This page is to share the suggested list of poetry texts discussed in class and to provide a space for us to add to this list collaboratively.  *Please add your first and last name and the title and author of your text with your post. Please also add a picture if available and a hyperlink to the page where we could order the book online if we choose to. 

Poetry Text Set

Mentor Texts Used in Unit of Study by Joan Green's Second Grade Class

  Meet Danitra Brown by Nikki Grimes (No picture available)

My second graders love this poetry book because they can relate to this little girl who is proud to be who she is.  The poems are about friends, school, and family.  They are told in a simple text with rhyme. 

  Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars by Douglas Florian

This is a wonderful poetry book about space.  All the students love it, but especially the boys.  Each poem is short and rhymes.  There is so much content that can be learned in a fun, whimsical way.  A huge hit!

Fold Me a Poem by Kristine O'Connell George

This is a wonderful mentor text to use for a Noticing Chart.  The short, free verses tell the story of a child that spends the day making origami figures that come to life in his imagination.  This was a great book to teach personification, also.

Hummingbird Nest by Kristine O'Connell George

Oops by Alan Katz

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Monster Goose by Judy Sierra

Monster Museum by Marilyn Singer

A Pizza the Size of the Sun by Jack Prelutsky

Lindsay Blanton - 1st grade class

Mentor Texts Used in Unit of Study - Poetry

Pet Poems by Jennifer Curry

Fun, cute book all about animals.  This was the perfect selection to go along with Love That Dog.  We used the poems in this book during reading immersion time and had some of the poems on anchor charts in the classroom. 

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech

This first grade class loves animals and after the poetry unit a research unit of study with animals was next, so we decided to read-aloud Love That Dog and show the poems written in the book to the students.  We wrote the poems on chart paper to show the students and to model the type of poetry we were studying within the unit. 

Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle 

Classic book that inspired many of the poems written by the students.  Mrs. Bagwell wanted to try to use this book became it was so familiar to the students and it had an easy beginning line to use as a mentor text.

Ride a Purple Pelican by Jack Prelutsky

If Not For The Cat by Jack Prelutsky

Animal Snackers by Betsy Lewin 

When Riddles Come Rumbling Poems to Ponder by Rebecca Kai Dotlich

Great book for adding the questioning technique into the poems.  Students loved it!

The Butterfly Jar by Jeff Moss

This book inspired our butterfly poems!

Days to Celebrate: A Full Year of Poetry, People, Holidays, History, Fascinating Facts, and More by Lee Bennett Hopkins and Stephen Alcorn

The Random House Book of Poetry for Children by Jack Prelutsky

(Blanton)

Websites:

Sharon Creech  - great website that supplements Love That Dog.  It provides lessons and activities.

Shel Silverstein  - all-time favorite poet for adults and children.  This website provided activities for students to do in a computer lab setting. 

Kristine O'Connell George - I loved finding out about this website.  Examples of poems are blooming on this website and helped give us more examples to show the students.  Plus, we were able to bring technology into the classroom. 

(Blanton)

Professional Books:

Units of Study For Primary Writing: A Yearlong Curriculum by Lucy Calkins

A MUST-HAVE set of books!!  I use this set a lot, but for the first time I really used book Poetry Powerful Thoughts in Tiny Packages to help guide the unit of study.  Lucy Calkins gives examples of mini-lessons and there are so many poems listed in this book.  I wrote many of them on chart paper to model a new poem or to study a new poem.  This book was so helpful with our mini-lessons and unit of study. 

Poetry Books Used By Amber Pitts' 1st Grade Class:

Collections of Poems:

The New Kid On the Block by Jack Prelutsky

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Miles of Smiles Edited by Bruce Lansky

Kids Pick the Funniest Poems Selected by Bruce Lansky

Sometimes I Wonder If Poodles Like Noodles by Laura Numeroff  I really recommend this book! My students love it when they figure out that Laura Numeroff, the author we studied earlier in the year, writes poetry too. All of these poems rhyme and are about various topics that children can relate to.

Color Poems:

Hailstones and Halibut Bones by Mary O'Neill

Yellow Elephant A Bright Bestiary by Julia Larios

Animal Poems:

Animals, Animals by Eric Carle

Dinothesaurus by Douglas Florian

Mammalabilia

Bow Wow Meow Meow by Douglas Florian

Misc Types of Poetry:

Meow Ruff: A Story in Concrete Poetry by Joyce Sidman (Concrete Poems)

Come to My Party and Other Shape Poems by Heidi B. Roemer (Shape Poems) This is one of my favorite books to share with students. It includes shape poems for each season. They use different colors and size fonts to make the poems really come to life as the shape they are depicting.

Silver Seeds by Paul Paolilli and Dan Brewer (Acrostic Poems)

My House is Singing by Betsy Rosenthal (Shape Poems)

Guess Again! by  Mac Barnett    I found this book at the library and decided to get it as a read aloud. I didn't let my students use it during immersion because it is a tricky story and they'd know the answers when I read it! The book shows a picture in a shadow and it gives a clue. The clues rhyme and you think you know what the object in the shadow is, but you always have to guess again because it's not what you think! It includes some lift the flap, fold out pages and other neat things students may like to try when making their own books.