A Very Special Guest Episode

Nationally-known poet Christine Hume stopped by our 1/2 classrooms this week (full disclosure: she's a parent of one of our first graders, which is how I was lucky enough to get her to come in). She first shared some musical poetry readings done by her and by her college students. The kids were enthralled by the use of electric guitar on one of Christine's poems, and amused by the off-key singing of a college student on "I'm a Nut."

She then invited us to record a poem for One Pause Poetry’s mp3 archive project. The site, to be launched in the next month, will contain a featured audio recording of children and poets reading poetry. A different poem will be featured each day, and all recordings will be forever available in the archive. The website will be at http://www.onepausepoetry.org/. A mockup:

We've read through a few poems in each class. Susan's class voted unanimously for Treehouse by Shel Silverstein and Elaine's class will vote after break. Next up is learning the poem backwards and forwards, then deciding on the characteristics of sound we will use to convey the meaning of the poem, using voices and instruments.

Expressive poetry recitation is not only an important goal in itself, but also improves reading skills and helps children use their voices more effectively in singing. Thanks for this excellent opportunity for an authentic project, Christine!