Written and Illustrated by: Lou Brooks
Recommended for: Children Grades 2-4
Themes: Non-Fiction, Poetry
Summary:
Twimericks is a wonderful collection of limerick poems that are designed to also be tongue-twisters. Brooks begins the book by first explaining what limericks, tongue-twisters, and twimericks are. The poems which he includes are wonderfully fun and tricky.
Children will enjoy reading these poems and practicing them again and again outloud. Brooks' illustrations are fun and wonderfully match his poems. Several of the poems are also a wonderful mixture of fun and gross topics, such as: Frankly, Frank Fankley where Frank ends up with Hank's dirty hanky. Each poem has its own unique topic and word patterns.
Suggestions for the Classroom:
This book can be used in the classroom in conjunction with a unit on Poetry as well as for fluency practice for the children. These limiricks with a tongue-twister spin help to teach children to slow down and think about what they are reading. They are almost impossible for readers to get right on the first try. Their light and jovial tone helps to draw in the interest of the children and will keep them from getting bored. Children will enjoy trying the several times in a challenge to get the who thing right. They are wonderfully creative and are a great inspiration for young writers.
*Pre-Reading Activity: Introduce Limericks to children. Explain the pattern that they follow using the song Hickory Dickory Dock. Display the song on a large piece of chart paper, board, or a SmartBoard. Read the song to them once and then read it all together. Have students pick out rhyming pairs. Use two different color highlighters to highlight rhyming pairs, in order to point out the AABBA pattern that Limericks follow. Explain to students that in one of their centers today, preferably a teacher led center, they will be practicing reading some Limericks today.
*During Reading: Give students the opportunity to pick out one of the limericks from the book to practice. Have copies of the poems ready for the students so that they do not have to share the book (photocopies or several copies of the book itself). I would let the students select a poem that they would like to practice, to give them more of a choice to pick out what seems interesting to them. As they read, have them circle words which they are having trouble with or find challenging. Individually conference with each child to help them with challenging words and to give them an opportunity to practice with you where you can give feedback early on.
Give students additional opportunities to practice reading their selection to a partner.
*Post-Reading: Ask students to come up with their very own limerick in their writing journals and to draw a picture to illustrate their poems. Students can later type up of write out a final draft of their poems which they can make into a new book for the classroom.
About the Author:
Lou Brooks is a a self-taught writer and illustrator. He has done illustrations for books, magazines and newspapers and also enjoys writing books, playing in an all-cartoonist band, surfing, and has even worked previously as a stand up comic. Brooks is also famous for his redesign, in 1985, of the manolpoly character with the top hat and moustache. He maintains his own blog , a Twimericks website, and provides illustrations for many successful magaize companies, such as: Time and Newsweek, and illustrating for advertisements for companies such as: Coca-Cola, Verizon and CBS. His art has even been animated for TV by Nickelodeon, HBO, and MTV.
I really like that you have students find the rhyming pattern of a limerick. I did not think of this when thinking about how to teach this particular book but I think this is an important part of learning about poetry.
ReplyDeleteStudents will like these twimericks because they will mess up and see everyone else mess up (including the teacher). This shows students that it is okay to make mistakes, you just have to keep practicing.
Thanks Sarah, I really enjoyed this book and I think that the children will too. It is great to discuss this book with other teachers and see all the great ideas that we can come up with. It is so interesting to see just how different our Schema's can be. It is funny how much I want to kick myself for leaving out some of the ideas that you all come up with.
ReplyDeleteThis books seems great! I love limericks and tongue-twisters, so this is something I would love to read. It would be fun to read this is a classroom because children would mess up the words and they would have so much fun with it. Also, having children come up with their own limericks might be fun. You get to see what each child is like and what different styles of writing they all have.
ReplyDeleteThanks Mirela! I love limericks because there are supposed to be silly and can be nonsensicle. I would love to have children attempt to write their own limericks. This book would be great for working with students that have difficulty with some letter sounds or blends since each poem uses the same beginning sounds over and over again.
ReplyDelete