Our Poets and Pirates tour continued this week with the “Poetry
Playoffs.” The playoffs culminated with a lesson that your student has been
planning along with their “teammates” complete with opening activity,
historic overview, class note and a quiz. Their final presentations have
been both exciting and informative! As a result, the kids have been exposed
to various forms of poetry, specific literary devices and new vocabulary
words. In addition to presenting their own material, students studied the
works of famous poets and have been creatively writing to mimic their
styles. I am pleased with their efforts on this project all around. Please
be sure to ask your child about the poetry form they were assigned to teach!
With the help of poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson, we’ve also eased
our way into the adventure tale, Treasure Island. Students have created sea
journals and pirate characters that will travel along with our main
character, Jim Hawkins, throughout the story. As we continue to read, we’ll
work on study guide questions, journal about our experiences and continue to
research the history of piracy as well as some famous pirates of the Golden
Age. We’ve even managed to find some current day news stories involving
pirates that included the capture of Maersk Alabama just a few weeks ago!
Coming up:
Our high sea adventures continue with... Treasure Island
Poetry Review and Unit Test
Free Choice Book Report Projects - Non-Fiction
Next unit: The Great Authors Project!
