Keep On, Keepin’ On and Visualizing with Poetry

This time of year is hard for me. I know I may sound like a complete lunatic when I say this, but I could keep on keeping on… forever. My students and I have developed such a special connection, and it is hard to know that soon they will be gone. I just can’t believe it. So, for now, I’m going to pretend that it is not over quite yet (because really…it isn’t!) Today, we began our unit on poetry by making visualizations as we read. We had all kinds of fun with this! We used a great $1.00 Scholastic Poetry packet I picked up yesterday (thanks to Mrs. Bainbridge for telling everyone about that great deal!) and Amanda Nickerson’s Music of Our Hearts poetry packet. LOVE HER! Plus, we were able to pull out some of the unused activities from my Common Core Aligned: Open Your Eyes and Visualize packet.

(Click on the image above to still grab that deal. The 187 online book is usually 19.99!)

(click on the link above  to take you to Amanda’s store…you’ll love this packet!)

(click on the link above to take to to my store!)

To introduce the lesson, I had everyone sit in a circle with the lights off. I made them close their eyes and visualize what they were hearing as I read the first poem. Then, we shared our visualizations with each other. I loved how they all used such descriptive language! Then, I gave them three different poems to read. They paired up with a buddy, found a quiet spot in the classroom, and began visualizing. I allowed them to take turns closing their eyes as their buddy read the poem. IT WAS AWESOME. They were totally into it. Afterwards, they drew their visualizations on an organizer from Amanda’s packet. I loved walking around hearing their discussions. PRICELESS!

(yes, that is one of my students visualizing while resting his head on his beanbag!)

Who wouldn’t want to keep on, keepin’ on with a class like this?