Poetry highlights in honor of National Poetry Month!
Poet of the Day: Laura Purdie Salas
Former teacher Laura Purdie Salas grew up in Florida and now lives and writes in Minnesota. She believes reading small picture books and poems can have a huge impact on your life. Salas has written more than 130 books for kids, including  Lion of the Sky  (Kirkus Best Books and Parents Magazine Best Books of the Year), the Can Be . . . series (Bank Street Best Books, IRA Teachers’ Choice), and  BookSpeak! (Minnesota Book Award, NCTE Notable). On her website, Salas generously shares peeks into her writing process, inspiration, and practical tips about poetry.
This poet belongs in our classrooms because . . .
Laura Purdie Salas writes accessible, meaningful poems about our world. She writes in a variety of styles and on a wide range of topics. Her books can be used to enhance every subject. Her belief that poetry can help kids grow as both writers and human beings shines through in every book she writes.
A Poem by Laura Purdie Salas

Things to Do If You Are a Tree

Wake up to geese honks and puddle splashes.
Grow a leafy shirt.
Hug birds’ nests and lost kittens.
Stretch toward summer sun.
Shade the backyard.
Drink plenty of rain.
Gulp nitrogen from the soil.
Eat a kite for dessert.
Dance with the wind.
Knit a scarlet fall sweater.
Drop your leaves to protect chipmunks and snakes.
Set your alarm clock for spring.
Settle in for a snowy winter sleep.

Teaching Ideas
  • In reading workshop, use poems from BookSpeak to encourage readers to explore reading, writing, and literary elements.

  • Want to lift your students’ multi-genre projects or their information writing to a whole new level? Use Salas’s poetic or rhyming nonfiction books as mentor texts to show how writers weave information into poems and link poems to information.

  • In math class, open Snowman-Cold=Puddle and discover the poetic equations that describe the coming of spring. Does your science curriculum include the moon, plants, the water cycle, and animal behavior? Salas has books to supplement and complement these studies.

 
Poetry Collections
 
BookSpeak
Illustrator: Josée Bisaillon
 
Lion of the Sky
Illustrator: Mercè López
 
Snowman-Cold=Puddle
Illustrator: Micha Archer

Poetic or Rhyming Nonfiction or Informational Fiction

Snack, Snooze, Skedaddle
Illustrator: Claudine Gévry

Meet My Family
Illustrator: Stephanie Fizer Coleman
 
If You Were the Moon
Illustrator: Jaime Kim

A Leaf Can Be . . .
Illustrator: Violeta Dabija

Water Can Be . . .
Illustrator: Violeta Dabija

A Rock Can Be . . .
Illustrator: Violeta Dabija


MARY LEE HAHN is a teacher-poet. She has taught fourth or fifth grades for 30+ years. She is the author of  Reconsidering Read-Aloud   (Stenhouse), and her poems can be found in more than a half-dozen anthologies. She collects her poetry at  Poetrepository .