Book Talk Thursday ~ Poetry Collections

April is National Poetry Month, so I have decided to highlight two poetry collections for

I really enjoyed using Eric Carle's Dragons, Dragons and Eric Carle's Animals Animals with my second graders this week.

The books are both full of various poems by different authors.  In Animals, Animals, there are many poems written by many authors about different animals.  And in Dragons, Dragons, there are many poems about mythical creatures such as the unicorn, centaur, and minotaur.  In both books, the pictures are Eric Carle's works.  I love the way the pictures show the reader a lot about the creatures in the books.

There are many uses for the books.  Children can actually learn about the creatures in the poems.  They give background information about them and even describe them.  This makes it perfect for activities in visualizing.  There are also many great poems that would be great for main idea and details.  Though we don't always think about poems giving a lot of information, many of these tell the readers about the creatures.

I read poems to my students from the books and had them draw pictures of what they saw.  I didn't show them the pictures before reading the poems, so they could truly visualize what the poem described.  Here are their pictures of Ganesha, Ganesh.

And the actual picture from the book.

Kids really enjoy hearing and reading poetry.  What a great way to enhance their reading in such an enjoyable way!

I hope you will link up this week with a book review!



   

    An InLinkz Link-up