Creando Poesía en tercer grado (Creating poetry in third grade)

Creating poetry is a wonderful way for students to share information they learned through Spanish class. To complement their culminating Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, the third graders shared their learned vocabulary in this form of art by crafting a Diamante Poem.

A Diamante Poem is a seven-line poem that includes sustantivos (nouns), adjetivos (adjectives) and verbos (verbs). The beginning and ending lines are the shortest, while the lines in the middle are longer, giving the text of the poem a form of a diamond, diamante. Here’s a way to visualize this piece of art:

objeto

adjetivo, adjetivo

verbo, verbo, verbo

objeto, objeto, objeto, objeto

verbo, verbo, verbo

adjetivo, adjetivo

objeto

Using the word “moon” as the topic, we began by jotting down all the objetos (objects) that came to the students’ mind when asked what does the moon look like. Then, they came up with adjetivos (adjectives) that might describe the moon such as particular color or shape. To include “-ing” verbos (verbs), the question was posed “If you visit the moon, what would you do?” to which many students shared excellent and some even hilarious ideas. All the words gathered were then written on flashcards and categorized by each part of speech, with its Spanish translation. Then, all three third grade classes took turns at crafted their own collective poem.

There are two types of Diamante Poem. One is a synonym where the nouns at the beginning and end are two words that mean basically the same thing. The other type is an antonym where the nouns are opposites of each other. Each third grade class chose to create an antonym:

Felix’s class:

Queso suizo

(Swiss cheese)

Círculo, Esfera

(Circle, Sphere)

Comiendo, Volando, Clavando

(Eating, Flying, Digging)

Cráter, Dama, Volcán, Globo mundial

(Crater, Lady, Volcano, Globe)

Haciendo, Construyendo, Golpeando

(Making, Constructing, Hitting)

Dorada, Platiada

(Gold, Silver)

Tableta

(Tablet)

Jeanne’s class:

Helado

(Ice cream)

Blancusa-grisosa, Esfera

(Whitish-greyish, Sphere)

Caminando, Comiendo, Corriendo

(Walking, Eating, Running)

Gatico, Cereza, Rosa, Bola de nieve

(Kitten, Cherry, Rose, Snowball)

Muriendo, Volando, Visitando

(Dying, Flying, Visiting)

Gris, Círculo

(Grey, Circle)

Algodón

(Cotton)

Shana’s class:

Rosquilla

(Donut)

Dorada, Platiada

(Gold, Silver)

Caminando lunar, Explorando, Flotando

(Moon walking, Exploring, Floating)

Globo rojo, Banana, O, Mármol

(Red balloon, Banana, O, Marble)

Rebotando, Jugando hockey, Nadando

(Bouncing, Playing hockey, Swimming)

Rojiza, Anaranjada clara

(Reddish, Light orange)

“Munchkin”

(“Munchkin”)

Once completed, each class practiced learning their group’s poem in Spanish only, individually and with each other.

To help reinforce the learning of new vocabulary, the students played several fun rounds of Pulgar arriba (Thumbs-Up) and worked on a crossword puzzle.

The result of their hard work was witnessed during their amazing Mid-Autumn Moon Festival celebration last week where each class recited their poem perfectly. The third graders had so much fun with this study that they have requested for each to create their very own Diamante Poem. Stay tuned!