On Friday, May 26th in Mansfield Center, Connecticut, I did my last school visit for the 2005/2006 school year. What an amazing school visit it was! The school was a wonderful audience for the large group poetry performance. The rest of the day was filled with grade level workshops. Three groups did the Creative Poetry Web Activity, and we generated some great ideas for poems.

 
What made the visit to Annie E. Vinton especially wonderful was that the school's parent group was able to purchase a book for every student in the school! When I visit a school, one of my goals is to generate an enthusiasm for poetry that lasts long after the day of the visit. I'd like to thank the parent group at Annie E. Vinton School for sharing that goal.

Today was my very last school visit of the 2005/2006 school year, and what a way to end the year.   I spent the morning at St. Aloysius School in Spokane, Washington, speaking to three different groups of very excited kids.

The first assembly of the day was with the third, fourth, and fifth graders.  They had a lot of fun seeing the galleys for my forthcoming book and several new anthologies.  We also wrote a funny new poem entitled "I Dreamed that I Was Eating Cheese."  I promised them I would post the poem on my website, so here it is:    

As I unloaded equipment at Larson Height Elementary Monday morning, music was blasting through the multipurpose room. "Wow!" I thought. "What a fun school to be playing rock and roll for the students as they eat breakfast!" It wasn't but a minute or so later that I realized they were rocking out to songs from my "I Love My Shoes" album! Thank you to students and staff for such an exceptional greeting!

We kicked off the day with a whole school music and poetry assembly and then filled the school hours with smaller group workshops. There were new poems to share, new songs to sing, and plenty of time to discuss the tools of the poet and the writing process. That evening, we wound up the visit with a rollicking family concert.

I visited  Eatonville Elementary School in Eatonville, Washington yesterday and had an absolute blast with the students.  They loved discovering funny poetry and learning to write their own giggle poems.  Here is what one teacher had to say about the visit:

"I thought you might get a kick out of knowing that the K-2 classes had recess after your 8:45 visit and I had the teachers and recess duties come in to tell me that there were quite a few of the children who went and grabbed their journals and notebooks out of their classrooms so they could start writing their own 'funny poems' during their recess! That totally made my day! So, thank you again, I've heard nothing but great feedback - even from the 'alien' teachers."