1. How did you make use of the product, or integrate it into your lesson plans?

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• I used it during Poetry Unit to teach about Robert Louis Stevenson, first by reading his poems and then listening to how the musicality of the language works with the song creation on this CD.  We also printed some of the poems and did illustrations and dances to go with them!  It was super!

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• I played the CD after a shared reading activity of the poem, "The Swing."  We listened to the CD and compared the two presentations.  The students enjoyed listening to the poem as a song and sang it all day long.  It was beautiful.

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• I used several of these poems to encourage fluency with my first and second graders.  Phrasing and speed were much easier because they could sing along.  These poems were also used to study the basics of poems, rhyme and visualization.  With my second graders, I had them listen to the poem and then draw a picture of the image that was created by the poem.

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2. What skills did your students learn from this product?

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• The students learned all aspects of poetry with these songs.  I was able to show rhythm and meter, to show how musicality in the spoken word can transfer to song, and it even inspired students to make songs of some of their own poems!

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• The children enjoyed these lessons on poetry.  They were able to develop their fluency: speed, intonation and prosody.  They were also able to become familiar with the terms: rhyme, line, stanza.  In addition to this, the students were able to become familiar with the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson.

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3. If funds were available, would you recommend this product to a teacher at the appropriate grade / age level? Please explain why or why not.

 

• Yes I would!  I am excited to use it again next year.  Other teachers in my building are wanting the CD as well.  It is well put together and lovely!  Great work!

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• I would strongly recommend this CD.  The poems of Robert Louis Stevenson are great poems to introduce to children because they focus on events children can relate to.  Very often we read poems too quickly making it difficult to gain meaning from the poems.  The presentation of these poems in song were easy to follow at a slower rate and gave time for the students to absorb each line.

 

• Yes I would.  I find this CD appropriate for grades k-3.  A variety of lessons can be generated from these poems dependent upon the skill level.  In consideration of our state tests, I also feel exposure to poetry in the earlier grades would be most beneficial.  This CD also presents poems that are child-friendly but full of figurative language.  This CD would also be valuable in a leveled library as a means to present a collection of poems in a novel way.

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