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week 20: Art & Colors Third Grade Take 5! The Poetry Friday Anthology Celebrate Diversity with The Poetry Friday Anthology series (for K5 and Middle School) featuring original poems by over 75 poets with a Take 5! MiniLesson for each poem How the Birds Got Their Colors by Joseph Bruchac Long ago, it is said, all the birds were brown. Gluskonba loved the red and gold and all the other colors the trees turned every autumn. But he grew sad when winter came and all those leaves fell from the trees. So Gluskonba bent down and picked up all those colors from the ground. He gave those colors to the birds so he could see them all year round. 1. Point out to students that many poems are funny, but some are quiet and thoughtful—like this one based on a Native American legend from the Abenaki people. You may also need to provide background on Gluskonba, known as “the one who helps the people.” 2. Share the poem again, inviting students to echo read the lines of the second stanza only, repeating each line after you say it. Then you read the rest of the poem aloud. 3. For discussion: What are your favorite colors of fall? 4. This poem is an example of a narrative poem—a poem that tells a story. Guide students in seeing how the stanzas build to create this poem story. Talk about how the poet uses some rhyme (leaves/trees; brown/down/ground/round), but not always in a regular pattern. 5. Pair this with another poem about Gluskonba and the birds by Joseph Bruchac, “How the Geese Became Chiefs of the Birds” (5th Grade, Week 8, page 234). “Savvy teachers have learned they can trust Vardell and Wong . . . these carefully chosen tips and strategies offer ways to present poems through art, drama, and technology and describe curriculum connections.” —IRA’s Reading Today “This is a lot of resource and professional development for $29.99!” —The ALSC Blog “A treasury of the greatest science poetry for children ever written, with a twist—it can be used to ignite the spirit of students in a different, out of the box way.” —NSTA Recommends Honors and Accolades for the series: ✻ an NCTE Poetry Notable ✻ Poetry Foundation CPL Picks of the Month ✻ NSTA Recommends Available in: Common Core editions and Texas TEKS editions for K5 and Middle School plus a National Science Edition based on the NGSS (with a TEKS Supplement) pomelo books * poem ©2012 Joseph Bruchac (josephbruchac.com) PomeloBooks.com
