Every year we have a famous person come to our school for the Visiting Author Program. This year we welcomed Naomi Shihab Nye to our school. Here is one of the big girls reading us the book “Sitti’s Secrets”:
Naomi Shihab Nye also writes poetry. We learned about poetry. Sometimes poems rhyme, sometimes they don’t. Listen to Naomi Shihab Nye read this poem about some of the things her little boy said:
We learned some poetry from a long, long, long, long, long, long time ago. Before there were books, people had to remember poems and stories. We worked hard to capture these poems in our head.
Some of us worked to write our own poems!
Then we made a Poem Shawl for Naomi Shihab Nye. She weaves words into stories and poems so we decided to weave our words into something for her.
The Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th grades wrote poems for her on very long paper from the adding machines in the Math Shop. Ms Echternacht sewed the long strips of tape onto gauze to make it more like cloth. We liked watching the sewing machine work.
Then we laid out all the strips:
Then we started weaving! We took turns and worked in teams. Over, under, over, under, over under and “pull the whole way through!”
It took us a whole day to weave! It wasn’t finished when we had to leave to go home so two 3rd graders came from the After-School Program to help finish the shawl:
Here it’s on the easel all finished!
The next morning we made a card and wrapped it up with a ribbon. This was the day she was coming! We were so excited to give it to her.
She loved it!!! She really did!!! She sang a song to the PreSchoolers while wearing it!
We will always remember making the shawl, our poems and meeting Naomi Shihab Nye! We are very thankful for her songs, stories, poems and words and for such a wonderful day together!
The Treehouse 
