full of surprises

It's two weeks before state testing for public schools in our state. In my classroom we have been doing test practice in the morning and doubling up on our math lessons each day.

Today there was a small interruption in my lesson plans when they took more than a quarter of my class out of the room for ESL testing. Keeping in mind that we only have so much time until testing, but I don't want to start something completely new with people gone from the room, I decide to pull a lesson up on my Smart Board on Haiku poetry (which is a component of Figurative Language/Poetry that is on a portion of the reading test).

The students learned about the format of a Haiku (3 lines with these syllables in each 5, 7, then 5 in the last line). I was surprised by their collaborative efforts. The class helped write this poem:

Beautiful water
Trees around the waterfall
Waterfalls are cool.

I just think the poem is pretty and simple.

Poetry is actually a strength for some of my students. Here is another example. Earlier this week a student came up to me and said she wrote me a poem:

Mrs. Kennedy
Always giving someone praise
Quietly in her gentle ways

I'm hoping she actually came up with this herself, but it wouldn't surprise me if this poem was inspired from another piece of work.