Shel Silverstein Booklet

A few weeks before I started this blog, I did a Shel Silverstein unit. I recently came across some pictures of a project, so I thought I'd share that with you today. Every day during circle time of that week, I read from Shel's books. Sometimes it was poetry (A Light in the Attic or Where the Sidewalk Ends, for example), and sometimes it was a whole story (The Giving Tree). If it was a collection of poems, I would take the funniest ones and print them out on my computer. For art, the kids would get to illustrate the poems. Each day I would have about 4 different poems at the coloring table. They could choose to do as many as they liked, and most kids did them all every day. Here are a few.
The one about a man with 21 hats and a man with 21 heads:

The one about a man whose beard went down to his toes:

 The one about being eaten by a boa constrictor:

And here's one of my favorite silly poems:

It's called the Naked Hippo.
Let us make a pair of pants
For the poor old Hippopotamus
To cover his hide - once we decide
Exactly how big his bottomus.

Bottomus! Love it! Anyway, everyday I would collect all the illustrated poems (making sure names are on each one). At the end of the week, I made them into a booklet. I made a cover for it on my computer.

Each child was named the illustrator of their booklet. It turned out to be a neat little reminder of the week and the parents loved reading them at home. I hope it's something they keep for many years.

By the way, I mentioned Shel's name on Monday, but on Tuesday through Friday I asked the kids who we were talking about. There were some hilarious names! It usually involved a Shel, a Silver, and a Stein, but in different orders. They were all giggling as they tried to say his name. But by Friday, they all had it down!