I found Someone Used My Toothbrush! *and Other Bathroom Poems* this week at my favorite children's bookstore, Cover to Cover. It is written by Carol Diggory Shields and illustrated by Paul Meisel.
This book is basically a collection of poems that focus on bathroom humor. I found myself laughing out loud as I looked at each new poem. Whether the poem deals with all the different names for a bathroom, or trying to give pets a bath in the bathtub, or the wonders of a bubble bath, or the chore of cleaning around the toilet, or the time spent teaching a younger sibling to use the potty, or the medicine cabinet, or trying on Mom's makeup, or the joys of unrolling toilet paper, or the dreaded bathroom scale, or forgetting to use the bathroom before leaving home -- this book contains all that and much more!
The poems are hysterical, and the illustrations complement the words perfectly. There are even some bare cheeks shown in one or two pictures, but I think that will only add to my students' enjoyment of this particular collection of poems.
In two weeks, I will have my first Poetry Friday with my new group of 5th graders. Someone Used My Toothbrush! will be the perfect way to introduce that ritual into our classroom while sharing some laughter together at the same time. I can't wait!
A small teaching note for me: most of these poems rhyme so I will definitely want to introduce some more free verse poetry to my students in our 2nd week of Poetry Friday so that they are not always trying to write rhyming poems themselves. I think it is important to give students a balanced diet of a variety of poetry forms.
** For more Poetry Friday fun, check out Szofia at the Stenhouse blog this week. **
This looks like a fun one! My Poetry Friday didn't work out with last year's class...note to self: remember to resurrect PF.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a fun book. That's an important point, to make sure your students get a good dose of free verse along with the rhyming poems. "Poetry Speaks to Children" has a good selection (and a CD!)
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