It's hard to believe that today is Thanksgiving and the Christmas 2012 season will be upon us. I love doing a few different activities during the month of December. One that I do is the Poetry Club. Students have a requirement to memorize and recite one poem in front of the class. Of course, many students complete that task quickly and are excited to memorize and recite more so that's where the Poetry Club comes in. I use my Poetry Rubric below to assess my students. I provide the students with a rubric ahead of time so students are well aware of how I will be assessing them. Students get about a week to memorize his/her poem before reciting it for the class. After students have met their requirement, I give my students the option of doing another one. We come in after recess on Fridays and have a brief Poetry Club time which allows students to practice reading, memorizing, and/or reciting the Christmas poems. (10-15 minutes max) It's a great way to practice fluency and reading!! Where do I find the poems? I have accumulated many poems through the years so I use the ones from my files which I just happened to turn into Christmas Poem Packs that can be purchased through TPT or Teacher's Notebook. I included all of the poems in three ways-one with colored clipart, one with black-and-white clipart , and one without clipart. You will also find a certificate for each poem included in the poems pack. But you can also just google Christmas poems, or find them in poetry books from your library. It's something different we do during the month of December.
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