Monday in March, What are You Reading?

 This month I am going to be focusing on poetry books. One of the teachers I work with has Poetry Friday and they work with poems in the writer's workshop every Friday.  I love that idea! Many classrooms are busy with state testing this month. Doing a unit in poetry is a relaxing, fun way to focus on another type of writing.

all the small poems and fourteen more by Valerie Worth is a great book for any grade level. What I like best about this book is that it is not rhyming poetry. Do you know how hard that is to find for children? This book is full of poems that children can identify with and use as mentor texts. Ms. Worth also uses all aspects of poet's craft.  Her poems are fresh and observations are sharp. Here's a sample:
sun
The sun
Is a leaping fire
Too hot
To go near,

But it will still
Lie down
In warm yellow squares
On the floor

Like a flat
Quilt, where
The cat can curl
And purr.

The other book I want to start out with for the month is  Love That Dog by Sharon Creech. Yes, it is a novel, but it is based on poetry. This is a must read for the 3rd-5th graders studying this genre. It gives boys, especially, a new outlook on poetry. Here's a sample when Jack was asked to write a poem:
Sept. 13
I don't want to
because boys
don't write poetry.
Girls do.