04 May 2014

Five Senses Poem

Last month we were been busy creating a variety of poems with our first graders. If you're looking for a quick and fun poetry lesson you'll enjoy this one! 
One recent poem we worked on was a 5 senses poem.  
We began by reading several poems out of the book below.  This fabulous book contains several poems about everyday objects like pants, scissors, ice cream, spaghetti, socks, etc.. We read the poems to our first graders without showing the pictures, or reading the titles.  If the object was mentioned in the poem (which didn't happen very often), we left it out when we read.  Our goal was to have our kiddos pay close attention to the adjectives and descriptions in order to figure out what object we were reading about.  It was SO MUCH FUN!!!  Some they guessed, while others were difficult.


Then we read from a chart like the one below.  We created it before the lesson, had it turned around, then read from it making sure the kids could not see it.  It's definitely not fancy, but it was similar to the worksheet our kiddos would be using, so it fit the purpose :)  They enjoyed guessing, and many figured out what our poem was about.

Next, we told our first graders that they would be creating a five senses poem about popcorn to read aloud to their families.  We bought a big bag of popcorn from Costco, already pooped which made it sooo much easier!  After giving each kiddo a cup of popcorn, we looked at it, listened to it as we rubbed it next to our ears, smelled it, felt it, and finally tasted it (their favorite part)!  As we did each activity, we listed their descriptive words/phrases on our whiteboards in 5 separate columns. 

Finally, each of our students made their own poem using the words from the lists we created as a class. 
Then next day we discussed who they read their poem to, and if that person was able to figure it out.  They had a great time!  If you'd like a copy of our poem format you can find it {HERE}!

Have a great week!