Let's get started with the Poetry Picnic! My team wanted to do a reading rotation to celebrate different genres. Side note: Fridays are definitely my favorite days to do transformations and fun lessons! Other than Mondays where you can use Saturday and Sunday to set up, Fridays are great because students can be more wiggly and excited, and then everyone gets a break over the weekend!
For our reading rotation, we decided that students would visit each teachers' room to learn about genres including graphic novels, drama, poetry, fantasy, mystery, and biography. We each chose our genre and got to work! I am a huge fan of poetry and I think it is vastly under-celebrated. I chose poetry because I wanted to give our kids a fun introduction to this genre that can sometimes seem boring or difficult. I knew that with only 20 minutes, I wanted the students to dive into a few different types of poetry and have an opportunity to write their own poems. My first idea was to set up a poetry club! I contacted the fabulous Susan Barnes who teaches at the Ron Clark Academy and asked if she might have any ideas for me. She was a huge help and offered some great suggestions! I love that in this world of education, we use each other as resources and are so helpful in supporting one another.
Because our reading rotations were coming up quickly and I already had a few picnic-themed items, I decided to go with the Poetry Picnic instead of the club idea, but that would be so fun for older grades or in the future! I used the Poetry Picnic Table Cards from KaSandra Elvir as an introduction to each of the types of poetry. One card for each table! I used haiku, rhyme, shape, free verse, and acrostic. You can search her store on TPT and find the adorable cards!
After each group made it around to the 5 tables, it was time for the poem writing to begin! I know that especially with 2nd graders, coming up with topics for writing can be hard. In each of the cute little cups, I had 10 topics for the students to randomly pick from and write about. The topics included things like family, favorite memory, school, friends, favorite food, and dreams. I gave the students a few seconds to grab their topic and think of ideas. Then, they had about 5 minutes to write their poems. If there was any time left, they got to share their poems with their neighbors. I was so surprised at how quickly they began writing their poems! I encouraged them to choose their favorite type of poem that they'd learned about in the rotation. Many of them went with acrostics and rhyming poems, but I had a few haikus that rocked! It was so great to see the work paying off!
Having little red candies or some other form of positive behavior reinforcement is a must when doing any kind of rotation. With students from other classes who I didn't know well, it was easy to compliment them and pass out the treats. They loved them! Party City had candies in every color, so I will definitely be going back and getting more for any future transformations! Also, Hope King's poetry vocabulary that I had hung up in the front of the room can be found on her TPT store. Super cute! I can't wait to go into more detail with this pack when we study poetry in depth later on in the year.
Overall, this adorable transformation probably took 7 hours including set up, shopping for materials, and coming up with the activities. Definitely one of the less strenuous transformations, and I absolutely recommend it! All I had to make myself on PPT were the recording sheets for the poems and the topics that went into the little buckets. If you have any questions about this fun day, leave me a note in the comments! I'm happy to help with your Poetry Picnic!
Meg