Happy Celebration Saturday. Ruth Ayres is gathering celebration posts over at her blog, Discover. Play. Build.
First I want to shout out and celebrate fellow poet-blogger, Laura Shovan. For her birthday month, Laura posted Pantone colors as writing prompts. As a prize for my participation, she sent me a package of prompts, colors and postcards. What a great gift! Thanks, Laura.
Sometimes you try a poetry activity and think it didn’t go so well, but then the kids ask for it again. So when C came up, my students asked to do Book Spine Centos. I said, “OK, but you have to spend some time and try to make them have a theme, not just see who can stack up the most books.” Making a well composed cento poem is harder than it looks.
So with a little collaboration and an ever-growing classroom library, my students went to work. While some were perusing the shelves, Vannisa quietly went to the side and lifted the title, “Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry,” and wrote a couplet poem.
by Margaret Simon
A thousand mornings
view from the window seat
blackbird singing
state of wonder
By Nigel
Once upon a marigold,
The Twits
wake up missing
side by side.
By Kendall
Roll of thunder, hear my cry
day by day.
A jar of dreams
choosing up sides
worth
things not seen–
eye of the storm.
If you like this idea, step on over to 100 Scope Notes with Travis Jonker and view his 2014 gallery.
Today, I celebrate a week of poetry writing and reading in my classroom. Poetry makes everything better, even storms.
The thunder is very loud,
rain falls from the cloud.Perfect nonsense is what I say,
I like this rainy thundering dayRoll of thunder, hear my cry,
don’t be so loud, I hear you nearby.Give me back the blue sky,
or else everyone will be on standby.The lightning flashes bright,
making the sky turn black and white.The thunder stops as my teacher reads the poem,
the peacefulness makes me feel at home.Vannisa, age 10, all rights reserved
Reflections on the Teche 
This is such a lovely celebration. I think Nigel’s poem is fantastic. I think there is a short story in there. I will save it and if I write it, I will send it to you to share with him. It is great to see you again. I wrote with you during Teachers Write! a couple of summers ago and when I saw your picture today it was like seeing a camp friend in a new location…such a happy moment!
Kim, I’m so glad you found your way here today and made the connection. This whole kidlit blogging community is a joy to be a part of. Looking forward to that short story.
Wonderful that your students love doing this, too, Margaret. I “wrote” one today too! I love those final two lines of Vannisa’s poem.
Such good celebrations. I always love the book title poems. Loved your anaphora poem at Caroine Star Rose this morning.
Meant Caroline.
I like seeing how people combine different titles to create book spine poems. I also like seeing familiar titles in them. The unfamiliar titles make me curious. Celebrating poetry together with you.
Vannisa’s last stanza says so much about the wonderful relationship you have with your students, Margaret!
Wonderful examples of the spine poetry by your students. And I love the images in the last poem that you shared. Such engaged writers!
I have seen so many spine poems but have yet to try this. Since I am trying to write a poem a day, I will put this in my “arsenal. “. I love Vannisa’s poem too. We had lots of thunder this week – even made thunder cake! Thanks for for sharing your students’ poetry. These make great mentor texts!
Kudos to Kendall and Nigel!
Great job, kiddos
on your book spine centos.
And Margaret — I’m so glad you enjoyed the cards! Your poems during the Pantone Poetry Project were an inspiration. It was a pleasure to share the month of writing with you.