Warm Up with Poetry: Making Your Poem of the Week Valuable

I have done a Poem of the Week for years. The poem helped cover many quick lessons during the introductory week and review lessons in the weeks that followed. The poem of the week were generally chosen or created to integrate another lesson in reading, math, science, or social studies.
More Winter?

As the poem is introduced and read daily, students are asked to do something new each day.

• Monday - Read and Understand the poem.
• Tuesday - Find the Word Wall Words
• Wednesday - Determine the characters and setting.
• Thursday - Comprehension Discussion
• Friday - Change the ending or Change the Theme

But then...

My favorite part of Poem of the Week, is that it doesn't end there. The following week, students will find the poem in several centers. The Pocket Chart Center can have the poem typed re-arranged into strips on the page. Students will order and illustrate the poem. The Poetry Center will have a copy of the poem. The first semester the poem is provided and students need to circle the word wall words, color them yellow, illustrate the poem, read it to a friend, then read it to an adult. The Art Center is always an illustration of the poem with a smaller version of the poem attached. The Word Wall Center will have word wall words introduced and practiced in the poem of the week. This method allows for two things: students who practice a process for success and teachers who don't have to reinvent the wheel each week in planning centers.

Interventions with Connections

Our school Concept of Word Intervention uses the poem from the week before as a stepping board for the intervention. Students are asked to perform tasks daily with the poem.

• Monday - Orally say the poem with picture cues.
• Tuesday - Point with touch mats to each word in the poem, with special attention to multi-syllable words.
• Wednesday - Cut and order the sentences in the poem.
• Thursday - Practice words in isolation with the poem for modeling.
• Friday - Read the words in isolation as an assessment.

As you can tell, I believe in a poem of the week. 

If you would like a FREE set of the More Winter? poem, click the link or the picture below.

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