's gliding words and beautiful artwork by Jen Corace. 

Summary: How would a clock, nightlight, or teddy bear say good night? In this enchanting poetry collection, Lee Bennett Hopkins and thirteen other poets imagine the wishes whispering through a young girl's bedroom as she falls asleep. 

Ages: 4-8 years

"Night melts your room into shadows and ink. Think of my pages, O Dreamer, just think..." ~Excerpt of the poem Book by Joyce Sidman

This is the perfect poetry book for bed and encourages readers and listeners alike to make their own poems about what is in their bedroom and how would they imagine these things would say goodnight. 

Each poem will inspire imagination and calmness for the perfect nighttime slumber.  

Book of the Month: Out of Wonder

Since my use of Kwame Alexander's picture book and it's companion DVD of Out of Wonder was received so well at the Power of the Pizza Poetry Party, I decided it is well deserved of a Book of the Month review.

Summary: Out of gratitude for the poet’s art form, Newbery Award winning author and poet Kwame Alexander, along with Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth, present original poems that pay homage to twenty famed poets who have made the authors’ hearts sing and their minds wonder. Stunning mixed-media images by Ekua Holmes, winner of a Caldecott Honor and a John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award, complete the celebration, inviting the viewer to listen, wonder, and perhaps even pick up a pen.

Ages: 8-12 years

How to Write a Poem

Celebrating Naomi Shihab Nye

Hush.

Grab a pencil

some paper

spunk.

Let loose your heart—

raise your voice.

What if I have many voices?

Let them dance together

twist and turn

like best friends

in a maze

till you find

your way

to that one true word

(or two).

--Kwame Alexander

Out of Wonder is a wonderful poetry anthology that celebrates famous authors and their style of poetry. This is a perfect introduction to poetry and the poets who have a beautiful way with words. These poems can be read out loud or enjoyed privately and touch the heart and soul of those who read them. The illustrations are inspiring in themselves and every element of this book is paired perfectly together. I would also recommend the audio version and especially the DVD version that has animated illustrations and soothing music that compliments every poem.

Kwame Alexander's book, The Write Thing has also been a great resource for my writing programs and deserves an honorable mention. 

Power to the Pizza Poetry Party

After encouraging promotion for this program as an intention for celebrating National Poetry Month, I was concerned we only had five kids registered for the program and I wasn't sure how the turn-out would be and was surprised that the pizza element didn't make registration more tempting. Despite the registration count, this still turned out to be a terrific program with those registered and those who participated in our poetry contest attending.

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.

April is National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month and since I do all of the youth writing programs at my library currently and have been hearing that our patrons want more children's writing programs, I wanted to do a poetry program.

I have always been passionate about writing and wanted to encourage young writers to write about anything their heart desires so I'm thankful I get the chance to teach and inspire future authors. 

I kept monitoring my registration stats for this program since despite hearing comments that they want more writing programs, the attendance hasn't been exactly great for them. I think this is partly because for some, school hasn't made writing fun. Also, the older age kids are harder to pull into the library for programs. Some kids want these programs during the school year and some want these programs during the summer. Unfortunately, no one attended today's program. 

I can save the lesson plan for another time, another April, but I'll be re-evaluating whether or not to have writing programs during the school year.

For our would-be poetry workshop, we were going to go over a variety of poems using examples and analyze their structure and meaning. I had prepared a short and sweet powerpoint on the poems I wanted to cover. 

Next, I had plans to read a two-voice poem with help from the group and show a few more poetry examples to focus on how poems can have all different subject matters. 

We were going to come up with our own concrete poem using a flower template shape (or other shape) and then come up with our own acrostic poem using any word we choose. 

I also was going to let them know that we currently have a poetry contest going on at the library and encourage them to enter. 

The types of poems we were going to go over were concrete, simile, metaphor, cinquain, haiku, onomatopoeia, acrostic, imagery, and two-voice. 

Some of the poetry examples to be used were "My Family" by Stacy Zeiger, "The Rollercoaster" by Kelly Roper, "A Graduation Poem for Two" by Stephanie Klose, "Sick" by Shel Silverstein, "Bed in Summer" by Robert Louis Stevenson, "There Was an Old Man with a Beard" by Edward Lear, and "A Bird, Came Down the Walk" by Emily Dickinson. 

Good news is I have a ready-made poetry lesson. 

The nice weather we have been having also played a role I'm sure, since it's pretty quiet in throughout the library.