Winter Poems from "Read a Book - Write A Poem"

 4-line Poems

5 Ws Poem

Character Poem

More Poetry Formats

A haiku has three lines

Lines 1 and 3 have five syllables.

Line 2 has seven syllables.

A cinquain has five lines.

Line 1 is one word (the title);

Line 2 is two words that describe the title.

Line 3 is three words that tell action

Line 4 is four words that express feeling

Line 5 is one word that recalls the title

A quatrain has four lines.

Lines 2 and 4 must rhyme.

Lines 1 and 3 may or may not rhyme.

Rhyming lines should have about the same number of syllables.

A limerick has five lines.

Lines 1, 2, and 5 have seven to ten syllables
and rhyme with one another.

Lines 3 and 4 have five to seven syllables
and also rhyme with each other.

A couplet has rhyming stanzas of two lines each.

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Important Book Pattern

The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown has a wonderful pattern on each page that even very young students can learn.

Beginning sentence: The important thing about my school is ....write one thing.
Middle sentence(s): mention a few or several other key features.
Ending sentence: repeat the beginning.

Note: The first & last sentences are the same.

This is a writing format that is effective for  writers in all grades.  Success comes with just a little practice.

My Town Is Important - This was our spring 2001 project.  It's all about students' important towns and communities.

The Important Thing About London, Ontario
Debbie Rastin's Gr. 2/3 students wrote about their town

Lisa Gamache's 2nd grade: Important Snowflake Poems 

Additional Poetry Resources

Poetry Workshop - article by Denise Johnson
(she mentions our project in her resources list!)

Writing Kids Poems by Regie Routman

Mrs. Hendrickson's Poetry Pages

RhymeZone Rhyming Dictionary and Thesaurus

Poems:  Room 13

Acrostic Poems from Mrs. Schalfe's 2nd Grade

Mrs. Pawloski's 4th Grade Class

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Important Sites For Special Places

How far Is It? - find the latitude and longitude of your special place.  Check out the other links when you get there. 

Margaret Wise Brown

Make Way For Ducklings -  Comprehensive geography/economics lesson developed by Patricia King Robeson.   

Farmer Fred's Frantic Farm -  Webquest for K-2 by Tracy Montemayor.

Field Trip - Visit Awesome Places - Take a tour of some important places in your town; from HUD.

What's My Job? - About community helpers; from HUD.

World Safari at supersurf.com - Different countries are highlighted. Don't miss this one!

Scavenger Hunt - Lots of good ideas

Scavenger Hunt - Another source of good ideas for things to find on a scavenger hunt; from HUD.

Community - activity/lesson ideas

Community Brochures - from Education Place

City Profiles - A collection of 21 profiles of some of the world’s largest cities.  Prepared by the United Nations CyberSchoolBus as part of their "Cities of Today, Cities of Tomorrow!" program.

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Important Sites About Quilts

About Quilting

Activities & Lessons

Comments From Participating Teachers About How
They Made Their Class Quilt

Comments From Other Teachers About Making Quilts

Clip Art and Web Images

In my search for good resources to share,  I found many quilting sites that are no longer available.   Please send email if you cannot reach any of the ones I have listed.  ~ Marci

About Quilting

A Quilter's Story
Anna Grossnickle Hines, author of Pieces, A Year in Poems & Quilts tells how her book came to be.  Great story of a writer/quilter!

Baltimore Album Quilts

Log Cabin Quilts

Classic Quilts

Crazy Quilts

Amish Quilts Quilts: 7 Southern Women

USA Quilt Project (last year's)
Good background info. for our project

Activities & Lessons

Friendship Quilt from Paula Metzger's Friendship Unit
"Some teachers I know have made a friendship quilt. Each child is given a quilt square. In each corner they draw and/or write a hobby or interest. In the center of the square, they can draw a self portrait, or you can glue their school picture on. For example, one child might use the following 4 interests in the corners: soccer, painting, reading, fishing. When individual squares are done, they are assembled together to make a class quilt, which then becomes a classroom display that children can refer to throughout the year."
 

Quilting With Children
Features pages on creating picture blocks, tying a quilt, finishing edges

Patchwork Quilt Poems
Patricia Murphy had these poems saved in her files.
Thanks for sharing!

Favorite Places Everywhere Quilt Project
Read how different teachers made quilts with their students.

Our Comfort Quilt Story 2001-2002
From Kristi Rennebohm Franz; children made a quilt in the classroom; lots of pictures!

Robin Parete's First Grade Random Acts of Kindness Quilt
See the quilt and find out how they did this wonderful project.

Mr. Leahy's Class - Underground Railroad Quilt
Excellent project!

Quilt Unit from Addie Gaines
   
Michelle Weber's Quilt Activities

Michelle Mole's Quilt Page

America Quilts: Quilts in the Classroom from PBS
Features 3rd grade class project

Lesson Exchange:American Quilts
An integrated thematic unit posted on Teacher's Net

Tree of Life Paper Quilt

Paper Quilts (Lesson Plan)
       
Kid's Quilt Designs  

Mrs. Tonneson's Quilt Unit
Great ideas including an "edible quilt".

Debbie Meyer's Quilt Unit

Tips for Making Quilts
Make with ink jet transfer paper

The World Wide Quilting Page

World Wide Quilting Page: The WWQP Quilt Coloring Book
Quilt block pages to print out and color.  Lots of quilt blocks!

From Participating Teachers:
How They Made Their Class Quilt

From Roberta Gray:  We made our squares out of white ditto paper. We had planned to use white construction paper, but our paper order had not yet come in.  The children wanted to make a diamond quilt.  We put a lined diamond in the center of the square for our poems. The poems were written on the diamond and drawings about the poem were placed in each of the corners.  The poems were then traced with a marker and the middle diamonds were colored. We did not want to leave the middle diamonds white, yet we wanted to be able to read the poems. Then we discussed how to arrange the squares. Since we are not allowed to post names on the internet we used our "secret numbers".  Each child is assigned a secret number which is used on any posted Internet work.  Children may share the number with family and friends, yet their identity is still unknown to strangers.  They decided to just put the squares in order by their numbers.  The next problem was to decide how many across and down.  They liked the size of 5 across and 4 down, but we only have 17 children in our class.  They decided to add a square with the name of the project, a square with our classroom name and a square with our school name.  The squares were glued onto a large sheet of white bulletin board backing paper and trimmed to size. The "stitches"(small x's) were added with a black Sharpie.The children were so thrilled that they could see the diamonds created by the corners when it was finished. They said it was like a trick picture of diamonds.  The children insisted that it be laminated to protect it from touching.  It had to be cut into two sections for laminating and then was taped backed together.  Laminating also melted and smeared some of the darker coloring, but it does look nice in the hall.   We have only had it up for a short time(the last hour of school on Friday) and have received lots of compliments.  This was a very easy and quick way to create the quilt and yet still allow them to see how much planning and cooperation  is required in making a group quilt.

Email Comments From Other Teachers
Who Have Made Classroom Quilts

In preparation for this project, I wrote to some mailrings and asked for "quilting" tips from real experience.  These teachers responded with wonderful examples of how they did this with their students.   Thanks so much!

From Paula Schwimmer:  I did this years ago with a pre-K class, but it could easily be done with older children. After reading The Patchwork Quilt by Victoria (I think) Flournoy. I had my students bring in a 6 x 6 in. piece of cloth from a favorite article of clothing that they (or another loved one) outgrew or no longer wore (one student brought in fabric that her grandma had used to repair her favorite stuffed bear!). The children then dictated a story to me about this cloth (where it came from, why it is special, what memory does it bring up, etc.) Older students could write their own story.  Then gave each child a 6x6 in square of white cloth (I just cut an old bed sheet into squares) and using fabric pens, I transferred their story  to  the cloth (again, older children could write their own). Finally, using double sided bonding (stitch witchery) I attached their fabric square   and  their story side by side (I alternated these so that it was checkerboard   style on the finished product). Lastly, I had a parent who was a  quilter put a border and a backing on to this. It came out beautifully! The  kids  all loved looking at it and reading each others stories. At the end of  the  year, everyone wanted to take it home. We actually ended up auctioning  it  off, and using the funds to buy books for the class!

Sherry in GA:  I enjoy doing it with my class each year. Each child makes a square, I set them up, stitch them together on the machine and put on a backing. We sell them at our spring carnival the following year--when the kids are in first grade and parents may be more nostalgic about the past:-). Receipts go to the PTA. Some of the ideas I have used for the squares:  handprints labeled with students' names, boy/girl cutouts from fabric brought in by each student,   ironed-on crayon transfer of original artwork,  and the cutest so far...   I ironed on three white fleece "snowballs" onto a dark blue background square, then sent it home for homework asking the family to decorate it as a snowman. All but one was returned!  Hope this helps.

Kerry in B.C. Canada:  I wanted to show you the craft I used to make a Snowman Quilt last January.  Here's the main part of the block that each child made:

Egg Carton Snowman

Because of the egg carton, the quilt was 3-D which was fun.  The snowman was mounted on a dark blue square just slightly bigger than the egg carton. Around it were triangles and other smaller squares.

Laurie Leff :   ... project we did was to use pattern block pieces cut from the Ellison machine to make a design. Initially we let the kids make a pattern on a black circle--starting from the center point and building out. That worked for 3rd grade. But for 2nd we ended up making a 6 pointed star template and had the children fill it in with a pattern. First they made their star from actual pattern blocks, then they reproduced it onto paper using the paper pieces. After drying we cut them out, mounted them on black squares and mounted these on butcher paper to put together a large quilt.
     Culmination of the unit was an old fashioned quilt show/potluck supper for all 2nd grade families. We involved the tech teacher who had the kids do quilt blocks on the computer to be put into a slide show presentation. The music teacher taught songs of the proper era and the PE teacher taught square and line dances. After dinner we went into the gym for our Quilt show--many we had made==mostly paper, and ones the kids had brought in-- it was amazing the number they had and the stories that went with them. They had a form to fill out giving some of the history of the quilt. A former student who is a gifted violinist learned some "fiddlin" songs to play. Then we ended the evening with kids and parents partnered up to do some square dancing. The best moments were some of the expressions of sheer delight from the parents in letting loose and just having pure fun with their kids.
     My quilting days are done--I retired in June. And I hardly can sew on a button! Hope there's something here you find helpful. 

Stephanie:   In my student teaching (this was with older kids but I think it could work for first grade) we read the book Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold. Each page of the story is set up with a quilt pattern around it and a colorful illustration which covers most of the page, then the couple of sentences are on the bottom. We made our own quilt pages by drawing a picture of a favorite memory on a sheet of white paper (I can give you the exact measurements if need be) and then writing a short commentary about that memory. We then glued that paper onto a piece of construction paper and used small square pieces of construction paper or wallpaper to make a pattern around the entire page. It came out looking great. Did this during Black History Month and discussed the history of quilting in the African American community.

Clip Art and Web Images

Quilt Backgrounds from Jeanne's Quilting

Quilt Backgrounds

Compuquilt Icons & Images

Dawn's Quilting Images

Pat's Web Graphics

Freemo Designs Clip Art

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