Thanks to Kat at Kathryn Apel for hosting all the goodness of Poetry Friday today.
This week I was in first grade for two days. I was given time to share and teach poetry. I used Pet Crazy by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong to prime the pump. Who doesn’t want a pet or have a pet?
I specially used the Anchor Poem, Response Poem, and Mentor Poem written by Kristy Dempsey and Janet Wong
[Anchor Poem]:
ALL WORN OUT
by Kristy Dempsey
Tippy-toe, Kitty Cat
is sneaking through the house,
pushing on a puff of yarn,
wishing for a mouse.
Kitty loves to play all day,
jumping, pouncing, leaping.
Where is kitty hiding now?
Shh! Kitty’s sleeping.
*
[Response Poem]:
THE GREATEST PETS EVER (Kristy)
by Janet Wong
Cats are
the greatest pets ever!
They are
so clean and clever.
Would I like
a dog? No, never!
Cats are
my favorites -- FOREVER!
[Mentor Poem]:
THE PERFECT PETS FOR ME (Ben)
by Janet Wong
Kristy likes neat pets.
Cats don’t drool.
She should meet my uncle’s dogs.
They’re super-cool.
My uncle’s dogs will sit and stay —
and stay and s-t-a-y.
Their house is kind of far,
but we could go there someday.
When we play together,
Kristy will see:
dogs are pretty much
the perfect pets for me!
Plus I found this great quick video of Janet reading to Tony Tiger: The class and I made a list of pets and a list of juicy words. We talked about the format of a skinny poem and with a template, off they went to create.Then as students finished we uploaded to Padlet. This give an opportunity to confer and revise with students.
Next week, I will be hosting Poetry Friday at DEOWRITER.
Check It Out 
Great to see how you’ve used PET CRAZY to inspire kids, Jone!!!
Thank you!
The kids must have adored the cat poems, then argued about what’s best, cats or dogs! I love Janet’s poem (for Ben) very cool & I love the excited repetition of the poems on the padlet, Jone.
Jone, thanks for sharing your lesson along with the video of Janet reading. The children’s poems are interesting and different.
Lovely to step through the process and see how one poem inspires another, and another and a whole class of nothers.
what fun you and your students had with these poems! Thanks for sharing them.
Well done! I especially love the Skinny poem about Dylan the cat.