Showcase Page 2: Read a Winter Book ...Write A Winter Poem 2004

Marti Plumtree Grade 2
Lincoln Elementary School
La Crescenta, CA

Book: Owl Moon by Jane Yolen

As part of our comprehension study, we have been reading and locating information in fiction and non-fiction pieces of work. At the same time we have been responding to text in many different ways.

Therefore we thought it would be fun to respond to the story using four different poem formats, and using the words and information from the story to enhance our understanding of winter. Here in Southern California some of us only get to visit the snow, we really don't know what it is like to live in the snow.

We chose to do a sensory poem, the important thing, a cinquain, and an acrostic poem. The children worked on one of the poem formats in groups of 4 and 5. Then we met as a class and edited all of the poems together.

A Sensory Poem

Going owling looks like trees standing like giant statues, and the moon shining brightly.

Going owling feels like someone’s icy hand was palm-down on my neck.

Going owling sounds like a train whistle blowing long and low like a sad, sad song.

Going owling made my mouth taste like fur because the scarf over it was wet and warm.

Going owling smells like cold air going up my nose.

The Most Important Things
About Owling

The most important thing about going owling is to observe an owl in its habitat.

Owls are nocturnal, and they hunt at night.

The night sky should be clear with a full moon.

Owls can be found in trees in the woods.

You have to be quiet.

You have to be brave.

If you are lucky you can get to see one.

But the most important thing about going owling is to observe an owl in its habitat.

A Cinquain Poem

Owls
Fluffy, feathery
Hunting, flying, eating
Owls are nocturnal creatures
Birds

An Acrostic Poem

Owls are nocturnal

Whoo –whoo is the sound they make

Like to eat mice

Moon shining on the snow

On a branch owls rest

Owls have good eyesight

Nice and silently they fly.

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Mrs. Brandes' First Grade
Ben Franklin Elementary School
Shrub Oak, New York

Book: The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

Mrs. Brandes’ first grade class read The Snowy Day and wrote this poem.

Free Verse Poem

PETER'S BIG SNOW

Peter woke up one morning
To a snowy snowy day
All that he could think of
Was to go outside and play.

Peter made some snow tracks
And then he wacked a tree
Oops, look what happened
Snow fell all over me.

Then he built a snowman
And made snow angels too
He climbed up a mountain
And thought
What else can I do?

Then Peter made a snowball
And brought it home that day
He was so surprised to see
It melted all away.

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Sandy Huling's First Grade
Donaldson Elementary School
Oakdale, Pennsylvania
School Website

Books: Elmer in the Snow by David Mc Kee
Old Winter by Judith Benet Richardson

Our winter acrostic poem was written after we had read these two books in read aloud time. Our student teacher, Mr. Shuck, came up with the sentence for the acrostic poem so that everyone could add a line. We hope that you enjoy it!

Acrostic Poem

Winter Is A Time For Reading!

W We are reading winter books.
I Icicles
N Never throw a snowball at me!
T Today is cold!
E Every winter it snows.
R Rudolph is nice in the winter.

I I'm going skiing!
S Snowflakes are pretty.

A Antlers on reindeer

T Throw a snowball at me.
I Igloo
M My dog and I go out to play in the
winter.
E Extra time to read new books

F Frozen puddles
O On Monday it's cold.
R Run in the nice weather

R Read Aloud Moms
E Every winter we go to school.
A After Christmas it's winter.
D Dashing through the snow
I I play in the snow with my friends.
N New presents
G Great books for everyone

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Janet Chartrand's First Grade
Elizabeth Park Public School
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Book: Stranger in the Woods by Jean
Stoick and Carl Sams

Here is our winter poem, based on the book Stranger in the Woods. This book is a wonderful photographic fantasy. The
photographs of the animals are beautiful; my students were drawn to the animals immediately. They were sorry to see the book end and so were very happy to be able to extend the story by writing this poem and then creating their own version of the book.

Free Verse Poem

Who Is In the Forest?

Morning came to the still, still wood.
Something in the forest stood.
The blue jay was the first to see
Something underneath a tree.
Others saw a bright, red hat.
Oh what, oh what, oh what was that?
Who would check, check, check it out?
They had to see what it was all about.
The chick-a-dee sat on the stranger’s nose.
The deer found corn at the stranger’s toes.
The animals ate up all the food.
They were so happy and in a good mood.
When the food was gone, the children came
And left the animals more of the same.

As a follow up activity, we wrote a class book entitled What the Snowman Saw. The children were given the following frame:

In the ______________________ the snowman saw ___________________.

They were asked to fill in the blanks and then illustrate the sentence. As you can see by the samples of work, the snowman found himself in some very interesting places!

In the circus, the snowman saw clowns.

jungle_tiger_0002.jpg (10656 bytes)
In the jungle,the snowman saw a tiger.

town_people_0004.jpg (9833 bytes)
In the town,the snowman saw people.

In the desert,the snowman saw camels.

spaceshuttle_astronut_0005.jpg (10258 bytes)
In the space shuttle,the snowman saw an astronaut.

train_engineer_0003.jpg (9273 bytes)
In the train,the snowman saw an engineer.

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Mrs. Little’s Second Grade
Lindo Park School
Lakeside, CA
Class Website

Book: Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner, illustrated by Mark Buehner (Mark Buehner is Mrs. Little's cousin).

After reading this delightful book, we brainstormed together as a class using the overhead projector to display our ideas for our poem.

Next, the students got with a partner and wrote a poem using the poem scaffold form (on our web page). After the poems were completed, we chose lines from the student’s poems to come up with our class poem. Students illustrated their poetry when finished.

Please visit Mrs. Little's webpage to read the entire class poem and see more illustrations.

Pattern Poem
(poem scaffold form for historical fiction or biography)

Snowmen At Night

I am a snowman at night.
I wonder who will win the midnight baseball game.
I hear snowmen slurping chilly cold cocoa made
by snow mothers.
I see snowmen ice skating at the park.
I want to race some more.
I am a snowman at night.

snowman.jpg (6476 bytes)

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Ada Swanson's First Grade
Smith Road Elementary School
North Syracuse, NY

Book: The Mitten by Jan Brett (and other versions)

We read several versions of The Mitten. Our favorite version
is Jan Brett's. We like her borders and the detail in her
pictures. We also read The Hat. We loved how things kept
disappearing off of the clothesline in the border.

We wrote a poem together about the mitten. Then we made
mittens (symmetry) and wrote winter compound words on them. We hung them in the hall in pairs.

Free Verse Poem

The Mitten

Whoever thought
The Mitten
Could make a home
Stretched all out
Animals all cozy together
Sharing space
Oops!
Well, it was nice while it lasted!

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Ms. deLozier and Mrs. Kim's First Grade
J.C. Parks Elementary School
Indian Head, Maryland

Our class has read many winter books this season. The list includes The Mitten, The Great Tobogan Ride, The Jacket I wear in the snow, The Snowman, and Snowmen at Night.

After reading the books we read winter poems for an introduction to poetry. The class created acrostic poems using winter words. Here is the one that was selected as a favorite.

SNOW

Snowballs flying everywhere,
Now I can go ice skating!
Oh, I like to go sledding down a mountain!
Woooooooooow! Yehow!! This is fun! Really Fun!

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Ms. Kreul’s Fourth Graders
Richards Elementary School
Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin
Class Website

Book: Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner
& Mark Buehner

Acrostic

Snowman

Snowmen skating, sliding, skiing, snow boarding at the Klode Carnival
Not caring if people see them, people are home snug in their beds, missing out on the fun
Over the hills, across the ice, through the playground and tennis courts, the snowmen enjoy their winter fun
Wintertime is their favorite season, cold and snowy and perfect for the annual Carnival
Munching on S’mores and slurping strawberry snow cones, snowmen love to feast on winter treats
Always a good time, always meeting new friends, always leaving clues
Never seen by people, never seen by animals, the snowmen always forget to put their sleds away

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Mrs. Bonzer's First Grade Fisher Elementary School Marshalltown, IA
Book: Snowballs by Lois Ehlert
We have been reading many books about winter. We chose the book Snowballs for the internet project. Students took home 3 circles glued together to decorate at home with their family. They brought them back to school and wrote cinquain poems about their snow character. Visit our website to see all of the students' poems. Cinquains
Snow family Fancy clothes Laughing, helping, playing Loving each other everyday! Snow family Class Poem
	Snow Teenager Pretty scarf Sledding, skating, jumping Always feels happy outside Snow Teenager by Natalie
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Miss Renee Meich's First Grade
Martha B. Day School
Bloomingdale, NJ
Class Website

Book: Snow Dance by Lezlie Evans

We attempted a cinquain since we are discussing describing words and feeling words in first grade, We again listened to the book Snow Dance by Lezlie Evans. It has many wonderful describing and action words for snow in it.

Cinquain

Snow

White, Cold

It's falling down,

We get really excited

Snow

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Roberta Gray's Second Grade
Austinburg Elementary
Austinburg, Ohio
Class Website

Poem: The North Wind Doth Blow
Author unknown; traditional nursery rhyme

After reading several fiction, non-fiction, and poetry books about winter and snowflakes, we decided to write additional sections to the traditional poem, The North Wind Doth Blow, for our class poem. We liked this poem because it had rhythm, rhyme, and repetition.

We discussed many ideas and decided to each write about an animal or person. We decided we would start with the original poem and then each add a section in the same format. Here's the original poem:

The North Wind Doth Blow

The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will poor robin do then,
Poor thing?
He'll sit in a barn,
And keep himself warm,
And hide his head under his wing,
Poor thing.

The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will the dormouse do then,
Poor thing?
Roll'd up like a ball,
In his nest snug and small,
He'll sleep till warm weather comes in,
Poor thing.

The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will the children do then,
Poor things?
When lessons are done,
They must skip, jump, and run,
Until they have made themselves warm,
Poor things.

We repeated the same lines of repetition and tried to use the same number of syllables in the following lines as the original poem to maintain the rhythm. Here are a few student stanzas. The entire poem is posted on our
class web site.

Traditional Poem

The North Wind Doth Blow

The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will crocodile do then,
Poor thing?
Open his mouth very wide,
With its many teeth,
And hope it will soon be warmer,
Poor thing.

The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will the boy do then,
Poor thing?
He will play in the snow,
Have a snowball fight,
And will run around to keep warm,
Poor thing.

The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will my friend do then,
Poor thing?
Dress up in warm clothes,
Wrap up in a blanket,
Jump in a bed all fuzzy and warm,
Poor thing.

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Mrs. Linda Quinzi's First Grade
Owasco Elementary School
Auburn, New York
Class Website

Books: Snowballs by Lois Ehlert
The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
The Mitten Tree by Candace Christiansen

Our class began this project by reading several winter books and a few winter poems. We experimented in writing different types of poetry. After reading Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats and Snowballs Lois Elhert, we brainstormed sensory words to use in writing a class poem in the shape of a snowball. The children also wrote their own shape poems. We then read The Mitten Tree by Candace Christiansen and worked on brainstorming the 5 W’s. We then used our list to write a 5 W Poem.

Shape Poem

5 W's Poem

Sarah
Hung the mittens
In the winter
On the old blue spruce tree
To help the children stay warm

Ed. Note: Mrs. Quinzi's original shape poem used a Snowdrift font and a curved shape for "A Snowy Day". It looked terrific! I was not able to post that image - sorry! If any tech person can suggest how to do it, please let me know. ~ Marci M. In case you are wondering, the circular shape was made using MS Word/WordArt.