This week most grades are enjoying poetry. Specific book selections can be found on the Weekly Readalouds page.
Grade 4 will have a chance this week to create "blackout poems," a form created by poet Austin Kleon (video interview below). We will work with pages from discarded books. To create a blackout poem, the poet selects words from a page of text and "blacks out" the rest of the page with a black marker. It's not as easy as it sounds: choosing words that work together takes real thought, but it can yield some wonderful poems.
Grade 4 will have a chance this week to create "blackout poems," a form created by poet Austin Kleon (video interview below). We will work with pages from discarded books. To create a blackout poem, the poet selects words from a page of text and "blacks out" the rest of the page with a black marker. It's not as easy as it sounds: choosing words that work together takes real thought, but it can yield some wonderful poems.
Next week will be Pennekamp's "Poem-in-Your-Pocket Week." Our weeklong event is inspired by national Poem-in-Your-Pocket Day. Next week, students are invited to carry a poem in their pocket--to share with a friend, read to the class, or simply for the fun of reaching in a pocket and finding a poem in there! Students can bring their poem to the library and be photographed for our annual "Pocket Poem" poster. Many poetry books are on display this week in the library. If a student would like to write an original poem for his or her pocket, that would be great! Students can also hand-copy or photocopy one from a book. There are many poetry sites online, but most have poems for adults, with adult content, so parents--please watch out for that.
Winners have been announced for the contests in which we've been participating this year: The winner of the California Young Reader Medal in the Primary category is The Day the Crayons Quit, by Drew Dawalt; and in the Picture Books for Older Readers category, the winner is Helen's Big World: The Life of Helen Keller, by Doreen Rapaport. The winner of the Cook Prize is Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France, by Mara Rockliff.
The district summer pleasure reading lists have been posted on the MBUSD website. Look under the tab for Students or the tab for Parents--you should see Summer Reading Lists. The lists for grades 1 and 2, grade 3, and for grades 4 and 5 are OPTIONAL. Students entering grade 6 and up in our district do have reading requirements, which are spelled out on the lists for those grades. It looks like the list for entering 6th-graders is still being revised--please check back for that one after May 27.
Winners have been announced for the contests in which we've been participating this year: The winner of the California Young Reader Medal in the Primary category is The Day the Crayons Quit, by Drew Dawalt; and in the Picture Books for Older Readers category, the winner is Helen's Big World: The Life of Helen Keller, by Doreen Rapaport. The winner of the Cook Prize is Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France, by Mara Rockliff.
The district summer pleasure reading lists have been posted on the MBUSD website. Look under the tab for Students or the tab for Parents--you should see Summer Reading Lists. The lists for grades 1 and 2, grade 3, and for grades 4 and 5 are OPTIONAL. Students entering grade 6 and up in our district do have reading requirements, which are spelled out on the lists for those grades. It looks like the list for entering 6th-graders is still being revised--please check back for that one after May 27.
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