I love to write poetry with children. At a super fun after-school workshop with K-5th graders at Tabor Community Center, I chose spiders as a topic. I took the children on a spider walk (hunt) outside.  We came inside and did a group warm up by building a yarn/string spider web between us. As each child received the yarn they brainstormed their experiences, descriptions, or observations of spiders.

Then, on a large white board page, we drew lines for spider body parts and a spider web, and went around the table as the children filled in the lines with their comments. This was a great exercise in how using descriptive language effects emotion and body sensation!

Fun! Gross! Fun! Gross! Fun! Gross is Fun for kids!

When I came home with this fabulous, juicy, and visual piece of poetry, my son who was, I think in Kindergarten, was inspired to write his own (original is backwards):

Tags: after-school workshops first grade library visits on writing spiders Stanley Tabor writing ideas for teachers writing play writing together you can do this too

Posted by sanna on Monday, April 19th, 2010 at 12:32 pm under poetry, Reaching children, working with children, Writing and tagged: after-school workshops, first grade, library visits, on writing, spiders, Stanley, Tabor, writing ideas for teachers, writing play, writing together, you can do this too. Comment RSS 2.0 feed. Comment, or trackback.