I’m happy to be participating in the Frosty Readers Project. I have already saved several Kidspiration activities for next year’s winter unit. Thank you for the great ideas!

Reading I started out by reading the delightful poetry book Winter Eyes by Douglas Florian to my group of second graders. First they enjoyed visualizing the poems then I shared the paintings that accompanied each one. We noticed how well the paintings went along with each poem. The children especially enjoyed looking at the shape poems. We could all easily relate to the poem Cabin Fever after spending most of our winter with inside playtime due to rain or freezing temperatures!

Writing Process After enjoying the poems from Winter Eyes as well as other books we tried our hand at writing our own winter poems. We did shape, cinquain, acrostic and haiku poems. The children wrote two of each type. Once we were done with writing the children partnered up, shared their poems and chose their favorite two poems. One poem was to be typed on Kidspiration2 and the other would be published in a real book by Student Treasures. I edited each poem with the children and they made a final rough draft for the published book. The next step was to draw a rough draft picture that would compliment their poem. Once the final rough drafts were complete they copied their work onto the actual pages for the published book putting forth their best effort.

Sharing The poems typed on Kidspiration were hung in the hall, after they were shared with the class, for all to enjoy. Once they come down I’ll bind them into a class book. Our poems for the published book are off to the publisher and once the books returns we will have an Author’s Tea. At the tea the children will read their poem to the parents, enjoy punch and cookies and then take home their own book if one was purchased.

Student Treasures I learned about Student Treasures at a 4 Block workshop last year. I thought this might be a good place to pass along the information to more people. They have a website: studentreasures.com. At the site you can order a class book or individual books for your class. They send you all the materials to complete a book. Parents are given an opportunity to purchase a book but are under no obligation to do so. The teacher gets the original material back in a hardbound book at no cost. The parents, the students, the administration, and I were very pleased with the books last year.

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