Repetition and Rhythm

We started out today with Mr. Lawton and music class. He is starting a project with them on line and melody, and I am sure that you can find more information about that on his blog.

Back in the classroom we correct and discussed our extensive homework from yesterday. It really was a lot - I wanted to give them a lot of work so they'd work hard during their study hall in the last 45 minutes - so you'll notice that tonight is pretty much a free day.

We did a poem project today. It is one of my favorite composition projects of the year. Students brainstormed what life was like when they were younger and how it is different now they are older. They then wrote their poem. Instead of a rhyme and rhythm scheme, their poems used a couplet scheme the repetition of certain words to create the poetic form. Here's one example:

I used to ride a tricycle,
but now I ride a bicycle.
I used to watch Curious George,
but now I watch Hellboy.
I used to drink juice all the time,
but now I like to drink soda.
I used to play with my pet turtles,
but now I play video games.
I used to play with my friends,
but now we "hang out."
I used to play with my baby toys,
but now I play basketball.

We also did pictures to go with the final drafts of the poems and mounted both on construction paper.

Thursday is the regular visual arts lesson day, and today we focused on flowing rhythm. Last week's class had been about regular and random rhythm. Students picked flowing line shapes and cut these out of construction paper and pasted them onto another piece of construction paper. You can see some examples above. They then wrote about this project in their Arts Journals and we finished with a gallery walk and shared compliments with each other.

Homework: (1) Study for tomorrow's spelling test. (2) Do "Equations with Variables," Math, pages 170-171.