Poem in Your Pocket Day 2018

On Thursday, April 26, Lakeside joined many other schools and readers across the country in celebrating Poem in Your Pocket Day. As a part of National Poetry Month, readers everywhere are invited to carry a poem with them on this day, to share poetry with others, and to help spread poetry in their own communities.

Lakesiders were greeting in the morning by several "pockets" scattered throughout the school, full of a variety of published poems.

A "pocket" full of poetry hangs on the wall.

During lunch, recess, and hallway passing time, students and staff were able to take a poem or leave a poem, choose one to keep, or contribute a poem of their own to a pocket around Lakeside.

Students select poems on their way out to recess.

By the end of the day, many pockets were depleted of poems, while others held priceless original poetry contributed by our Lakeside Lions.

Some of the poems students added to the pockets themselves.

It was wonderful to watch students sneak a poem into their pocket in passing, read a stanza aloud to a friend, and even gather to sing poetry together on the playground. Thanks, Lakeside, for being a part of such a fun day celebrating poems!

Spring in the Learning Commons!

Spring has sprung in the learning commons! Students returned from spring break eager to learn the winners of March Book Madness, which were announced via video after voting concluded the first week of April.

Our Lakeside picture book winner was Not Quite Narwhal, and our middle grade chapter book winner was Refugee. The brackets displayed in the hallway outside the learning commons reminded Lakesiders of all the stories we've read and voted on this spring.

As we said farewell to our Compelling Characters display inside the learning commons, we shared which characters will remain in our memories and our hearts for a long time after the voting has ended.

Since April is Poetry Month, readers spent many learning commons visits this month reading poems, talking about literature and language, and creating original poems in a variety of forms. Below, some third- and fourth-graders create Blackout Poetry, using Sharpies on pages from damaged library books to craft new messages out of found print:

Second grade readers used their spring break memories to create List Poems, fourth grade students had the opportunity to make Book Spine Poems out of titles in our library, and fifth-graders experimented with Envelope Poems. Their poetry creations can be enjoyed on our "Poetry" wall in the learning commons, and the poems have been a great launching pad for talking about published poetry, spoken word, songs, books written in verse, and the English language.

As the month ended, several of our youngest readers chose a poetry book to check out during their library visit, so we hope many Lakeside families have been inspired to enjoy Poetry Month at home as well!