Unfortunately, I am no longer teaching at an Islamic School (for now). Teaching at a public school has been a whole new experience for me, and has really made me miss Islamic school at times. One personality that our school has been focusing on this month is Martin Luther King, Jr. This has given me the opportunity to have a discussion with my students about our hopes and dreams: both for ourselves, and also our community. This is also a great way to integrate Social Studies with Islamic Studies in an Islamic school. One project I did with my first graders a couple years ago was talking to students about our communal hopes and dreams. My students had a lot of great ideas, and I had them use some of these to write an acrostic poem (an activity which, as you can tell, I love dearly).
One thing to keep in mind when working with little ones and poetry is that they need a lot of guidance. One way to help them come up with words for each letter is to do a bubble map as a class for each letter. This way, they can all contribute ideas, and also have some fallback options in case they are having trouble coming up with words.
Here are some examples from my old class (1st grade):
Let me know how this project goes for you!
One thing to keep in mind when working with little ones and poetry is that they need a lot of guidance. One way to help them come up with words for each letter is to do a bubble map as a class for each letter. This way, they can all contribute ideas, and also have some fallback options in case they are having trouble coming up with words.
Here are some examples from my old class (1st grade):
Let me know how this project goes for you!
