I had a great lesson this week! The students are doing a poetry unit, and I wanted to teach haiku. Haiku's short and simple format makes it easy for most of the kids to understand. My seventh graders enjoyed reading them, especially the ones that are formed like riddles and make the reader guess what the poem is about.
The first day I covered the basics of haiku, and then we read a few aloud. I then had them work in groups to write their own riddle haikus which the rest of the class had to guess. They had a lot of fun.
The second day I printed out easy origami instructions for a variety of animals and plants. The students each choose an animal to fold and then wrote a haiku to go along with his or her origami. They all loved it. Several of the students finished the first animal and went on to create more. The eleventh graders were all jealous when they saw the masterpieces later that day!
I like doing fun lessons like this. I feel like these are the types of lessons that will stick in the students heads for the rest of their lives: not some boring lecture, but a fun hands-on activity!