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ABC Food Books
Introduce your younger elementary students to a variety of foods by creating
a whole class rhyming alphabet book. First, ask parents to donate magazines
from home for use in this activity. (Garden and seed catalogs will have excellent
pictures of vegetables.) In addition, the site Dole 5 A Day (http://www.dole5aday.com/Teachers/T_Index.html) has printable
clip art of foods.
Younger students may need to work in small groups to find foods that begin with one letter of the alphabet. Older students could work individually on one letter. Captions should rhyme, as in: "B is for beans, lima and green. C is for carrots which keep your eyes keen."
While students are working, have them call out interesting foods they find. Write down the foods on index cards and create a "Word Wall" to use in later activities such as creating alphabetical lists, creative writing, etc. (For more information about Word Walls, please visit the Teachers.net Lesson Bank site).
Allow 45 minutes to complete this activity and then share the book together. As an extension, you might want to try out the Arthur's Pretend Picnic activity.
Japanese Renga
Go over with students the structure of the Japanese haiku (see http://mikan.cc.matsuyama-u.ac.jp/~shiki/) and review with
students some of the haiku of the Japanese master, Basho, available online at
http://www.twics.com/~glaabs/BashoDemo.html.
Have students write an original haiku. (Haiku usually run three lines of 5, 7, 5 syllables and relate to nature, typically with a twist at the end.) Organize the students into groups of 5 or 6 and pass their poems clockwise. These students will add a new haiku to the haiku chain that was started. These group poems are called Rengas; see http://www.scifaiku.com/haiku/definitions.html.
Using a word processor, have students electronically paste their haiku onto the haiku chain. Permit students to place in what they feel is an "appropriate" spot rather than just on the end of the chain. When finished, print out a copy of the Class Haiku for all students. Have an oral reading with each student haikuist reading the original haiku contributed to the group poem.
To finish this activity, students can add artwork to the Renga that reflects
how their haiku relates to nature. This artwork can be in the form of original
drawings, digital photographs, or a collage of photographs the students have
found. For examples of electronic artwork related to nature, visit the following
sites:
The Living Edens
The Orchid Photo Page
Nature
To view examples of creative, published renga on the Internet, go to these
sites. The Electric Soup site is a student literary magazine that accepts renga
submissions. Encourage the class to submit their renga for possible publication.
Electric
Soup
Aha! Poetry: Introduction to Symbiotic Poetry
I'll Make Me A World
http://www.pbs.org/immaw/
Explore the life and work of twentieth century African American poets.
Death of a Dream
http://www.pbs.org/ktca/farmhouses/literature.html
At this site devoted to America's vanishing farm houses, you'll find related
poetry.
Fooling with Words
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/
Meet American contemporary poets participating in the Dodge Poetry festival.
Literature and Life
http://www.pbs.org/ktca/litandlife/index.html
Learn about early African American poets like Phyllis Wheatley and others.
American Masters
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/database_literature.html
Explore the work of Ginsberg, Poe, and other poetic masters.
Poetry
