Friday, June 08, 2018

Poems + Picture Books (+ NY)

I had the chance to participate in the Annual Multicultural Book Fair organized by Jenice Mateo in Hastings, NY last week. What an amazing experience! The whole community turns out to buy books and hear authors speak-- all focused on building literacy, empathy, and a celebration of diversity. Janet (Wong) and I spoke to classes of students and then shared a workshop for teachers and parents on connecting picture books with poetry. 

Then I also got to spend several days exploring one of my favorite cities, New York! My husband joined me for some touring and we crammed in as many museums and plays as we could! Here are just a few highlights from the whole shebang!

Here's a glimpse of our talks and workshop:

Here are a few slides from our workshop on connecting picture books and poetry. Once again, I focused on "my" Caldecott books, showing 8 different ways to connect picture books with poetry!


Pair WOLF IN THE SNOW with poetry about snow, wolves, or kindness.

Pair CROWN with CROWNING GLORY, a whole book of poems about Black hair.

Turn a nonfiction passage (from GRAND CANYON) into a "found" poem.

And of course we had to share poems + picture book combinations linked to poems from our Poetry Friday Anthologies. Here's just one example. 

PLUS: a few poetry moments from our days as tourists in NYC. I found a poetry bookstore in Brooklyn (sadly it was not open at that moment), poem posters on the subway, readers depicted in subway mosaics, and a bit of poetry on a sewer cover too! 


Now head on over to Whispers from the Ridge where Kiesha is hosting Poetry Friday! See you there! 




7 comments:

jama said...

So fun hearing about your workshop and adventures in NYC! Love the idea of pairing poems with picture books; always exciting to read suggestions in the PF anthologies. :)

Joyce Ray said...

Thank you for these ideas from your workshop. I'm itching to try some of them. Isn't it fun to see poetry on the subway?

Mary Lee said...

Now that I have #classroombookaday under my belt, I should take it to the next level with #classroombookadayANDpairedpoem!!

Sylvia Vardell said...

Thanks, y'all-- thanks for the PF love, Mama, and YES, I love seeing poems on the subway and think they should be sprinkled in every mundane place, Joyce. Wouldn't that be something?! And Mary Lee, I vote YES to #classroombookadayANDpaired poem! It's such a natural fit, IMO.

Whispers from the Ridge said...

I love hearing all of these ideas for pairing poetry with picture books! Thank you for sharing your experience with us. I am a huge fan of the PF anthologies and always recommend them to my colleagues!

Michelle Kogan said...

Thanks for this rich post Sylvia, it was fun to see the conference–your poetry-pairing ideas, and your poetry finds in NYC! I like the journey in the found poem you shared and the strength in "BREAK-FAST AT NIGHT."

Molly Hogan said...

I love these ideas for paired poems and especially love the poetic subway cover! Thanks for sharing!