Fabulous Freebies: Teaching Poetry

One genre that has always been challenging, yet rewarding for me to teach is poetry.  The Common Core expects students to dig into the nuances of language.  Poetry slow students down, requiring them to think through punctuation, word choice, tone, mood, etc.  So, I've been adding to my folder of resources for next year.  Here are a few of my new favorites...

Poem Hunter is a website that I have used many times.  You can search for free for just about any poem by just about any renowned poet.  There are biographies and videos available to accompany lessons.  This site can be used to access the texts or do a biography study of favorite poets.

This is one Limerick Writing lesson available for free on Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT).  The packet has examples, notes on what a limerick is and student friendly handouts so your students can write their own.  This would make a great writing lesson, introduction of limericks, extension lesson after students have read limericks or even a simple sub plan.

This is one of many Haiku Writing lessons available for free on TPT.  Like the limerick packet, this lesson comes with examples, notes on what a haiku is and handouts so your students can write their own.  It would be a great lesson to couple with a unit on Japan, poetry, and/or nature.

This Poetry Packet is another lesson I'm filing away for next year.  It is another TPT freebie.  It has descriptions of the following poem types: Acrostic, Cinquain, Couplet, Diamante, and Haiku.  There is a template so students can write their own book of poems.  It would be a good project idea to summarize a poetry unit.

Auto Rap is a new free app.  Students record their poems and the recording is automatically synched with a rhythm and turned into a rap.  I can't wait to try this with my students and let them hear their voices rapping the poems they write!

Fabulous Freebies: Web Tools Worth Bookmarking!

These are all websites I've enjoyed using with my students.  If the description sounds interesting, click on the image to be taken to the website and investigate more!

1) This is a website that generates bingo cards.  You can choose from their list of themed cards or use your own word lists to make your own printable cards.

2) Animoto is a website where you can create short digital movies.  Just upload pictures of your class and let them generate a mini movie of a trip you took, a special project, etc.  Then you can share it with the class and their families in school or via email.

3) Use the website ToonDoo to allow your students to create their own comic strips.  They can create one based on a story they read in class or make up their own.  They really enjoy working with this website.

4) This is the newest one to me.  It is a coloring page generator.  I recently used it to create a one-of-a-kind coloring book of memories.  Use it to make a momento from a fun class trip.

5) This is a site that I've used to have students create fun plot summaries of stories.  They can go online and create their own cartoons with captions, characters, settings, etc.

6) This one is a fabulous online archive of pictures from Life magazine.  This is a great way to introduce famous people and events from history.  Create a gallery walk that allows students to see and develop a context for the content before studying it.

7) The seventh one is a list of really cool virtual tours.  I was able to show my students a spectacular 360 degree view of Machu Picchu.  I found a site with a live feed from a nature preserve in the Sahara.  This page is definitely worth checking out and using with your students.

8) Finally, the Smithsonian website has a rich bank of
lessons that can be used to bring history to life!

To see a list of many more free online resources, check out my pinterest page of Websites Useful to Teachers.  

Online Tool with Quick Brain Breaks

GoNoOdle is a must-check-out-because-your-students-will-love-it website.  It is ideal for the primary grades where students' stamina is limited to small burst of time.  You can create an account for free and then access any number of brain break videos/exercises.  Olympians will take your students through short training sessions before leading them in a virtual athletic competition.  It is a great way to give your students a short break to get out the wiggles in the classroom before transitioning into a lesson.

For other virtual tools, check out my pinterest board of "websites useful to teachers."

My Favorite Websites for Teaching Art

A few weeks ago Etc shared her favorite websites for teaching English. This week I'm sharing some of my favorite websites for teaching art.

Pinterest has become my favorite website for teaching art! I love searching for lesson plans since it is so easy to see what the final product looks like and sometimes the description is enough to understand the lesson. I have done many lessons from Pinterest with ease and have had a lot of success with them. I pin all the lessons I do (and plenty I haven't had time for!) on my Pinterest pages divided by grades K-5 and 6-12 fun art lessons.

I like the Blick art materials website for getting ideas on art lessons because they are very thorough and many times include short videos with tutorials that make it easy to see how to complete the project. Now since they sell art materials sometimes they can use some fancy materials that are not for schools with small budgets but I have still found many relevant and easy lessons on the site.

Origami Instructions is a great website for using origami in your classroom. They have instructions in a variety of ways so if you get to a tricky step (most instructions are quite easy, however!) it is easy to understand what to do.

Origami is also a great thing for fast finishers and sometimes I print out the instructions for fast finishers in my classroom. Some prior practice with origami is helpful, however, if you decide to go this route.

The Incredible Art Department has a wealth of information on art lessons and makes it easy to find what you are looking for. I like that I can search by material, age group, or type of lesson and all the contributers are other teachers so the lesson plans are practical and realistic. Often times photos from their classroom are in the lesson as well.

Do you have a great website for teaching art that I didn't mention? Please let me know about it so I can check it out!

My Favorite Websites for Teaching English

I have a pinterest board dedicated to useful teaching websites.  Here is a list of my favorite ones to use with my English classes...

Poem Hunter will provide you with the poems from any number of poets.  I use it all the time.  Whenever I need to find a poem it is the first place I look.  It has short bios on a ton of well known poets along with online texts of their writings.  It is very handy.  The site is super user friendly and comprehensive.  

Prezi.com is a website that allows students to make cooler versions of power points.  It takes them a class period or so to play around with it and figure out how to use all of the tools, but once they know how, they love it.  They can add videos, pictures, objects, colors, themes and pretty much everything else that they can do with powerpoint.  But, the visual effects are unique and fun to play around with.  They can save them online and share them with anyone who has an email address.  It is definitely worth checking out.

Purdue Owl is a great resource with a wide variety of writing tips.  The material is most appropriate for  students in middle school through college age students.  I use it all the time as a reference for how to create bibliographies and citations using MLA formatting rules.  Once my students have shown me they know how to format their bibliographic entries, I let them cheat by using easybib.com.

6 + 1 Writing Traits  is a well known writing, teaching and assessment framework.  The title refers to the traits in writing that we want all of our students to develop over time: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions and presentation.  The common language is useful in aligning teachers across contents and grade levels to provide united expectations of students.

Writing Fix and English Companion are websites that have a ton of resources for teaching writing and reading.  They include strategies, graphic organizers, etc.  They have a wealth of information and are worth perusing.

Finally, Grammar Bytes  has a wealth of grammar activities to help reinforce grammar rules with yours students.  The sentences are fun and contemporary.