Getting Ready for January...

My Poetry Binders are one of my kids favorite activities each day.  Before leaving for break, I made sure the January Poems were copied and ready to go.  I usually put 3-4 poems in their binders per week and send them home on Wednesday nights for some extra fluency practice,

While I use these for Shared Reading and take advantage of some learning opportunities, I am really careful not to use poems to teach from all of the time.  I often see that done which results in kids HATING poetry and that, to me, is crushing.  (When I was a K-5 librarian, I often saw this happen with books.  Some teachers used EVERY book to teach from and dissect...and ruined the enjoyment of the book for the kids.)

I use one poem a week to instruct from...if that.  I want them to enjoy the language and rhythm and have fun reading/singing them without direct instruction.  I have plenty of other activities I can use for that.

I've had a lot of success with this approach.  My kids love our binders and because they want to/choose to reread the poems a zillion times each week, they learn/master sight words quickly and become more fluent naturally and I'm grateful for that!