Rainy Day Poems

We’ve reached the end of our little units for March. Our poetry unit was great and lots of fun, but everyone felt it was time to put it to rest and move on. After reading tons of poetry, discussing the images we see in our heads, and the meanings behind the poems, I gave them two final pieces to consider before wrapping up the unit.

Remember those awesome rainy day paintings they did? They wrote their poems to respond to their art. We took a period to brainstorm and discuss what rain looks like, sounds like, and feels like. We even did a rain circle (where someone starts by snapping their fingers and steadily gets noisier, then quieter to resemble a rainstorm. I’m sure you’ve done it at some point in your childhood).

They then took all our ideas and wrote poems about a rainy day. I didn’t put too many parameters on it because I didn’t want to stifle any creativity. Here’s one that I just loved: 

Boomy boomy boom boom.

Rain, rain go away. Come again another day.

Wetty wetty wet wet.

Boom boom boom.

Muddy muddy mud mud.

Blue blue. Gray gray. Wet wet.

I’m so wet wet wet.

I love how this student included beat and repetition in the poem he created. I’m telling you, I have 18 wonderful little poets in my class.

For the final analysis piece, I gave them this poem:

The Ice Cream Store

By Dennis Lee

Oh, the kids around the block are like an

Ice cream store.

‘Cause there’s chocolate and vanilla,

And there’s maple and there’s more.

And there’s butterscotch and orange---

Yes, there’s flavours by the score;

And the kids around the block are like

An ice cream store!

We had a great discussion about how the poet isn’t talking about ice cream; he’s talking about diversity and how we are all different. It lead into a fantastic discussion.

I’m not going to tell you that we completely wrapped up our addition math unit. We are done with the restaurant piece, but on Monday we will be moving into subtraction and they will certainly have to continue adding if they want to subtract.

Side story: In my first year of university, I went to my first class called, “Math for Educators” and my professor said, “There is no such thing as subtraction!”

Talk about feeling mislead all your life! But he’s {sort of} right; subtraction is simply reversed addition. If you can add, you’ll never really need to subtract.

I’m hoping this is where I’ll get with my class. If they have strong addition skills {which they do}, then they should be able to solve many subtraction questions simply by adding up. It’s a tough concept for grade ones, so we’ll see how it goes.

I’m putting the final touches, bells, and whistles on my unit plans this weekend. I’m super excited to begin our science unit on structures and mechanisms. We have a lot of fun ideas in the works.

Happy Sunday!