International Poetry Day

Wednesday, March 21^st was International Poetry Day. To celebrate, the 4^th grade had an evening Shel Silverstein Poetry Jam. I scoured “Light In The Attic”, “Where The Sidewalk Ends”, and “Falling Up” for the 40 longest poems, then had each of the 26 children choose from those poems.

The children had a month to prepare. They memorized, interpreted, made props, visual aids (and even a prezi) to accompany the poems, and helped each other act out each of the poems. The result was a really fun, smooth, and active poetry presentation. The students ran the whole thing, rotating from performing and banging on bongo drums and back to performing again.  It was a fantastic evening.

I have a lot of nostaligia for Shel Silverstein. "Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too" is still stuck in my brain after performing the poem when I was in 3rd grade.  More importantly I believe because of Shel's imaginative, rebellious, and coversational verse, he is a perfect "gateway" poet for a beginning poetry slam. 

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