Find more Poetry Friday at Tabatha’s blog, The Opposite of Indifference.
Do you know what a bandicoot is? I didn’t. Neither did my students. We looked at bandicoots for the Wonder of the Week. After we read the page, watched the video, talked about the words, my new little first grader announced, “Now we write a POEM!” After only a few months he knows how my teaching flows. So, of course we did.
One of my colleagues found the poem Benjamin Bandicoot by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson.
If you walk in the bush at night,
In the wonderful silence deep,
By the flickering lantern light
When the birds are all asleep
You may catch a sight of old Skinny-go-root,
Otherwise Benjamin Bandicoot. (Read complete poem here.)
I asked my students to use alliteration in their titles and use at least 3 facts in their poems. I wrote, too, and settled for the acrostic form. It took me all day to write. Acrostics are not as easy as they look.
Busy
Australian marsupial
Nesting in a pile of leaves
Darkness cloaks
Insects are a delectable snack.
Creature with a ratty tail
Outback wanderer
Over land forager
Terrified of a bush fire,
Busy Bandicoot skedaddles.
Kielan worked more than a day on her poem and even created an Animoto video with it. I love her title, Banjo Boomsnicker Bandicoot.
Reflections on the Teche 