During all the winter holidays over the span of three months, it can be hard to fit in teaching new concepts such as poetry. However, it doesn’t have to be! With this cinquain activity, it can easily be done! One thing I always did was relate a concept to the current season we were in. Not only that, but we were able to have an adorable bulletin board that showcased the student’s work in a seasonal theme!
If you read my other post, How to Teach Haiku Using the Fall Season, you will know that I like to correlate poetry with a season! Teaching how to write this type of poem is not that much different and can make for some adorable bulletin board displays for winter!
How to Write A Winter Cinquain
Cinquains have a specific five-lined format and that is what the students first would learn.
After learning the format, students would practice reading poems and fill in the blanks according to what part of the cinquain is missing. This helps them learn the format. They then will practice writing a cinquain about anything they want!
After practicing making a cinquain complete, we then reviewed what an adjective is. While not necessary, adjectives that use the senses make a great cinquain! We brainstormed keywords that we thought of when thinking about the winter season and wrote them on the board. We also worked on thinking of what I like to call “ten point words”. Most of the time, when thinking of adjectives, students will only use very common words that don’t help them expand their vocabulary.
I encouraged them to think of ten point words which are words for those boring commonly used words. For example instead of saying “the snowball was large and felt cold” they would instead use ” the snowball was enormous and felt frigid”. You would be surprised at what even second graders can think of when they put their minds to it!
Next, students planned their poems and wrote a rough draft. This also has students using editing skills as they will edit each other’s poems. I would also encourage them to make their final draft their best work prior to writing it on the winter-themed templates included.
Finally, we created winter landscapes/birch trees using masking tape and watercolors. (Sorry picture was taken pre-smartphone)! This is a SUPER easy art lesson that makes for some beautiful displays! First, have students tear pieces of masking tape down the center and have them place them on a piece of white construction paper or cardstock starting from the top.
They then will use watercolors to create a sky (we went for a winter evening look) by painting half of the paper that the masking tape is on. After adding in some other nature pieces such as rocks or grass poking out, we waited for the paint to dry and then carefully removed the tape. Finally, they drew little brown or black lines on each tree to make them look like a birch or aspen tree!
Now I know the winter months can already seem long so if you don’t want to have a separate art lesson, but still want a cute winter display, I’ve got you covered. My Winter Cinquain Pack has all the informational, practice, and planning pages that are seen in this post plus 20+ winter-themed templates for students to write on! All you have to do is print! There are colored templates as well as black-and-white ones for students to color in. You will be able to display those winter cinquains written by your students in a cute (AND EASY) way!
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