"Frog Legs"

Frog Legs
Written by: George Shannon
Illustrated by: Amit Trynan
Published by Greenwillow Books in NY in 2000
ISBN: 0-688-17047-1
Genres: Picture Book, Poetry, Concept Book
Reading Level: Grade 1
Activity Level: Kindergarten

Summary: This is a book written in action verse. It is a collection of poetry that is fun and also teaches concepts such as the alphabet and numbers. Each page or two-page spread has a different poem that could be incorporated into a classroom setting. There is no specific theme, but the poems in this book range in topic from splashing through puddles, to Cancan dancing, to hopscotch, Trick or Treating, three-legged racing, and balancing. The poems use these things as topics for the verse and are all about getting children to be active while reading or hearing something read, by dancing and playing while reading or listening to these poems. All of the illustrations are of adorable frogs dancing and playing, so children would love this book!

Response: I really like how the poems in this work can teach children. Certainly, not all of them provide introductions to concepts, but those which do are remarkable! I love that when you read this book you can feel the meter, which is very important in working with children because they will be able to feel it too and that will make the poems very exciting to them as well.

The illustrations of frogs in this book are so cute! The illustrator used milar paper and acrylic paints to create very animated creatures. Their hands and feet are flying everywhere in the images. The illustrations are mostly single-page spreads, except in the case of a couple of the longer poems, which needed, and received, more illustration. The illustrator also alternates between white and colored backgrounds to keep reader interest and uses a multitude of muted colors to create this work.

Teaching Connections: This book would be great for a kindergarten classroom! A teacher could read a poem from this book and have materials present for students to act out the parts. The "Flair Dance," for example, is perfectly written to sound great as a narrator reads it while children do the dance, which is somewhat like what occurs in square dancing.

With the poem "May Pole," in which children wrap colorful ribbon around a pole, a teacher could have a straw for each student along with some tape and colored ribbon and they could each make their own may pole as the teacher reads the poem.

"Jumpabet" could be performed outside with children in groups with a jump rope. It would help them learn their alphabet and be physically active at the same time!

"Just Like Me" would allow students to move around and follow the leaders, just as the poem requests, while also doing the movements of birds, and moths, etc, that are in the poem.

What Students Learn: From this book and the activities the students learn about poetry, their numbers, their alphabet, and are physically active in the jump rope and follow the leader portions of the activities.

Image Retrieved From: http://ak.buy.com/db_assets/prod_images/758/30563758.jpg

"Go!"

Go!
Written and illustrated by: Daniel Kirk
Published by Hyperion Books for Children in NY in 2001
ISBN: 0-7868-0305-3
Genres: Picture Book, Poetry, Song Book
Reading Level: Grade 2
Activity Level: Grades K, 2, and 4

Summary: This book is a collection of poems about everyday life. Some are about things children like, such as rollerblading; planes, trains, and automobiles; and skateboarding. Others are about the cars parents drive, polar bears and their skates, and long rides home from weekend vacations. Still others are classic songs like "I've Been Working on the Railroad!" There is also a CD with this book for sing-alongs.

Response: I like that this book is interactive from the beginning, since it has lots of songs and poems and comes with a CD. I also really like some of these creative poems/songs! Some of my favorite titles are: "Grandpa's Motorized Wheelchair," "My Old Man Drives a Minivan," "Mamma's Motorcycle," "Hippos on the Subway Train," and "Sammy's Bathtub Submarine." With titles such as those, how could you not want to pick up this book and read it to your class?

I found it interesting that the illustrations in this book seemed to make the words secondary in that the illustrations are really what capture the attention of readers much moreso than the words, simply because of their amazing detail and creative style. In the author/illustrator's note it says that he used oil and watercolor paints, pastels, charcoal, and colored pencils, as well as cut-paper and photo collage, and Sculpey clay! This illustrator really used his imagination on this book!

Teaching Connections: I can absolutely see this book being used in a Kindergarten classroom. A teacher could read one of the songs or poems to her students and then project the book, using a document scanner/projector, onto the board and finger-point read it again along with her class. Then, they could learn about sentence structure by discussing nouns, verbs, rhyming words, etc, and circling and underlining those words in the poem or song!

A second grade teacher could also play the CD for her class and get a set of these books and have her class finger-point read along with it.

I could also see this book being used in a fourth grade classroom. Some of the poems are too juvenile for fourth graders, but others are just cute and funny enough to be sufficient for their grade level, such as "Mamma's Motorcycle," "Skateboard Dream," and "My Old Man Drives a Minivan." The teacher could read these poems/songs as examples and/or have the children listen to them and then pick a topic in their lives that interests them such as rollerblading or traveling, and then have them write a rhyming poem about that.

What Students Learn: From this book and the activities students learn about rhyming words, nouns, verbs, and the concept of song. They also gain better reading and writing skills.

Image Retrieved From: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51N848DAQDL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

A Response to Reading a Poetry Anthology

The Frogs Wore Red Suspenders

Written by: Jack Prelutsky

Illustrated by: Petra Mathers

Published by Scholastic, Inc. in 2002 in NY

Genre: Poetry

Ages: Grades K-3

I think poetry anthologies are great ways to be introduced to an author's work. Anthologies are also very good for works of poetry since many types of poetry are very short, one can have a completion of many poems all in one place!

I believe that his work is mostly written in nonsense verse because of its largely humorous quality. Although this is Jack Prelutsky's writing style, students can still learn from his work. He often sites places throughout the United States as the settings of his poems, which would make for a great introduction to a place for students to research. In this particular antholgy, he has one poem entitled "There Was a Tiny Baker" where he uses the word sarsaparilla. It is highly unlikely that any student would know what this is, so it is a good poem to peak their curiosity and have them look up this word. (Sarsaparilla is a carbonated drink flavored by a root of the same name.)

Mr. Prelutsky uses rhyme to his advantage in his poetry. The majority of the poems in this anthology have four lines per stanza. He varies his rhyming pattern greatly; Sometimes his poems' first lines rhyme with the third and the second lines rhyme with the fourth, sometimes only the second and fourth lines rhyme, and occasionally the first and second lines of his poems will rhyme and the third and fourth lines will as well. This rhyme and the author's use of specific words make each of his poems absolutely fit to sing. The rhythm is something that one could tap his foot or beat a drum to; it is very obvious to the reader.

There really was not much alliteration that I found in his poetry except the repeted "p's" in "Peanut Peg and Peanut Pete, which can be found below. Similarly, Mr. Prelutsky does not use onomatopoeia, at least not in this anthology or use the form of the words in the poem itself to emphasize his words. However, he uses imagery to make readers feel as thought they are a part of the action in the poem. One of my favorite poems form this work, "I Went to the Store," which can be found below, is one such poem.

I could not choose only one poem as my favorite, so here are three that I really enjoyed.

"Baby in a High Chair" (46-47)

Baby in a high chair,

baby in a bib,

baby in a stroller,

baby in a crib.

Baby with the giggles,

baby with a smile,

such a lovely baby,

happy all the while.

(I think one reason I like this poem is the repetition at the beginning of each line. I also think the corresponding illustration by Petra Mathers is adorable!)

"I Went to the Store" (28-29)

I went to the store

for a pear and a plum.

The fruit was all gone,

so they sold me a drum.

I asked them for butter,

they offered me glue.

I tried to buy bread,

but they sold me a shoe.

They sold me a lamp

when I tried to buy cheese.

Instead of potatoes,

I wound up with keys.

They didn't have milk,

so they sold me an oar--

I'll never go back to that store anymore.

(I love this poem because even without the humorous picture of the man trying to carry all of these things, including a lampshade on his head, one can picture him and even imagine his frustration, just by the language of the poem!)

"Peanut Peg and Peanut Pete" (18-19)

Peanut Peg and Peanut Pete,

on a bright Atlanta street,

call in voices loud and clear,

"Peanuts! Get your peanuts here!"

"Peanut cookies, peanut cakes,

peanut butter, peanut shakes,

peanut ices, peanut pies,

peanut sauce, and peanut fries!"

All day long they gaily sell

peanuts still inside the shell,

peanuts salty, peanuts sweet--

Peanut Peg and Peanut Pete.

(This poem is perfect for me because I love peanut butter and anything made out of any type of nut, so if I ever found this peanut stand, I would have to buy at least one of everything! This poem makes me hungry and everything sounds so delicious!)

(Image retrieved from http://www.harperchildrens.com/coverimages/medium/0688167195.jpg on 19 April 2008)

"Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices"

Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices
Written by: Paul Fleischman
Illustrated by: Eric Beddows
Published by Harper Trophy in 1988
Genres: poetry, informational text
Age: grades 4-6
Award: Newberry Award Winner 1989

Summary: Joyful Noise is a collection of unique poems about a multitude of insects. This book provides details about how they live their lives and occasionally mentions of how people perceive them. These succinct poems are meant to be read aloud by two people and are written in two columns as to make this easier. Some of the lines are spoken simultaneously by both individuals and at other times, one or both speak of different information about the insects. Paul Fleischman uses a musical style of writing which gives his poems a unique melodic form.

Response: This work is satiated with creativity in the method utilized to achieve the perfect combination of information, humor, and ideal sentence structure. Although I do not particularly care for insects, this work takes learning about insects to a completely different level than one might initially expect. Joyful Noise provides a myriad of information about the insect world, but because that information is laced within duet-based poetry to be read aloud, maintains a quirky backdrop throughout the collection, and has occasional onomatopoeia, Fleischman’s work does not explicitly teach. The manner in which Fleischman writes is of embedding factual information within the texts, which helps insure that readers do not become bored because each poem is a mini-story.

The creativity of the idea to create a work for two voices is remarkable. I would not have ever thought of doing something like that, but it makes perfect sense. It engages students and teaches them about poetry and insects. I believe this was a wonderful idea!

The illustrations in this work, though sparse, are very beautiful and very detailed pencil sketches of each insect included in the book. The illustrator takes much care in crafting his designs in order to create the illusion of three-dimensional figures. Although there is no color within these illustrations, I feel that it would detract from there beauty, so it was better to leave that out anyway. The faces of several of these creatures are hilarious-especially that of the moth. Furthermore, the moth's facial expressions do mimic his eccentric nature that readers learn about in the poem, well.

Teaching Suggestions: With this work teachers have the opportunity to make lesson plans in which children can express their creativity as much in performing the poetry as Fleischman did in writing it. At the same time, they are encouraging learning through literature. Any lesson on a poem in this book could easily meet science, language arts, and, with a little ingenuity, also the arts curriculum guidelines. One idea is to form pairs in the classroom and have each students read a poem of his choice of the other student. Then, each pair must choose their favorite poem and think of costume ideas, movements they could mimic. Students would then have several days to prepare for their presentation. With the Honeybees poem, for example, students have a great opportunity to truly become bees with descriptions of the actions of worker and queen bees. The poem speaks of “guarding the hive’s narrow entrance” (Fleischman, 29), “being fed by …royal attendants” (29), “tak[ing] out the hive’s morning trash...making wax…collect[ing] nectar” (30), and “lay[ing] eggs” (30). Each of these actions could be done by students in their own play. Because none of the poems are long, splitting the students into pairs and having them make presentations should cause no problem if the acting is spread over several days. Not only could the entire class benefit from increasing their knowledge of insects, their ability to read poetry, and engaging their creativity, but also there is an additional benefit for English Language Learners. The poems in Joyful Noise are much less elementary than most and do not have a plethora of repetition or rhyme, therefore, ELL students must engage more complex knowledge of the English language in order to comprehend this work and practice their sentence fluency. Words such as: “calligraphers”(Fleischman, 13), “formidable” (25), “fervent” (37), and “cataclysm,” (41) which students may not be familiar with, provide ample opportunities for all students to augment their vocabularies, especially ELLs. As a future educator, being able to distinguish cross-curricular ties as well as aid the learning of ELL students, proves how vital this work could be in my future classroom. Another lesson plan idea is to have students read these poems, or act them out, and then ask them to write a poem about their favorite animal. This assignment will hone their research and writing skills. Depending on the grade level of the child, the poem they write could be very simple, or could rhyme. Potentially, with older students, teachers could suggest that they attempt a poem for multiple voices, however this style of writing will likely need more assistance from the teacher.

Website of assistance to a lesson on Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices. (some of my ideas stem from this website's ideas)

(Image retrieved from http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/c1/c7529.jpg on 19 April 2008)