I use poetry in storytime often and in a few different ways. Today, I'll be highlighting how I use poetry to inspire storytime and how I add poetry to a storytime theme.
First, you need to know the poetry books in your collection. A library online catalog can be particularly helpful if the record lists all the poem title within a collection. For me this has been true for Shel Silverstein's collections and a few larger collections. Table of Contents, Index to Titles, and Index to First Line in the physical books are also helpful. Also of note is Sylvia Vardell's The Poetry Teacher's Book of Lists. Published in 2012, it lists poetry books in a variety of lists. Find it on Amazon.
When I review poetry books on my blog, I make note of contents (list of animals, for example) and my favorite poems within. My review of If This Bird Had Pockets: A Poem in Your Pocket Day Celebration by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is an example of this. I also make notes of the various ways you can use the collection. My review of Delicious: Poems Celebrating Street Food Around the World by Julie Larios is an example of this. This turns into a helpful reference for me. If you aren't a blogger, you can keep notes like these in whatever manner works best for you.
In the Wild by David Elliott, On the Farm by David Elliott, several collections of bird poems, haiku and several collections of seasonal poetry have all inspired storytime themes. Using the collections by David Elliott, I read the entire collection as my first book and add one or two picture books to round out the storytime. With the thematic collections, I read several poems from multiple collections throughout the storytime. Sometimes, I read a few poems from a collection as my last and shortest storytime book. I did this most recently with a bugs storytime in March when I shared four poems from Insectlopedia by Douglas Florian. See all my poetry storytimes here.
I have added poems to so many storytime themes: apples, bears, bees, birds, bugs, butterflies, camping, dinosaurs, fairy tales, farm, forest, frogs, love, polar animals, seasons, spiders, teatime, and zoo animals. A recent example is adding “21 Things to Do with an Apple” from The Popcorn Astronauts and Other Biteable Rhymes by Deborah Ruddell to an apple themed storytime last fall.
Resources:
- Book Activities and Educators Guide for If This Bird Had Pockets on the publisher's website
- David Elliott's website
- Teacher's guide to David Elliott's poetry series on the publisher's website
- Storytime by Bridget Site
Links to My Reviews
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