Mrs. P's Reading is Cool Blog

Duck, Duck, Goose Mrs. P’s Feathered Favorites

It’s spring, and the birds are singing and everything in the garden is blooming.  It makes me think of several stories I love to read this time of year.  It also conjures up memories of playing games outside as a child, like “Duck, Duck, Goose”. 

With the weather turning nice is most places across the country, I encourage reading outside, my favorite spot is always under a tree. I also want to share how to play “Duck, Duck, Goose” and pass this along just like the stories in my new playlist that I hope will continue to be passed down through the generations.

It’s May so get out and play!  What you’ll need to play this classic game: Nothing, just you and some friends.

How to play

1. All of the children except one sit in a circle facing each other. The remaining person walks around the circle, gently tapping each child on the head and saying "duck."
2. When the tapper yells "goose," the child whose head was just touched jumps up and chases the tapper around the circle.
3. The tapper in turn tries to get all the way back to the goose's spot without getting tagged by the goose. If the tapper succeeds, the goose becomes the new tapper and the game goes on. However, if the goose catches the tapper, the tapper then continues his or her walk around the circle.

So enjoy watching my playlist, then go outside and notice all the various birds and have a game of “Duck, Duck, Goose”.   Remember it’s May and time to play!  I also have a special coloring sheet for you too from the story “The Ugly Duckling”.  You can Download Beautiful_swan_coloringsheet.

My Feathered Friends Playlist  includes:

The Nightingale

A small, wise bird develops a friendship with the Emperor of China.  They grow very close, until one day the Emperor replaces the nightingale with a mechanical bird that's even shinier and prettier.  But mechanical things don't have souls, and soon the Emperor's very life depends upon getting his little bird friend back home again.  Author: Hans Christian Andersen Illustrated by Robin E. Kaplan

The Goose Girl

A sweet and lovely princess journeys on her talking horse, Falada, to a faraway kingdom to marry a handsome prince.  During the trip, her wicked handmaiden steals her clothes, and declares herself the princess when they reach the kingdom.  The true princess is given a job tending geese.  Will the wicked handmaiden's lies ever be discovered? Author: The Grimm Brothers  Illustrated by Kalina Torino

The Ugly Duckling
Everyone makes fun of a little duck because he looks different than everybody else.  Of course, this makes him very unhappy -- but he has a big surprise coming when he gets older. Author: Hans Christian Andersen &  Illustrated by Jake Hollomon

You can also enjoy “The Ugly Duckling” and “The Goose Girl” at Tales2go

Ideas to Celebrate National Poetry Month & Poem in Your Pocket Day!

                                                                        
April is National Poetry Month. Here is a great podcast from The Elementary Librarian featuring Shannon McClintock Miller. It  has all sorts of ideas and resources on how celebrate. One of my favorite parts of the month is Poem in Your Pocket Day which this year will be Thursday, April 24.  The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you to share with classmates, family, and friends.  I'll be doing a series of google hangouts with schools to talk to kids about poetry and even participate in a few poetry slams with the kids.

You can learn about the history of how this event started, at the Academy of American Poets website. They took the original idea and encouraged people all across the country to join in the fun of sharing a favorite poem.

Poems help introduce children to verse, prose, rhythm, rhyme, various writing styles and literary devices.  The simple language used in some poems can be appreciated by readers of varying abilities, providing a context to teach a variety of language arts skills.

Just like children’s books where there are many different genre’s there are also many types of poems. Some of the different types of poetry include: limericks,  ballads, sonnets, verse, free verse, odes, epitaphs, narrative poems, nonsense poems, and just a whole lot more.  Here are a few of my favorite types of poetry.

Many children love the ones that RHYME, of course. These are fun because they are often silly in nature.  Couplets are made up of two lines whose last words rhyme.  An example is:

Hip, Hip Horray,  It's Poem in my Pocket Day!

HAIKU: 
Haiku is Japanese poetry that reflects on nature and feelings. There are three lines with five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second, and five syllables in the third. This is a great way for children to use their observation skills to write about what they see in a new or different way.  This example of a haiku is by Basho Matsuo, the first great poet of haiku in the 1600s:

An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.
    Dive in and try writing your own haiku.

Where can you find a poem to put in your pocket?  How about looking in your library, or bookstore, or bookshelf at home.  Or better yet, you can write your own.  Here are some ideas for  children to craft their very own poem using the technique for an acrostic or name poem.

What is an Acrostic or name poem? In Acrostic poems, the first letters of each line are aligned vertically to form a word.  The word often is the subject of the poem, in this case I am going to use word poem as my example.

Pleasingly perfect

Often in rhyme

Easy to write

Many different types

What I like about these types of poems are that they are fun and anyone can write one. They do have a few simple rules. Acrostics are easy to write because they don’t need to rhyme, and you don’t need to worry about the rhythm of the lines. Each line can be as long or as short as you want it to be and the format gives you a concrete format in which to write.  To create an acrostic follow these five easy steps:

1. Decide what to write about. It can be about anything, your name, a friend’s name, your pet’s name, a thing like your bike, or even soccer, music, your favorite food, etc.
2. Write your word down vertically and capitalized the first letter of each line.  If you are using colored pencils or crayons, use a different color to make the letters stand out.
3. You can use single words, phrases, or even full sentences in your acrostic poem.
4. Brainstorm words or phrases that describe your idea.
5. Fill in your ideas on the lines that begin with the same letters.

I used my name for an example of a name poem to share.  Mrs P
M is for Magnificent
R is for redheaded
S is for surprising, special, and super
P  is for purple and polite

So give it a try and see what you can come up with.

                                                       
I have a poem by Lewis Carroll in my Magic Library, called The Walrus and the Carpenter.  Have a listen and then try and figure out what type of poem it is.