Halloween Poetry

A great seasonal book with poetry and rhymes is Halloween Hoots and Howls by Joan Horton.  My students laughed at the play on words.  the illustrations are colorful and playful.  Writingfix is sponsoring a Halloween poetry writing contest.  It closes Oct 21, 2010.

You can also find Karen Mcgee's lesson for Halloween Hoots and Howls at Writingfix.  I used her Halloween word bank as a starting place and then added other seasonal words. In th book there are several poems - that are great to share with students who cannot participate in holiday activities.  I love the "Spider on the Ceiling".  I then had the students fill out the Noun, Adjective, Verb chart in th lesson.  I loved this lesson because it tied into what my 5th graders were learning in their classroom about parts of speech.

I used the ETTC (Educational Technology Training Center) poem templates to experiment with writing poetry.  I only have one computer in my classroom so I put the poem template for "Noun + Adjective + Phrase = Poem".  You can find it by name listed on the left side of the screen.  I had my students to use the word bank and charts that they had made to write their poems.  It makes for a great introduction.

Reading Like Writers: Using Mentor Texts in the Classroom

Last summer I had the great pleasure to attend a National Writing Project here in Montana. It was the Laurel Writing Project. It is an intense month long course. It was life affirming as well as life changing. It changed how I teach students. It challenged me to start writing. The experience also provided the fellowship of writers who were on their own journey - a true writers community.

My inquiry search was how to teach writing during the short time I have my library students. Even after the summer session was over I continued my inquiry search. I was convinced that there were ways to adapt my library program and combine it with the writing process I had learned. Eureka! I stumbled on - WritingFix. A rewarding strike with so many possibilities!

I found many ideas I could use at this Northern Nevada Writing site - WritingFix. They have lots of wonderful lessons, resources, and member sites. I fell in love with the great pieces of literature that was featured. They also have some great print publications at reasonable prices. I encourage everyone to take a look and explore the rich treasures.

Corbett Harrison is the creator of the WritingFix website. His link is full of wonderful lessons. The National Writing Project is a great program. My only regret is I didn't do it earlier.

Check out this year's Montana Writing Project.