This week was Wonder Week in my classroom as we explored Welcome to the Wonder House by Rebecca Kai Dotlich and Georgia Heard. Each day I let a student choose which “room” we would visit. In this book, there are rooms you would not expect to find: The Room of Ordinary Things, The Room of Imagination, The Room of Wishes. Each page contains poems by Rebecca and Georgia. Each poem invites the reader to think, feel, wonder.
After I read aloud the poems, we notice things like structure, metaphor, imagery. Then they write in their notebooks.
Georgia talks about creating a space for poetry every day. It doesn’t have to take long. I believe in the power of poetry to teach, but also to inspire and somehow settle into you and become part of you.
I write alongside my students every day. We’ve been using markers, colored pencils, washi tape to make our pages pop and please us. Here is a page of my own notebook.
Our notebooking is not perfection which is something I model. Some pages are messy. Some pages do not come out like we want them to, but the practice of playing with poetry, following a line, stealing a metaphor, making an acrostic from a single word, satisfies the imagination and fills the soul.
If you are interested in participating in the Kidlit Progressive Poem in the month of April, the sign up is here.
Reflections on the Teche 