Fun Poetry Resources for Your Classroom

[00:00:00] Fuzz Martin: We are recording and we are rolling in 3, 2, 1.

[00:00:26] Shanna Martin: Thanks for listening to the Tech Tools for Teachers podcast, where each week we talk about a free piece of tool of technology that you can use in your classroom. I'm your host, Shanna Martin. I'm a middle school teacher, technology instructional coach for my district,

[00:00:39] Fuzz Martin: and I'm her producer and husband, Fuzz Martin.

[00:00:42] Fuzz Martin: Shanna. Roses are red, violet are blue. I produced this podcast just for you.

[00:00:50] Shanna Martin: Aw, that's so cute. Aw, thank you. Uh,

[00:00:55] Fuzz Martin: it's Poetry Week. It's

[00:00:57] Shanna Martin: Poetry week. Well, I dunno

[00:00:58] Fuzz Martin: if it's officially Poetry Week. 'cause that's an actual thing.

[00:01:00] Shanna Martin: It is an actual thing.

[00:01:01] Fuzz Martin: This is just, it's just us talking about poetry this week on this podcast.

[00:01:05] Shanna Martin: Correct. But you can listen to it now and you can listen to it on Poetry Week.

[00:01:10] Fuzz Martin: You'll just do it any day you want. It's a podcast or

[00:01:12] Shanna Martin: over and over and over and over again. Put it on

[00:01:15] Fuzz Martin: repeat.

[00:01:16] Shanna Martin: Yeah, it'd be so fun. Go to sleep. So we are here it is the end of September. It feels like July. Yep. Because it is hot, hot.

[00:01:27] Shanna Martin: It's so hot.

[00:01:27] Fuzz Martin: 85 in Wisconsin at the end of September is no boy. No,

[00:01:31] Shanna Martin: no. It's not fun. Yeah. But we're embracing it with apple and pumpkin things, so.

[00:01:37] Fuzz Martin: Right. You are drinking a apple coffee right now. And we had a pumpkin scone before we came in. We did because we are,

[00:01:46] Fuzz Martin: we're childless today. So we were able to stop and get

[00:01:49] Shanna Martin: active coffee. Like coffee Yeah. And a scone. Yeah. And not have to share them.

[00:01:53] Fuzz Martin: Right. Exactly. So that's fun.

[00:01:55] Shanna Martin: Yeah. So we're here episode two 18 and cruising along through the school year. Mm-hmm. I mean, not through, but we're kind of getting into the routine now, which is nice.

[00:02:06] Shanna Martin: And kids kind of know expectations and. It's going. It is.

[00:02:11] Fuzz Martin: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:02:12] Shanna Martin: So two very cool sites. I've been supporting some of our staff and they've been looking for ideas of like building in different increments of reading, to support all of their students' needs. And as I was digging around, finding cool ways for kids to.

[00:02:27] Shanna Martin: Learn different reading techniques. I came across a couple of fun sites that I thought would be great to share with everybody. So the first one, 'cause we are talking about poetry, and you can use poetry obviously anytime during a lose unit, but it's also great for some of our, uh, lower readers or those that struggle with long portions of a reading.

[00:02:48] Shanna Martin: Sure. Yeah. So that way it's more engaging

[00:02:50] Fuzz Martin: walls of text.

[00:02:52] Shanna Martin: Yes. So the first one is. Shell silverstein.com. Fun. S-H-E-L-S-I-L-V-E-R-S-T-E-I n.com. So shell silverstein.com. I know back in the day, reading where the sidewalk ends and giraffe and a half. And the giving tree. The giving tree, yeah. Tree. Like those are classics.

[00:03:23] Shanna Martin: Mm-hmm. Falling up. Everybody loves these stories and the books and learning to read them and recite them. Mm-hmm. And so this site actually is really great. There is fun. So you can click on fun. And there's printables. There's wallpapers. What I really like in the fun section though, is there's videos of Shell Silverstein's poems.

[00:03:45] Shanna Martin: And you can watch 'em. Like you don't have to be connected. I mean, obviously you have to be connected to the internet, but they come up on YouTube too. Yeah. And you can click on the poem and then the little line drawings Oh yeah. That he is known for, like come to life. Mm-hmm. As the poem's being read, he has a great way to engage kids in poetry and also like reading the stories and seeing them kind of active, which is cool.

[00:04:10] Shanna Martin: So these books that you probably have in your classroom can come to Life for Kids, which I love. And then there's a list of his books. So you can go through and you can see like the different pieces of all of his books. There's the About Shell background, so you can see like his history and if you've got kids doing biographies, that would be helpful.

[00:04:32] Fuzz Martin: I didn't realize that shell looked the way that he did. I always imagined him like, 'cause obviously I. You're a teacher, so you

[00:04:39] Shanna Martin: Yeah.

[00:04:39] Fuzz Martin: Go into this all the time. And I've

[00:04:40] Shanna Martin: seen like author studies of him and stuff. Yeah.

[00:04:42] Fuzz Martin: I've always pictured him as like an old man with gray floppy hair or something. And no, he is kind of, he is bald head beard.

[00:04:50] Shanna Martin: Yeah.

[00:04:50] Fuzz Martin: I mean, he, he was, he passed away in 1999.

[00:04:54] Shanna Martin: Yeah. So, but yeah, it's kind of funny. And that's why I think it's so great for kids too, is they like actually when they get to meet the authors or they get exposed to the authors that are writing their books mm-hmm. Like it's a cool way to connect kids to different people.

[00:05:06] Shanna Martin: And they have a whole background like on him, which is great. There. They have what's new, and just kind of like general updates with the books or when different celebrations are happening about his books or his poems. And then what I really love too is there's a whole section of learning resources for teachers.

[00:05:21] Shanna Martin: So there's lessons built in and activities that you can go through if you're doing a poetry unit or they have. A thing called the celebration. The

[00:05:31] Fuzz Martin: celebration, love it.

[00:05:33] Shanna Martin: And so they have years past what that looked like and then how you could build it into your classroom. Now there's also, supports for poetry month, which is happening every year.

[00:05:43] Shanna Martin: So you have different resources for poetry month, which is great. And there's drawing booklets that like teach you how to draw the way he does with those little like. Line drawing. Mm-hmm. Is that they're known for. So there's just a lot of really cool resources to encourage kids to learn more about Shell Silverstein, but also connect to those books you already have in your classroom.

[00:06:03] Fuzz Martin: Yeah.

[00:06:03] Shanna Martin: And the poems are fun and they're engaging, so there's lots of cool resources for a teacher in here, or families at home. If you wanna encourage families to do like celebration at home, you can do all of that. So Shell Silverstein

[00:06:18] Shanna Martin: has really, really great resources and encouraging kids for poetry.

[00:06:24] Fuzz Martin: One musty fron runny woke and he outside his P and he saw all the Ws and burns a keys in in the frog. Well, that's fun.

[00:06:35] Shanna Martin: Yeah, so it makes it like, it brings it to life a little bit, which is cool.

[00:06:38] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, shell silverstein.com.

[00:06:42] Shanna Martin: Cool. Cool.

[00:06:43] Shanna Martin: Alright, we got another fun poetry site

[00:06:45] Fuzz Martin: you.

[00:06:46] Shanna Martin: The second one is Poetry for kids.com.

[00:06:51] Fuzz Martin: Poetry for kids. Number four, right? It's the

[00:06:52] Shanna Martin: number four. So it's P-O-E-T-R-Y number 4K ID s.com And it's through Ken Nesbitt and. It has another like giant collection of resources for poetry. And what's fun about this one is they have it.

[00:07:07] Shanna Martin: There's a lot of like encouragement of funny poems. Yeah. So there's list of funny poems that you can listen to. I like it. Today I packed my lunch myself. I got my lunchbox off the shelf and quickly filled it to the top. I don't know why I couldn't stop. Um, so it's really cute. Like there's just different relatable, fun poems for kids.

[00:07:28] Shanna Martin: So as you're going across the top, there's like a bar that has all the different resources in there, and they have collections of like funny poems and classic poems, nursery rhymes. You can like pick and choose what you like. For poems by subject, certain things are paid within there. You just have to be careful.

[00:07:43] Shanna Martin: Like some things are free and some things are paid. And if you're there, you can become a member and have access to everything. They do have poems by reading level and by length, but when you click on some of those, you're not able to get to everything. So just be aware, like lots of things are free and resource, but some of them you have to like pay or make a donation to the site.

[00:08:01] Shanna Martin: There are really great lesson plans. So as you're going across, you can click on poetry writing lessons, or you can have students, they have a rhyming dictionary, so you could do it as a whole class, like on your smart board if you choose to. Or you could use the rhyming dictionary, like put it in, like a choice board for your students, and you could give them access to the rhyming dictionary.

[00:08:18] Shanna Martin: If they're creating their own poetry, you'd have those options. They also have like lists of rhyming words, so there's all different types of resources that you can use while planning. Poetry lessons and activities that you're doing with your students. So you also have like different, in like different ways to engage students in poetry with like a terms dictionary too, which I always appreciate.

[00:08:38] Shanna Martin: There's always a lot of different vocabulary like alliteration and, ballad and Kain and different types of poetry. That's, you know, you're always trying to explain it to students and here's another resource to explain it to kids, which is great. Because we always need additional ways to teach things.

[00:08:57] Shanna Martin: Yes. Because it doesn't always work the first time. Mm-hmm. Or the second time. Or the third time as we know. And again, with those resources, there's all about the author. So you can look at Ken Nesbitt and you can see the different, like other history background. If you have kids that are doing biographies, like that's a great place to pull information from.

[00:09:19] Shanna Martin: There's also connection to blog. And then of course you always have access to books that you can go through as well. And then along with like media and games. So there's different ways to connect to poetry. There's different options for students. There's different options for teachers to engage students in poetry, and there's just a lot of great resources that you can use and encourage kids to try out poetry in your classroom.

[00:09:44] Fuzz Martin: Yeah. And if you do wanna support in this show that the Tech Tools for Teachers podcast is all all about free resources for teachers, but if you do wanna support 'em, it's, it's only a dollar a month if you pay for a year. Yeah. So it's 12 bucks for the, for the year, but. That's 12 bucks. So I mean,

[00:10:01] Shanna Martin: yeah.

[00:10:01] Shanna Martin: Depend on, it's totally up to

[00:10:02] Fuzz Martin: you.

[00:10:02] Shanna Martin: Yeah. Resources are, but it is, yes, a reasonably priced one. Dope to get access to, um, like reading level, like specific things at reading levels.

[00:10:11] Fuzz Martin: Yeah.

[00:10:12] Shanna Martin: Which would be helpful. Yeah.

[00:10:14] Fuzz Martin: I really do like the, poems that they have, the, the ability to play the audio, which is mm-hmm.

[00:10:19] Fuzz Martin: Good. And it sounds good too, the

[00:10:21] Poetry Reader: reason Vance learned how to dance. The reason Vance learned how to dance was for his high school prom. He knew he needed lessons, so he went and asked his mom.

[00:10:37] Fuzz Martin: Same. So anyway, very cool. Poetry for kids.com, number four.

[00:10:41] Shanna Martin: Love it. Yeah, just so many very cool things. Also as we were like digging through, as I was like, because poetry is actually a requested support source.

[00:10:50] Shanna Martin: Like people ask for my support with poetry often. Mm-hmm. Because they don't wanna teach it the same way or they wanna mix it up. You know, I went digging through the archive, of course, so episodes 78 and one 14, I both gave other poetry. Resources that would be helpful. So if you're looking to build on your poetry teaching or engaging your students, or maybe you have a different group of kids this year and you're like, I need all kinds of resources, those would also be helpful for you.

[00:11:16] Fuzz Martin: Wow. A hundred episodes ago. More than one. I know.

[00:11:18] Shanna Martin: That's fine. Crazy. Well, there you go. Thanks for tuning. This has been the Tech Tools for Teachers Podcast. If you ever have any questions, you can find me on Blue Sky Threads, Facebook, Instagram at smartinwi. And if you wanna get more information on the links to the technology to discuss this episode, you can visit Smartinwi.com.

[00:11:38] Shanna Martin: If you liked Sports Show, please consider buying me a coffee or two. Visit Buy me a coffee.com/ smartinwi or visit smartinwi.com and click on that cute little purple coffee cup. Your donations help keep the show going. New episodes each week, but not next week 'cause we're taking the week off. Thanks for listening.

[00:11:56] Shanna Martin: Go educate and innovate. My fault.

[00:11:58] Fuzz Martin: The ideas and opinions expressed on this podcast on the Smart and WI website are those of the authors, Shanna Martin and not of her employer. Prior to using any of the technologies discussed on this podcast, please consult with your employer regulations. This podcast offers no guarantee that these tools will work for you as described, but we hope they do and we'll talk to you next time here on the Tech Tools for Teachers Podcasts.