Chromebook Workshop: Collaborative Spring Poems with Heather C’s Class

Aargh! I wrote this post yesterday during EQAO testing and then promptly deleted it this afternoon! I have tried several ways to revert to the earlier post, but can’t figure it out.

Heather C's 1/2s joined us for a Collaborative Poem writing workshop. In Room 209, we love writing poems together, especially on the Chromebooks!

The steps for writing collaborative poems were as follows:

1. Big Buddies from Room 209 paired with Little Buddies from Heather C’s class.

2. The Big Buddies became “Co-Pilots” and the Little Buddies became “Pilots”, in charge of what was going on

3. Pilots selected a topic related to spring

4. Together, Pilot and Co-Pilot began writing a poem on the Google Drive, focusing on using sensory information, alliteration and rhythm to make their poems very powerful

5. After five minutes, Pilot and Co-Pilot virtually “passed” the poem to another group by sharing the doc on the Google Drive

6. Pilot and Co-Pilot then took five minutes to read and continue the poem they received

7. Poems were passed five times

8. After adding to a fifth poem, Pilot and Co-Pilot returned to their original poem and edited and revised it, making sure they liked the sound and feel of the poem

9. PIlot and Co-Pilot then formatted the poem, changing the font if they wished, adding a photo to enhance the poem, and adding an optional photo of the poets who started it.

Please enjoy their work!

Butterflies, a poem started by Hunter and Noah

Butterflies, a poem started by Laryssa and Amira

Blowing, a poem started by Camden and Grayson

The Ceiling, a poem started by Jack and Charlie

Trees, a poem started by Ellis and Orayo

Hello and Goodbye, a poem started by Johnny and Trey

Spring Makes Me, a poem started by Molly and Ava

Spring Flowers, a poem started by Nat, Mackenzie and Annika

Spring Flowers, a poem started by Erika and Rowan

Spring, a poem started by Aaron, Madi and Ian

Sun, a poem started by Vickie and Frances

These workshops have been so valuable for the Rainbow Eggheads. It’s been great to share  our skills and resources with other classes and collaborate to create interesting projects.

Chromebook Workshop: Collaborative Poems with Erin's Class

We led a Chromebook Workshop for Erin's grade 1/2s. This is a class of poets who just had an Evening Coffee House for their families. We helped them to work on poems using the Chromebooks, sharing them every five minutes.

For details on the process, see this post.

Enjoy our collaborative poems:
Butterflies, started by Hannah and Kaia
The Ceiling, started by Charlie and Jack
Tiger, started by Alia and Yaro
Radioactive Underwear, started by Pat and Felix
Dogs, started by Dia and Gabby
The Trampoline, started by Nils and Stuart
Playing, started by Fiona and Sarah
Peacocks, started by Addie and Madi
Trees, started by Olivia and Vickie
Monkeys, started by Nat and Dilan
Cats, started by Kaleigh and Mia
Soccer, started by Alex and Emmett

Star Wars, started by Jackson and Keenan
The Magical Bunny, started by Clara and Sonia

Clara Was Inspired by Magritte

After watching our Rene Magritte slideshow, Clara was inspired. So inspired that she wrote one of her typically creepy and brilliant poems. Check it out. 

The Important Book

We shared and were inspired by this book today.

The Important Book Ppt from ruthdemshick

Poetry Club--Fiona

Every Monday we have poetry club. In poetry club we write poems and we listen to each others poems. Right now we are watching the lip dub our class made to get inspired to write some poetry and do an activity. Today is Music Monday so we are doing poetry on music, mostly on ISS ( Is Somebody Singing ). Right now we are thinking of doing a poetry club lip dub to Belly Breathe since it is Music Monday.

Fiona

Pink T-Shirt Bullying Poems

 

We wrote Bully, Bullied and Bystander Poems with students from Dana's class. Fiona does a great job explaining the process below...

 

 

Vote for Earth Day Poem - by ???

We had a vote and the vote was about which poem
we were going to read for our Skype film. Shauna picked
Awesome poems like... Earth day, Stand up, Choices,
Lost and Tomorrow. Most of us voted on Earth day as
You can see in the pitcher.

By Melodee

Working on Bully/Bullied/Bystander Poems with Dana's Class

Working with Dana’s class

-worked really, really, really well (Hunter)

-He came up with the ideas, I wrote it down (Ethan)

-I think we should work with partners more, I have trouble staying up, but this helps me because I’m doing something all the time (Pat)
-I really liked how we did partners with a younger grade because we had two brains working together. Some ideas you agreed on, some you didn’t, but it was interesting to have two different perspectives. (Fiona)

-I gave him a whole bunch of suggestions and he chose the one that worked best and put them in his own words. (Vickie)

-I found it confusing because my partner didn’t always stay on the subject. (Laryssa)

-I really like working in partners with kids from another grade because we have different experiences. (Thomas)

-I really liked being in the perspective of the bully, bullied and bystander and thinking about what you’d do. (Thomas)

-I think it was really fun working with another grade because me and my partner worked really well together and we both came up with really good topics. (Dan)

-I thought it was a whole new experience, it was trying something new, it was fun, it was kind of like going on a rollercoaster, there were some ups and downs. Ups when we agreed, and downs when we disagreed. My partner always stayed on topic and had really great ideas. Mostly it was a flat rollercoaster. (Fin)

-We have different schemas (invisible backpacks) (Pat)

-It was nice to work with partners because you learned different things about different people. (Sophia)

-My partner would stay on task always and we would disagree on things but we would never get in a fight, so I just mixed up both of our ideas. (Mel)

The Visitor by Jack Prelutsky

The Visitor
Jack Prelutsky

it came today to visit
and moved into the house
it was smaller than an elephant
but larger than a mouse

first it slapped my sister
then it kicked my dad
then it pushed my mother
oh! that really made me mad

it went and tickled rover
and terrified the cat
it sliced apart my necktie
and rudely crushed my hat

it smeared my head with honey
and filled the tub with rocks
and when i yelled in anger
it stole my shoes and socks

that's just the way it happened
it happened all today
before it bowed politely
and softly went away 

Jack Prelutsky

 

I think The Visitor is….

(use 2 pieces of evidence from the text)

 

-a walrus (Jack)

-a transforming slug (Hunty)

-an octopussy (Kaleigh and Sophia)

            -it slapped the sister with a tentacle
            -it kicked the dad with a tentacle
            -it tickled the dog with it’s whiskers

-a dog (Mel)

            -it ripped my tie
            -it left “rocks” in the bathtub

-either a chimpanzee with claws or a guy who was hired to do it (Pan)

            -it bows at the end
            -the only other animal than humans with the
            ability to do all these things are monkeys

-a flying pig (Vick)

            -when it tickled Rover, it used the feathers on its wings
            -it slapped his/her sister with muddy feet

-some sort of mutant guy (Thomas)

            -donkey legs, hands with giant tongues, face is spikey/ticklish
            -legs kicked the dad
            -hands slapped the sister

-cross-species thing, hippopotamus (Fin)

            -crushed a hat by accident, sitting on it like a chair
            -softly went away like a ballerina, tiptoeing

-Hulk (Miggy)

            -slapped sister, hit dad
            -tickled Rover with pinkie

-half bear-half human (Dan)

            -bear hands to slice necktie
            -bears like honey

-monkey (Madi)

            -went wild to rip up necktie
            -opposable thumbs to pick up rocks

-penguin (Millie)

            -long flippers to slap mom
            -beak to slice tie

-plata-goat (Liam)

            -slapped sister with tail
            -kicked dad with goat feet

-imagination (Jackson)

            -it could be any size
            -it could do a lot of different things to different people


"The Visitor" is actually emotion! Think about why this fits!

 

Arts Electives: Poetry Slam - by Laryssa

For one of the Art Electives this year, we did a Poetry Slam with Shauna. She's really good at poetry, and we had one of her former students come in. Her name is Hannah. There were mostly girls, and only three boys! Since Electives was on the same day as Pajama Day, we were all in our pajamas except the few people who decided not to celebrate pajama day.

How we did our Poetry Slam, was everyone thought up a word and then wrote it on a piece of paper and we put it in a bin then we passed it around the circle and then we each took out a piece of paper. Surprisingly, I picked the same word that I put in the box, "sheep". I chose sheep because I was thinking of sheep a lot that day because my pajamas were covered in sheep. If you're wondering, those things covering my pajamas are not clouds!

We each got a minute to write anything we wanted on our poem, then Shauna would ring a bell and we'd pass it to the person on my left. The person on my left was Hannah, the person on my right, who I got the poem from, was Clara. I chose to sit there.

At the end, when we were really running out of time, we could stand up and read the poem we were currently holding. I was holding a poem called, "People". Clara is really shy and she decided not to read hers. We had to stop halfway, at Shauna, so Shauna did not get to perform "Sheep". I have a very good memory. I was very mad we had to stop there cause I wanted to hear what my poem ended up as.

At the end of the Elective, Bella and her friend volunteered to type up all the poems and email them to Shauan. After the winter holidays, everyone who was in the elective got a copy of the book. The cover was a Wordle of all the names of the people who were in the Poetry Slam and the word "Poetry Slam". We also got to keep four for the class because we had extras!

My favourite poem is "Sheep". It's not just because it was my poem, it's mostly because I like how the words went together and the ideas changed and it's still smooth!

-this post is by Laryssa, the absolutely awesome!

The End.

Shauna's Learning - Poetry Slam

 As my current students know, I taught at Fielding Drive Public School for many years. The last class that I taught there before I came to Churchill was an incredible grade 8 class that got very involved in the Slam Poetry scene in Ottawa. Some of those students have remained very active writers and performers. I was lucky enough to go see a former student, Haneen, who goes by the name "Freedom Writer", Slam last week. She has developed her style in amazing ways and I was so proud to see her!

I took a short video of another Slam Poet, "Cease Fire". I didn't catch the beginning of his poem, but it was remarkably related to many things that we have been discussing in class. See if you can hear any lines that have to do with something we have spoken about in Room 209.

Haneen's sister, Salma, is in Megan Wark's grade 5 class at Fielding! She is one of our "Fielding Friends" this year. She is buddied up with Molly and Vickie and I sat with her and the rest of Haneen's family at the Slam!

If I Were in Charge of the World...

If you're at the school, come by the second floor hallway and have a look at the poems and art posted outside our classroom. Take a moment and read our poems, based on Judith Viorst's "If I Were in Charge of the World" to see what the students of Room 209 would change, improve and get rid of if they were in charge of the world!

For now, they're posted outside our classroom, but we'll put them together in a book when they come down!